BARACK OBAMA & CUBA

Receiving Obama in Cuba was like receiving a warrior from a thousand battles, some just and others not, but without a doubt there must be many scars underneath that formal appearance, fashionable outfits and big smiles.
Many months have passed, in fact  a year. Friends have asked me from the moment until today to tell them my opinion about Barak Obama's visit to Cuba.
I will be as honest as the reality shown allows me to be.
 Mr. Obama is not the president of the United States anymore. And now the world does not have a possible good human being in the most evil position, but a new wolf who detests the disguises, so let's get down to business.
For black Americans, for Latino in the United States and the poor in general in that country, Obama was a good president. Let's historians decide, although it seems that the polls say the opposite.
That's not the question. The issue is the dichotomy that has always existed. No matter how good a person or progressive he really is or is considered an American president, they always have a double standard to measure things: one way for them, another different way for the world.
Or as our grandparents remember us wisely: the funnel law. The wide part for them, the narrow for the rest of the world
During the seven years that Obama was President, relations with Latin America went into a tailspin (a consequence inherited from the Bush administrations), and one of the causes and recurrent theme in all the meetings between the American president and any of his counterparts. of Latin America was the American embargo or blockade against Cuba.
A parenthesis: do you notice how soft the word "embargo" sounds in comparison to blockade? The use of the word is so subtle that it gives the impression that it is still a chocolate pill that goes painlessly down the throat of those who are far away and does not understand the desperation of those who, for example,  wait every day and for a week, that the Cuban government can find in the world a company that does not have American interests or stocks and that sells us the medicine at a fair price and not 10 times its value because they know that we can not buy it in the United States or in any your companies or affiliates.
The word embargo is used in the press outside of Cuba as a synonym of incompetence of the Cuban government. The word blockade in all its dimension and force suggests the attempt of a country millions of times more powerful, thousands of times bigger and stronger trying to kill a small country of hunger and diseases. See if the difference in the use of one word is important that even within Cuba there are those who blame the government.
Let's go back then.
The point is that there was no opportunity for then-President Obama to meet with world leaders (including allies such as France, Spain, England, not to mention ALL Latin American presidents) that did not put him in a difficult position. To the point that diplomacy between the giant of the north and the governments of the South began to freeze and except for Canada, the United States was "isolated" on its own continent. . . and in the world that for years voted in the United Nations for the elimination of the blockade and for more than a decade
He spoke about this because it is important to know how it came first to December 2015 and then to March 2016.
Then there was another important element: Cubans living in the United States. That is, a category of powerful emigrants blessed by all administrations: Cuban-Americans, with their congressmen, senators, lobbies, millionaires, own militias (already old, but active), own newspapers, in short, a small country within of the Empire, in a state like Florida that in the last votes had decided the elections (Jumping a little in time: a year later the vote of punishment of the Cubans in Florida decided again causing what was impossible to be triggered: Trump President).
In short, the president who decided to establish a new policy would have to be subtle, cautious with his actions, silent in his steps to follow to give some masterful blows.

And Obama decided to be that man who was receptive to the request of Pope Francis and the invitation to be an intermediary in the conversations by Canada. The Cuban government said that one of the first things they learned was to respect the precept of 'in silence it had to be because there are things that must be hidden to achieve them', and putting aside fears acquired by decades of oppression and aggression they decided accept the extended hand and take advantage of the situation and the opportunity.
The situation was something important: Obama's last year as president began and it is usual that what they do not dare to do in their mandates leave it until the end.
A legacy, a vision of what they really have always wanted to do, but the powers behind the power always press for them not to be done. On December 17, 2015 the Secretary of State visited Cuba after more than 50 years and the diplomatic relations between the two countries. So much publicity was given to the fact that very few outside of Cuba realized or simply read the official discourse of both parties. Americans: after so many years with a wrong policy which has not achieved its goals, it is time to eliminate what does not work Today's world is different. It is time to reach out to the people of Cuba so that they can be free and we will help them change their history. The Cubans: we are very happy that they have noticed and decided to re-establish ties between the two countries, but that will never mean the change of political line of the Cuban government. We will continue fighting as before. But nothing, little by little agreements were signed, American airlines began to arrive in Cuba and in their planes arrived politicians, famous artists, etc.
Cuba became fashionable, from Chanel to The Rolling Stones, and hundreds of thousands of tourists to reach 4 million to see a different Cuba before the Americans and their corporations came and changed our lives. That part I do not understand very all right. For those who come, it seems that they do not like much as life is in their countries, and almost when leaving they give us their condolences for what is coming.
And on the other hand, what makes them suppose that Cuba will open its borders to the Americans? And they all tell us the same thing: they are too powerful and it is inevitable. Not only that a small military team can invade us and a few hours take the whole country but a McDonald's and a Coca Cola do more damage than a year of Radio Europa Libre programming at the time. After all, walls have fallen (and now they are rising), wars have been declared, people are dying in the deserts between Mexico and the United States, and crossing the Mediterranean to reach the promised paradise of the market economy.
Some months later, in March , Barack Obama arrived in Havana. It was an unusual visit in many ways. Going through the memory: one rainy afternoon, he and his family dressed casually, walked through the streets of Old Havana where the Havana residents welcomed him and even cheered at times, ate in Paladares (pivate restaurants); the wife and daughters visited schools and shared with other Cuban women (obviously pro-government), official dinner (curiously in the protocol room of the huge and cold living room with white granite floor and huge arborescent ferns from floor to ceiling where  usually take place recognitions to militants of left). Curious also that the most protected President of the world, the country with the most enemies in the world, walked through the narrow streets of Havana in his walk to the private restaurant and  did it with only a third of his bodyguards  relaxed and smiling. And right in Cuba!

 For me the most interesting thing happened a few hours before leaving. It was a meeting with what could be called the representatives of the different sectors of Cuban society that for the first time had the presence of the private sector and cooperatives in addition to the militants of the Communist Party (no matter if doctors or teachers, they should be militants). Obama left behind the scenes in the style of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Smiling and with that dominance of the scene that every American politician who has had to endured the great battles of the TV in the United States, he opened his arms and said in Spanish some verses that Cubans have very close to their hearts: "I grow a white rose in July as in January, for the sincere friend who gives me 'his outspoken hand' And he forgot 'to finish the poem that had been left unfinished: "And for the cruel one who tears the heart out of me , thistles and caterpillars I cultivate "
In that debate it became clear that the Cuban government (by its representatives there) believed that in general the road they gave to Cuba was the right one and that only things did not go well because of the American interference (call it a blockade or any other way), the new entrepreneurs, mostly young people who have many ideas that they try to carry out but they are between two fires, on the one hand the government that accepts them unwillingly and only until the embargo would be lifted and they can have the necessary resources to prohibit all private business, and on the other hand the world with its new technologies, ideas etc. which we could not access. And finally the Americans with their president: the youth must be brave and change to Cuba, even if there is always a price, and we (the Americans) will help them to erase any remnant of the previous regime once it has been swept from the face of Cuba

.………………………….
It has been a long time, at least for us it seems an eternity within the finite that are our lives. Generations of Cubans who have been born and died waiting for a world of peace and prosperity, a real freedom beyond the independence of the country. We continue as we have always been: between two powers, between two superpowers, between two opposing lifestyles that leave us none of them, they only want to force us to be as they want us to be.
They don't really care about us.

IT IS ABOUT CUBA

For the visitor of Havana today , the capital of Cuba IS a real surprise.
 For the guajiros (farmers) it is always the dreamt city, the Mecca of Cuba, with all that this could mean.
For foreigners, whether they are tourists or not, Havana can mean a lot or a little,
 but it certainly does not leave any of them indifferent. I have heard all kinds of expressions of admiration, dismay, disappointment, and those who knew it in other times, of indignation.
For me, Havana has always been the same. I already knew it without great light advertisements, I was even born in the middle of a season of blackouts, which, like those of hurricanes, return irremediably.
 I met her with the facades of each house and building unpainted, peeling. The streets full of hollows, the big warehouses stocked, and finally, with all the problems that are so present every day
Not at all the Havana of Eusebio Leal, the reforming historian of the city .
The capitalinos of that time thought that everything was already lost and an air of resignation mixed with the certainty that in the whole world things were more or less the same in the environment.
But also Havana, in fact all of Cuba, was not only very different from the capitalist Havana of the early twentieth century but also, and it can be said, principally, of today's Havana.
If I had to summarize with some expression, the impression of Havana of my childhood would be tranquility, carelessness. That for me back then. Because from the present I can broaden the perspective: the tranquility provided by the ignorance of many things, positive and negative.

it was good? it was bad?
It was only and that is what we are today's Cubans.
Mostly thin, thirsty for material things, so eager to travel (supreme dream) that we sacrifice our homes and many even our lives to see another sky.


cubangel@gmail.com

Humberto 

Guide and teacher in Havana 

+5352646921 whatssap & telegram 

PURITY

PURITY

In all the major cities of the world there are neighborhoods better than others.
We already know who can pay for those neighborhoods. The rich of course. ' And it is  good there are people who can do it!
In Havana there is one of those neighborhoods (there are actually two or three), but the composition of the inhabitants is a little different from that of other similar neighborhoods in other countries.
Miramar
Around here live some descendants of those people who were rich, or professionals who  decided not to leave Cuba when everything was radicalized. But the "new rich" also live there, those whose the system has benefited with good opportunities in life, for doing well their jobs, whatever that means.
What do these people have in common?
Pride for the  material world , for what they own or possess. Residences, cars, beautiful clothes and shoes, surfboards, cell phones, mp3, ipods, gym bodies. And even when Miramar does not have beaches, it flows along a coastal line with stones, but the inhabitants have managed to make it "bañable" (bathable), especially by the very young who spend most of the year in schools and the beaches on the other side of the city are very distant.
But of course, it is not a closed space.
And because I have friends over there from time to time I go near the sea, a pleasure that I never give up.
Last Sunday.
Beautiful show the sea, a sun not very strong. Some people there already.
And he appeared.
He came on his bicycle, unpainted and old.
About 30 years. Hair in a ponytail. In a clipped jeans. Flips flops. A colorless pullover.
He was a little hidden by some bushes and trees and I assumed that he was keeping the bike so that it would not give so much sun.
Through the branches I glimpsed as he took off his sweater and sandals and took something in his arms.
He came out of the bushes.
Superb. Chest slightly hairy, broad and powerful. Strong legs and pre-historic male feet (large, strong, nevertheless well-formed).
A God on  Cuban land.
But the most curious thing was what he carried in his arms, without a doubt. as a man of work,
A baby. I mean, a little one maybe a year and a half.
Son of his father, you know what I mean.
It passed through everyone. Making everyone looks up.
He went to a corner of the place, and deposited the baby in a small natural pot.
Between his legs.
The impressive thing was the way he deposited him. Very delicately He undressed him, an oil passed on his body. He put his messy hair in his place. He took out his inflatable, his rubber duck and smiled.
Have you ever had the impression that no matter what happens the world is fine, it is safe in spite of everything?
That was my impression.
It was pure love that this robust and giant man transmitted next to his son.
He did not care about people, or what they thought of his old shorts or his rusted bicycle.
Nothing could reach it, and all of us who were close  felt an expansive wave of love and well-being.
It was really an incredible mixture: physical strength, iron health, the purity of spirit of the child, and his own, the sea and the sun, the hormones that ran in that incredible body and finally what I liked the most: the  Absolute lack of interest for the present inhabitants of the residences, for the cars, the nice clothes and shoes, the surfboards, the cell phones, mp3 and bright ipods on the colorful towels, and gym bodies.
Purity.
And it reminded me of what the troubadour sang:

Maybe because my childhood is still playing on the beach
And hidden behind the reeds my first love sleeps
I carry your light and your smell wherever you go
And huddled in your sand
I keep love, games, and sorrows.

cubangel@gmail.com