I have been thinking about realities that resemble one another.
Thinking in the way the reality suffered in Cuba may resemble the situation experienced in a Concentration Camp in WWII. There is a passage in Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, that makes me reflect on the current situation our homeland is experiencing. It says: “The camp doctor made an observation: the weekly death rate in the concentration camp increased between Christmas 1944 and New Year’s Day 1945. In his opinion, this was due to the prisoners’ hope that they would be home by those dates. They believed the camp would be liberated shortly after Christmas or New Year’s. But as the expected date drew nearer and their hopes were not fulfilled, they became increasingly discouraged, and more of them died. When they lost hope, they eventually died.”
We are living through a very similar reality, because the question most frequently asked in Cuba today is: “How much longer?” We are both hopeful and desperate at the same time. We see people die while waiting for needed medicines or decent amount of food and necessary energy.
Desperate to escape this merciless concentration camp, to see an end to this imposed slavery. Yet we are hopeful that this concentration camp will be liberated and that we will be able to “return home”—to that free, happy, and prosperous Cuba that we envision in our minds . We experience frustration day after day, we struggle to survive today’s blackout, today’s shortages, and today’s overwhelming sense of helplessness.
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I have been thinking about realities that resemble one another.
Para entender la magnitud del problema, el dato del 80% de violencia sexual funciona como una métrica del peligro de la ruta, un indicador del nivel de desprotección generalizado. No significa que cada mujer de la muestra sea agredida, sino que la mayoría de las mujeres que viajan sin documentos están expuestas al chantaje, la violación o la explotación sexual como un peaje obligatorio del trayecto.
El cierre del curso escolar en Cuba ha dejado más preguntas que respuestas. Según Anne Lemaistre, directora de la Oficina Regional de la UNESCO en La Habana, *“las limitaciones actuales afectan la asistencia de estudiantes y docentes, dificultan el aprendizaje y alteran la vida social de los adolescentes, consecuencia que podría comprometer el futuro de toda una generación” que resume el panorama de un sistema educativo que atraviesa uno de sus momentos más difíciles.