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MARIO J. TORRES
Alice in wonderland
One of the countries in the whole
world where the presence of God is most strongly felt is Cuba.
Daily miracles that take place in that strange haunted land chosen by Fate
to endure the hardships of a sad mission already reaching the 21st century
are the surprise of newcomers and a usual, common sight for the punished.
According to the laws of life no human being may be able to survive without
food, fuel and water and in modern and civilized times no normal activities
can be carried out without electricity, transportation, medications,
clothes, first need articles and resources in general.
In the Caribbean island, however, and for a lunatic's whim, life has
traveled back more than 100 years in time and people are going through the
wildest and weirdest nightmare anyone can ever imagine with an almost total
absence of running and potable water, which must be bought after standing in
line for hours or brought in buckets from the wells that can be found.
Food and first need articles like soap, toothpaste, kerosene as cooking fuel
and even matches among others are rationed by coupons in incredibly small
amounts or sold in dollars which is not the national currency in the island.
Finding something to eat every day is not easy and when found will surely be
quite expensive and after that how to cook it will be another conflict.
There is no electricity for long hours every day and night. People wear the
same old clothes they have had for years. At the same time, houses are
coming down to the ground for lack of reparation and maintenance.
Doctors have no medications to prescribe whereas dentists have no water or
electricity to treat their patients. People travel to places on bike or on
horse-and-buggy and the entire country is the most accurate definition and
description of chaos and disaster and to make matters worse, there is no
right to complain or else he who may dare do it, can be easily and quickly
sentenced and imprisoned.
How can life prevail and go on in such a hostile environment?
However, and this is the most striking contradiction, and in spite of all
this misery, scarcity and destruction, nobody dies; people somehow manage to
survive and have become the experts in the art of "solving" like doing magic
and sorting out difficulties, and this is the point where you feel that the
unseen and the sometimes unbelieved can be touched and are really working
because according to the above described, this island under spell should
have already been swept, deserted, devastated or sunken under the sea and
all its people annihilated long ago.
But there is something in the air that protects and defends; a strong
influence pushing people to keep standing and struggling.
You can indeed sense He is there and is not letting anyone die; He is just,
as the saying goes, tightening necks without suffocating, reassuring people
they should be strong and put up with their mission till it's over but
miraculously leading them to walk over the waters and helping them cross the
whole tight rope, so why worry if the healer of our wounds is just taking
its time to do it?
MARIO J TORRES
NOVEMBER 2004
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