The Dream of Leaving Cuba

The Dream of Leaving Cuba
February 15, 2016
By Fernando Aramis

HAVANA TIMES — For the vast majority of Cubans, being able to leave the
island legally has long been – and continues to be – a pipe dream, an
unattainable goal. This is especially so for those who live in the
interior. Some have achieved this through sacrifice and tenacity, many a
time at the cost of being left with practically nothing, driven only by
the prospects of living somewhere with a few more opportunities. It all
boils down to the possibility of change.

I was born in the city of Bayamo, the second settlement established by
the Spanish in 1513. I grew up in a family that was fully committed to
the revolution, the son of Edaldo Pastor Tamayo Llanes (a musician) and
Ofelia Carrillo Pita (a nurse).

As a child, I would dream of one day taking the stage and knew that
music would be the career I would follow, not knowing, at the time, that
any linked to art in Cuba would have far greater opportunities to travel
abroad than the average worker. I only dreamed of being able to sing and
becoming a star, like another folk musician from Bayamo named Pablo
Milanés. While listening to the music of the singers I admired, I
imagined that, one day, my music would also be played on the radio.

In 1988, I graduated as a music instructor and began working at a small,
forsaken town nestled between Bayamo and Holguin called Cauto Cristo. I
had been sent there for the mandatory community service, a norm that
consisted in being sent to work wherever the revolution needed one to
go, in exchange for having received free education.

I worked at the cultural center for a year, only to find out that I
would not be getting a raise in salary at the end. According to the head
of the said institution, I'd arrived late for work on several occasions.
That was the first deception I had with the State apparatus.

Disillusioned, I quit and left without finishing my community service.
Still dreaming of moving to Havana, I returned to my native town, put
together a music duo and got the band hired by the Provincial Music
Center in Bayamo.

A year later, in 1990, they again to burst my bubble and I was
reassigned, against my will, to the municipality of Niquero. Ironically,
that had been the site of the Granma yacht landing. The revolution was
demanding I complete my community service, a task I took on with all of
the conviction the matter required.

There, the revolution had another surprise in store for me. Far from
everything I loved, they put me up in a filthy and dark room. It was a
particularly warm welcome. Needless to say, I would not stay there for
very long. I left without looking back.

Chasing the dream of earning official qualifications as a musician, to
be able to move to Havana with this under my belt, I moved to Las Tunas.
In Cuba, everything is categorized and, in order to be an artist, having
official qualifications is a must. The process involves a commission of
artists who evaluate your work and ultimately decide your future.

After living in the province for a year, my evaluation was turned down
because I needed a minimum of two years' experience in the arts sector
to be judged. I was a mere two months away from fulfilling that
requirement. That was yet another absurd law. Had it not been because of
the friends I made there, none of my experiences there would have been
worth anything. Forlorn once again, I slung the guitar over my shoulder
and carried my sack of dreams back to my hometown, my hopes fading but
still breathing.

I couldn't understand why everything was so difficult in a society that
boasted of being just, where, it was said, and it is still said, that
there are opportunities for everyone. During this whole time, after my
return, I sold pru (a sweet, effervescent drink made out fermented
herbs) at the railroad station in tow and sold Bayamo coffee illegally
in the municipality of Florida, Camaguey.

I couldn't believe or conceive of my fate. Perhaps I spent that entire
time in a fairy tale, from which I would not wake up until fate took me
and my father to Varadero, the most beautiful beach I'd ever known, a
country within the country.

There, I got to know the island's other face, the power of money,
prostitution, girls who would leave their studies to go sell their
bodies, dreaming that an Aryan-looking man would take them far away. A
song I titled Cuando cruce la frontera ("When I Cross the Border") was
born there, a kind of prediction about the future. Cuba is not an
island, it borders with Varadero. Sometime later, at the entrance to
Varadero, they set up a large sign that read: "Border Point."

Convinced that world would not fulfill my expectations in life, I moved
to Havana around 1996, when I was 26. I recall that, my first night
there, I slept at the entrance to the church on Linea Street.

I had to spend two years in this beautiful and magical city to reach
that impossible dream, a dream that became possible for me thanks to
music. To be honest, I was lucky, if such a thing exists. Perhaps it was
merely the unbridled desire to fly, to get to know other ways of living
and thinking. I know not everything was bad, but it was certainly
difficult. This is a brief account of my experiences on the island, told
in broad strokes.

I can only think of the worker who gives his everything and has
absolutely nothing to show for it, those who save up for an entire
month, even two, to be able to buy their daughters a daypack for school,
the person who doesn't have the same opportunity I have to travel. Other
experiences and misunderstandings were in store for me in Havana, the
Canary Islands and Quito, Ecuador, but that is another story.
—–

*Fernando Aramis: I was born in Cuba, I grew up in Cuba, I studied in
Cuba, I cried in Cuba, I laughed in Cuba, I cursed Cuba, but I am
neither from here nor there nor anywhere – I am simply an earthling.

Source: The Dream of Leaving Cuba - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=116787