THE CUBAN QUESTION

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION 

''Castro had stolen our youth', these ladies told us

When they want  to chat and talk about what happens at home, Cubans go to Versailles where the gentry reunites.  A little bit aristocratic and conservative, Versailles opens late at night. By 6 and 12 PM, all of the Cuban politics is there. Workers in jeans, ladies wearing eardrops and necklaces listen to the last news form their native island while swallowing teas, scrambled eggs and waiting something they wish to happen. A very relaxing place, Versailles displays TV interviews and VIP visitors, some of them ready to make news and maybe history. Once at Christmas, we had to stand long before being seated. 

Calle Ocho is part of the so-called Little Havana, with noting to do with  the remote and crumbling Havana in the island . It is considered the core of the Cuban political life. A sometimes quiet neighborhood, Calle Ocho conserves the touch of tropical countries. More than 40 years later, nostalgia and memories of the past is lively. Everything you see or watch has not completely move out of this past. 

History is everywhere present in Calle Ocho.

Elderly are delighted to recall these memories . bay of Pigs' veterans, prisoners freshly released and finally settled in the US, opponents watching every move in the island... They want to associate  Cuban future with the turmoil of past It is behind their windows and at the shadow of the oversize trees that Cubans dream of their countries. Once again, a relaxation feeling is not absent.  As if in the midst of more serious questions Cubans keep their sense of humor and hedonistic life philosophy. The 1900-like resorts or guest houses lining the famous avenue bring as much relaxation as Little Havana is being modernized.

Nevertheless, good life or not, what really matters and what people are expecting is the coming of a few Cuban generation still linked to their island and raised  in the shadow of a  free America. Many expect the real change would take place now. This is not in vain that some Cuban voices are talking about Miami as the capital of sun, exile and anticommunism. 

 The last one, they add with pride, is well a Cuban job.