By Fabiana del Valle
HAVANA TIMES – My brother says he could sum up his whole life with just three words: “hunger, misery and calamity.” It’s true that, despite the highs and lows, these have been constant issues in our family. He’s about to hit forty, and I’m four years ahead of him, jumping around after having passed that portal. Together, we’ve lived through a bit of everything on this island.
And who hasn’t? This story is common to most Cubans, except that some have saved themselves from “dancing with the worst of it.” The reasons vary: family members outside Cuba; the entrepreneur’s talent for changing all they touch to gold; jobs which open the possibility of resources to line your pockets; or simply kissed by luck from the cradle.
In our family, we weren’t born with the innate talents of an entrepreneur, and Midas’ gift of the touch of gold doesn’t live in our genes; nor do we have a job that allows us to “obtain,” and thanks to the upbringing of our parents this has never been an option to consider.
In my case, I keep trying. I’m not one of those who stand there with an open beak like a little bird waiting to see what will come to me. Over the course of my life, I’ve sold paintings in Viñales, rag dolls, and fish. I’ve been a clerk in a private business, an art teacher, something of a writer, and some other things so insignificant that they’re not worth mentioning.
I had the bad luck to be born in Cuba, and that geographic fatalism has been the beginning of all my troubles. Prisoner of this island, with no hope of being able to escape, I watch how my wrinkles dawn in the mirror, and dark circles – darker than thirty hours of continuous blackout – appear to mock my face.
Paraphrasing the title of a novel written by a childhood friend, the year 2024 and the beginning of 2025 have been marked by “my life’s bad luck.”
Prices rose, sales shrank, my PC broke down. I was robbed, a hurricane left me without a roof, my mother got sick and there was no medicine, and to top the list, even those events that could be considered good came wrapped in bitter paper.
My fourteen-year-old daughter received a scholarship to the best school in the province, and that’s a good thing, except that it will require more money on my part to cover in the tiniest way her expenses.
She’ll soon be 15. The age all teenage girls here wait for so anxiously! She’s unusual, in that she’s aware of my limits – she doesn’t ask for a party or a photo album, a trip with her friends, or any other of the gala events that girls are used to on this date. She only wants a laptop for her schoolwork and materials for painting. Little enough, indeed, except that it’s still too much for my current situation.
I have time – there are still eight months to go. Something tells me that my luck is going to turn, and I’ll be able to give her what she wants. That’s the faith of those of us born with a rope around our necks!
I don’t believe in magic rituals that change destiny, except that, as the saying goes: “No evil lasts forever”.
This past year has been harder than most, and 2025 has arrived to squeeze us more. But although I can feel my bad luck dragging behind me like a shadow and dogging my footsteps, I give it the finger, breathe deep and resume walking without looking back.
Read more from diary of Fabiana del Valle here.
