By Lien Estrada
HAVANA TIMES – A friend of mine, a fifth-year medical student, was taking a while to return a book to me: The Great Swindle by the Peruvian author Eudocio Ravines. It’s a tribute to freedom, where through his experiences, we learn about the perverse underpinnings of the world’s totalitarian powers.
Worried, I mentioned it at home. My mother laughed and said, “I don’t know about the book, but he’s probably jumping borders.” A few days later, my friend contacted me via WhatsApp and told me he was living with an aunt in Kentucky, waiting for a work permit. The journey took a month and a half. “Sorry, and what about my book?” I asked him. I had to go retrieve it from his house, in another district.
I visited one of my aunts in the countryside. When her Methodist pastor arrived, I recognized him. I had gotten to know many Protestant leaders because the Evangelical Seminary where I studied in Matanzas was ecumenical. So I started by asking about so-and-so, a pastor in Guantánamo. “He left the country,” the pastor replied kindly. “And what about the pastor from community X in Pinar del Río?” “He decided to leave with his family as well.” “And what about the other one?” “He’s no longer in the country either…” I had been so proud of knowing so many Protestant pastors in Cuba, but that’s no longer the reality.
One of my friends had graduated as a preschool teacher. However, she decided to open a business in her house. It was a hair salon and became one of the most well-known in the area. But it seems that in Cuba, it doesn’t pay to be successful. We later found out that she, her husband, and their son had left the country after selling everything, without looking back.
Neighbors are leaving, both those nearby and far away. “In the past, one person would leave,” my aunt said, “to help the family. Now, the entire family leaves, even with the dog.” That’s why I wasn’t surprised when I ran into a colleague at the bookstore, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, and he greeted me by saying, “I thought you had already left.” It’s not the first time someone has greeted me with that phrase.
In fact, when we stop seeing each other, the first thing we think is that the person has probably already left the island. The fear that someone might have died of COVID is passing. Because we had two possible explanations for someone’s absence: either they left or they died. Now, we’re settling on the former.
Read more from diary of Lien Estrada here.
