A new stampede to Angola
HAVANA – It’s useless to ask the Foreign Ministry to intercede with the Angolan Embassy so the Embassy will tell us how many applications from Cuban émigrés or tourists they process every day, because most likely the Embassy will not give out that information. (The Republic of Angola has not been called the People’s Republic for a long time.)
But all you need to do is stand outside the Embassy, at Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue, Miramar, Playa, any morning of the week at 6 or 7 o’clock. There, you’ll count about 30 people (sometimes more) who are hoping to visit friends or relatives in that western African country or settle there.
The word Angola inevitably brings memories to the thousands of Cuban veterans of a war that ended unexpectedly in a society with a market economy, without socialist ideals and with a new outlook on life.
As the sun peeks over a pine grove, the line begins to organize. The “place vendors,” who have spent all night on line, kept warm by rum, offer to sell their places to the newcomers for 15 or 20 dollars. Some would-be travelers tell them that they won’t pay until they go beyond the Embassy fence.
Because the term “brunch” is so much more popular than “breakfast,” a couple of vendors offer ham sandwiches and beverages they’ve brought in bicycle baskets. Coffee, too. And if anyone were allowed to bring a portable toilet, he’d make a bundle of money, considering the long wait the visa applicants must endure.
In recent days, because of the flourishing stampede toward Angola, men and women from all parts of the island are coming to Havana, looking for visas for the most varied purposes. For example, one man from a remote town in Camagüey hopes to go drive trucks to the southern province of Huambo.
Angola attracts Cubans. Many go to work on construction, a system imposed by the Cuban Armed Forces. They’re ready to build anything: an airport, a highway, a bridge. But the visa applicants standing in this line are going on their own.
Visa requirements are tough and Angolan sponsors are required, to ensure that Cuban immigrants don’t become a burden on the state. Such requirements are not an exception. Other embassies have made admission to their countries more difficult, now that the Cuban authorities have allowed all Cubans to travel anywhere they want, so long as they can get a visa. In the words of a sidewalk analyst, “the tortilla has been flipped.”
The Republic of Angola, where hundreds of Cubans died and were injured in battle, is no longer a nightmare for Cuban families. The times change, and so do the climate and the politics. Lamentably, many have not realized it and stay mired in the past.
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