New York-Cuba: two sisters and two worlds apart

by Vasiliki Sgourdou (United States of America)

Making a local connection Cuba

Eight well-spent days on the island of Cuba in January 2017 would change the life and mentality of two New York City graduate students forever. Christa and myself were two classmates from different backgrounds and ethnicities. We traveled to Cuba on a school project that was meant to visualize and document how the long-standing Cuban immigration and the endless separation of families under Fidel Castro’s regime would change after the then recent thaw in US-Cuba relations. Long before our trip, while on a bus home, a nice lady with a Cuban accent was on the phone on the other side of the bus. As soon as she hang up, we approached her and in a surprising tone she confirmed she was of Cuban origin. It took us both only a glimpse of a second to think she might know people that could help us through our project. She had family there indeed, her beloved sister whom she hadn’t seen in years. Olguita is a proud Cuban, a smart and knowledgeable lady in her mid-seventies. Before the heart-warming experience on the island of Cuba was over, we had to listen to her story last. Out of love for her city and her sister, she offered herself to be our tour guide for the last day of our trip. From her happy, always smiling face we could tell how much she enjoyed moving forward. The new construction sites in the port of Havana meant a lot more to her than to us. She had seen the island in its worst days. She saw her sister leaving for the United States and never coming back because she was not on Fidel’s side or the revolution’s. Olguita had traveled many times abroad and would do it again. She remembered the days when the Operation Peter Pan took place, a mass exodus of thousands of Cuban minors to the United States. She said the Church convinced the parents to send the kids away for a better life but they never heard back from them. The postal services being suspended back in the day, there was no hope for finding them again. As we passed from desolate stores, empty of merchandise, Olguita explained us how she was making a living with her insufficient pension of twenty-five pesos a month, after forty years in education. “There is no such thing as a weekly budget for the supermarket. We look how we’ll make it day by day. We get a few vegetables here and there and when we get lucky we’ll add some meat,” she calmly recounted. Our promenade got us to the backyard of a local church. As if that made her feel free, Olguita recalled what must have been the toughest moment of her life. Her father was very sick and she had no medication or food to give him. She used to peel off pineapple skin and cook with rice for lunch and dinner every day. She burst into tears. She knew there was nothing else she could have done, but deep in her heart she felt guilty for not being able to help him. A warm and powerful smile followed a moment of silence. She stood up, wiped off her tears and said “There’s so much more of the city I want to show you” while she grabbed us from the hand to get us going.