Cuba / Cuban Affairs

I Have Been Thinking About the Options We Have Left – Part I

Let us begin with an undeniable fact: Cuba needs change, and a radical change. We cannot continue like this.

By force of circumstances, a situation similar to that of a country at war has become normalized in Cuba. The human body can endure such conditions temporarily, but not forever, because eventually it breaks down—both physically and spiritually.

It cannot be considered normal to live with only two hours of electricity a day, watching the little food that can be obtained spoil, and having to get up in the middle of the night, when “the power comes on,” in order to wash clothes, cook, and manage daily life, all while living with the constant fear that there will not be enough time.

It cannot be considered normal to have no running water, no telephone service, not even minimal Internet coverage, and to live cut off from communication, even within one’s own town.

It cannot be considered normal to be unable to get a good night’s sleep because of the heat and mosquitoes, and to live in a state of chronic exhaustion caused both by lack of rest and by the constant stress of an unpredictable life.

It cannot be considered normal not to have enough money for the basics because of the enormous gap between workers’ wages and the cost of living, because of the inability to obtain cash from the banks, and because of the injustice of being paid in Cuban pesos while being charged prices comparable to those of the dollar and the developed world.

It cannot be normal to live in prolonged and seemingly endless poverty, constantly dependent on outside assistance and having to wage a battle in order to obtain even the most basic necessities.

It cannot be considered normal for transportation to be virtually nonexistent or to amount to embarking on an uncertain adventure, and for there to be no fuel even for essential needs, or for it to be available only at impossible prices.

It cannot be considered normal for medicines to be unavailable; for people undergoing surgery to have to provide even the suturing thread; for there to be no laboratory reagents, forcing medical professionals to make judgments “by eye”; for infant mortality to soar; for hospitals to be without electricity; and for operating rooms to have become dilapidated spaces.

It cannot be considered normal to have a deteriorating educational system, incapable of providing not only a solid education, but even the basic instruction needed to sustain life.

It cannot be considered normal to live in constant uncertainty, unable to predict even what the next day will bring.

 It cannot be considered normal to exist in survival mode, burdened by continuous exhaustion and with dreams that remain forever locked away in drawers.

No, human beings may be able to endure all these things at certain moments in their lives, but they cannot become a permanent way of existence, because then the human person breaks, the soul breaks, and the country breaks.

And what options do we have to escape all of this? Because it does not seem that solutions will come from those who govern us.

What options do we have? We will have to think about that.