By Yadira Albet (Joven Cuba)
HAVANA TIMES – I get asked why I’m not leaving more and more often. People I haven’t seen in a while are surprised: “but you’re still in Cuba?”, “I thought you’d left already.” This has led me to seriously think about my reasons for staying here.
I haven’t been able to watch Habana Blues again. I went to the premiere in 2005 and began to cry 20 minutes in. A young woman next to me, who didn’t know me, hugged me and we were like that the whole movie, suffering our own farewells. I’ve tried to watch the movie again, but I’ve never been able to finish it.
I didn’t have a group of friends to belong to until I reached pre-university. That was my safe group, my space for affection and growth, without violence. Before that, I’d moved from one school to the next and had been a victim of bullying, feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. So, the exodus of my group was the first wave of “adult” farewells.
I graduated in 1998, and in 2005, half of my classmates left the country after finishing their social service period. I had to say goodbye to almost each and every one of them in person. I said goodbye to one at their wedding to a foreign businessman. I said goodbye to others at their homes, at going away parties; thus, my habit of asking people who invite me to parties, or formal dinners, “where are you going and when?”. I’ve said goodbye to others at the airport, and even to the raft with another. With the boat moored, she grabbed my hand and told me “come”, but I didn’t dare to go. I thought about her mother who was waiting for me with news and might think that something had happened if I didn’t come back. That’s one reason I haven’t left: responsibility.
Even before that, when I’d finished my degree in 2003, one of those “emigres” proposed I leave with him, but that we’d need to get married to do that. He was going to Norway. We got a thousand documents, there’s even a passport photo of me where I look like a nun, because of how formal I am, sitting up straight. But I had doubts before the final formality. This person hadn’t expressed any romantic interest in me until we were well into the process. He didn’t tell me at any time, but the way he treated me began to change. He wasn’t that bad, but I felt like it wasn’t very honest of me to use this card. Plus, lots of things could have gone astronomically badly if I had married someone I didn’t really love, gone to a country that was so culturally different, where I didn’t have a support network at all. Thus, another reason not to leave: insecurity.
Then, there was a long period of zero possibilities. My friends abroad still weren’t in a condition to invite anyone. The University of Pedagogical Sciences isn’t every generous with trips for people who don’t have the top grades or form part of some successful international project. So, everyone with a PhD or more went traveling, but I didn’t. Plus, my son was young and traveling didn’t seem very wise while he still needed me. It was at my next workplace that I was finally able to leave the country.
My first trip was in 2014: a week in Mexico. I missed the plane in Panama because they changed the gate two seconds before departure. They were really worried at work when it looked like I’d disappeared off the map: the institution I belong to had operated like a kind of airport, and some people who left the country on work trips never came back.
I just missed the flight: it was the first time I was traveling, without anyone to advise me, accommodate me and I didn’t know how to do things any better. So, I continued my trip after a great fright and worked that week. But two days before my return, my best friend told me that she was going to come get me, that it was just a small jump from Florida to Valle de Chalco. She kept saying it over and over again. My preuniversity classmates echoed her. But I had my doubts.
I thought about our expert in international relations, who did everything they could to help me with all of the formalities and had to report back to Cuba, on the instruction’s counterpart with Mexico, who would have had a hard time explaining what exactly had happened to me. Plus, there was something even stronger. My son was in Cuba, my partner; and if I’d stayed, I’d be considered a defector and ran the risk of not being able to enter Cuba for eight years. I thought about my son first, who I didn’t know when I’d see him ever again, and my partner, who wouldn’t be my partner anymore if there was such a great distance between us, and I was in love. That’s why I went back: for love.
The next year, I went to Colombia. This time, the trip ran smoothly, without any scares or hiccups. I had another good friend in Bogota. She was also linked to the Cuban community in Colombia and universities in Bogota, through her family, which are a lot. She offered me her sofa, her home and her contacts. I thought about my son again, my partner, the work colleagues who had worked to put me in Colombia, which is a tough place.
During one of the partnership courses that you look for when you can, in your free time, I met trans women who had emigrated. My reality would probably be very different to theirs, but the description of the anguish they’d experienced terrified me. Colombia can be a merciless place for women without a support network. A dangerous place. That’s why I didn’t stay: out of fear.
Today, people are always asking me why I haven’t left, or why I’m not leaving. I’ve not left because of the responsibility I have to the people who stay, insecurity about my fate in other places, because of the love I have for people around me and out of fear of suffering the hardships many emigres are victim to – in silence mostly. Also, because I want to see what I can do to help to some extent. If I can’t leave, and others can’t leave, somebody has to work towards “this” becoming a liveable place.
Consequences of my decision: the ones all Cubans face. Restricted domestic independence, financial hardship, professional growth sometimes at a standstill. The most painful thing though is the great depression that I fall into every now and again, the feeling I’ve left valuable opportunities behind. If I leave now, I know I’ll never come back. Or maybe I would.
I wake up every day knowing that at the front of the classroom where I teach, most of the young people who are sitting in front of me have a goal in their mind, and it isn’t Cuba. I feel like I’ve been giving all my time and energy to future emigres, and that makes me very sad. I’ve always told them that wherever they go, they should strive to be honest, fair, diligent, hard-working, loyal and happy, to make me proud.
I also tell my friends, colleagues and other people I’ve indirectly taught and teach. But it makes me more and more upset to say it because I feel like I’m saying goodbye to them in advance, and that’s been the case a lot of the time. Because I fear that one day, my son might be the one to leave. He’s already 16 years old, so there’s not long left.
I see less and less faces I know. So, every time somebody invites me out for an unexpected coffee, a formal lunch or a surprise party, I ask: “where are you going and when?”
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