Breakfast with ‘defector’ Glenda Murillo
By Aurelio Pedroso
HAVANA – Two, three, four cups of espresso coffee, which is my usual breakfast and one that I cannot recommend to anyone who wants to watch his health, and from every direction I’m hit with an unspecific news item that tells of another “defection.”
While drinking my first cup, I couldn’t help remembering that, although I was not an outstanding father, I always told my two sons that they should study, be respectful, educated, honest and learn a language to gain a meritorious place in society. To go far.
Well, I think they misunderstood the concept of “going far.” Today they live in the United States and Canada.
The second cup, accompanied by some authentic Coffee-mate provided not by a friend or relative abroad but by a local grocery story, encouraged me to try to find the meaning of the verb “to defect,” originally used in military jargon and also used politically during the Cold War, something that some people like to continue waging against Cuba.
Then I started to make a mental list of the latest “defectors,” none of whom was a soldier, which is why I insist on putting quotation marks around “defector.” So, if the news item is true, we are looking at just another case of a “dry-footer,” a Cuban who enters U.S. territory under the protection of the Cuban Adjustment Act. There have been thousands of them.
Frankly, as I prepared my third dose of caffeine, the information did not shock me. One Cuban more, one Cuban less. Bloodletting, drop by drop. That simple, that hard. The most worrisome part of all this is the reason – the reasons – that move so many young people to leave the country, reasons found in politics and economics, which finally come together in economic policies.
It’s not just a question of those who depart but also of those who are thinking of departing and care very little what course Cuba may take in the next several years. We will become a country with a record number of elderly people and a laughable birth rate.
The escape via Mexico of young Glenda Murillo Díaz, the daughter of the Vice President of the Council of State, member of the Politburo (another reason why some magnify her as a “defector”), and one of the top officials in charge of straightening up the economy, is another bead that drops from the deteriorated necklace of youths who look nothing like those who lived through the early years of the Revolution, when fervor and illusion reigned. They are simply youths of our times.
With my fourth and final cup of espresso, optimism came. Upstairs, a newborn child loudly demanded his morning feeding. Just yesterday, I had told his parents that I was eager for their child to learn to talk, so I could tell him a few things about the life ahead of him.
I hope that the boy, eight months into this island’s life, will understand me when I tell him that he should prepare himself to go far. I hope and wish that he’ll understand my true meaning: I’m not talking about physical distance but of human, personal, professional and spiritual growth in a society and a Cuba that can seduce him to stay.
Progreso Semanal/Weekly authorizes the total or partial reproduction of the articles written by our journalists, so long as source and author are identified.
