
{"id":231096,"date":"2020-11-30T12:34:49","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T17:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=231096"},"modified":"2020-11-30T12:34:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T17:34:49","slug":"last-nights-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/our-life\/last-nights-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Last night\u2019s Cuba*"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yesterday, November 27, was a normal day and a long night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every day is more or less the same for me. Or work, or work. It started at 7 am with an event through zoom, VPN willing, with the German Max Planck Institute, with that bad habit that people have of not speaking Spanish all the time. Then a kilometric online meeting. Later, more work. Then the line at a store which I had promised my mother. Meanwhile, I didn\u2019t stop looking at the phone to see what was happening at 2, between 11 and 13. I calmly let the need to go there grow inside me. I walk and talk fast, but I prefer to think slowly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The night would be something else. I took some bread and two bottles of water to give out and went to the Ministry of Culture. When I arrived, I didn\u2019t feel anything different from what I feel when I go to a concert. You know four out of every five people, whether in person or virtually (Havana has always seemed to me a city as beautiful as it is small). I talked to a lot of friends about the same old things. Some laughed at the last <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/julio.c.guanche\/posts\/3828245963865677?__cft__%5b0%5d=AZVK75HFoAiHf5b3jLUcmiT7AndrWy2QA5__o_OuoeQKKc7jVULvKdko0_d3tgUJ8XNs7-FowSIFTp0CmHOxSELpTGJhyywk8d4NQeCfiAMQfTOjDRaDuA6ZVWzDVHKFl-o&amp;__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">post<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the \u201cold guys\u201d asked about our children, then we met the children there, and the children\u2019s friends, another applied hand gel and offered the small container, another offered coffee even with plastic cups, I laughed reading Dimitri Prieto saying that we were there following Marx\u2019s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, and so on. All quiet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, 32 people were inside the MINCULT meeting with Deputy Minister Fernando Rojas Guti\u00e9rrez, in one of those <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/cultura\/artistas-e-intelectuales-cubanos-que-se-manifestaron-en-el-ministerio-de-cultura-logran-primeros-acuerdos-con-el-gobierno\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">meetings<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that will be cited forever. Such a meeting, in an official institution, in front of its authorities, with people of such diversity, has not taken place in Cuba since the early 1960s.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_231098\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-231098\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127892230_847020369381166_1765096327389814061_n-1024x683-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-231098\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127892230_847020369381166_1765096327389814061_n-1024x683-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127892230_847020369381166_1765096327389814061_n-1024x683-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127892230_847020369381166_1765096327389814061_n-1024x683-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127892230_847020369381166_1765096327389814061_n-1024x683-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127892230_847020369381166_1765096327389814061_n-1024x683-1-750x500.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-231098\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Gabriel Guerra Bianchini<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was looking at the phone obsessed with saving the battery\u2019s life. Friends texting, offering recharges. Cirenaica Moreira, my favorite photographer, the greatest in Cuba in my modest opinion, celebrated my photos, and I had the nerve to ask her for a few words for a hypothetical future exhibition. Everyone was talking about <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the thing<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, about how Facebook had not worked the day before. Another friend sent me, of her own free will, an English translation of the post I wrote before leaving for the Ministry. Everything is normal. Many messages told me \u201ctake care,\u201d but I didn\u2019t really give them much importance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By that time, this was literally a concert. Fito del R\u00edo, a singer-songwriter friend of my children, was singing his own songs. A poet I met a few days ago at a presentation of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">El Caim\u00e1n Barbudo<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, performed the same verses he said then.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Time was passing. Then the songs became songs of my lifetime. Santiago Feli\u00fa, Frank Delgado, Carlos Varela, X Alfonso, Teresita Fern\u00e1ndez and, obviously, Silvio and Pablo. But the power went out.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_231099\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-231099\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127134046_1338018613257330_629635330287946310_n-1024x683-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-231099\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127134046_1338018613257330_629635330287946310_n-1024x683-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127134046_1338018613257330_629635330287946310_n-1024x683-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127134046_1338018613257330_629635330287946310_n-1024x683-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127134046_1338018613257330_629635330287946310_n-1024x683-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/127134046_1338018613257330_629635330287946310_n-1024x683-1-750x500.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-231099\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Gabriel Guerra Bianchini<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s when \u201cCuando se vaya la luz mi negra\u201d<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">began. I was transported to the rooftop of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Habana Blues<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and to that group of unbeatable Cubans that the Benito Zambrano film portrays so well. Shortly before, Yailene Sierra had written to me on Facebook to see if it was possible to enter the Ministry area. Yailene, like Broselinda or Laura de la Uz, is one of those actresses that you remember everything about. I remembered Yailene\u2019s gaze directed at her damn ex-boyfriend\u2014there are people who try hard, but they\u2019re still complete bastards\u2014on the rooftop of that movie while they sing in chorus <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cuando se vaya la luz mi negra<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But we\u2019re still without electricity on a dark night, on a street with lush trees. It was impossible to see anything, only a few meters away. Then we see a lot of lights advancing towards us. It was, honestly, kind of terrifying. I had seen many police officers and soldiers in plain clothes arriving, and many organized civilians, on their buses and wearing t-shirts, and news circulated about the arrival of new groups of them in the vicinity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For a few seconds, as the lights moved towards us, some possibilities flashed through my mind very quickly. Among them, I thought that they came to charge against us as in the 1930s\u2014I remembered in a flash that Enrique Jos\u00e9 Varona also lived in Vedado\u2014a fact that I know by heart from the chronicles of Ra\u00fal Roa and Pablo de la Torriente. It was weird, because I knew that that was not going to happen; however, it was what was in my mind for the longest time during those few seconds. I decided to stand up and face the lights, which turned out to be cell phones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They were young people, about 50 of them, who had broken, with their hands raised as they later said, the police cordon that at that time prevented access to the Ministry. When we saw that it was those young people, everyone applauded. I saw, almost literally, how one of the layers of pressure that floated in the environment decreased.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Just in case, I should have clarified before that I am only narrating what I saw. I\u2019m not completing my memories with what others told me or with what I read on Facebook. I can make a mistake in the chronology of the events, which also happens to me often, but not in what I saw.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After a while, a young man shouts \u201cFor the record, we were fifty defenseless young people and they tear-gassed us.\u201d In that instant, I neither understood nor believed him. I thought he was a provocateur. I\u2019ve been, outside of Cuba, in several demonstrations and my idea of \u200b\u200b\u201ctear gas\u201d is vehicles spreading gases and seeing people literally unable to breathe. Then another young man, visibly upset, and I think crying, yells: \u201cThey tear-gassed us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The social sciences repeat this ad infinitum, but it\u2019s extraordinary to see the wisdom that collective action develops in action in a few seconds and in scenarios to which it is not used. All attempts at provocation, or to insist on questions that were true but \u201cif insisted on\u201d could complicate the entire presence there, received immediate responses from any participant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, it was true that on one or more occasions, they were not letting in people who wanted to get to the Ministry. Several of the participants began shouting \u201clet them in.\u201d Maybe it wasn\u2019t provocation\u2014I didn\u2019t even see who yelled it\u2014but it could lead to it. In a second, an art critic, who uses Castilian in a refined way when writing, blurted out in Cuban Spanish: \u201cWell, nothing happens, let them sit there and that\u2019s it.\u201d It was acclaimed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That wisdom worked just as well when that second young man, so affected, screamed that they had been gassed. Others approached him, talked to him closely, offered him a seat on the floor. That intent on provocation did not grow, nor did any response to that fact escalate. Nothing was shouted there. Not a slogan. Nothing. Music and applause, which sounds like the name of a ridiculous TV show, was the only thing I heard there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, I saw the fear directly. A girl looked around with a tremor and said, \u201cI\u2019m getting text messages saying that military in plain clothes are entering.\u201d At that time, I was next to Mario Castillo, an old friend, an Alfredo L\u00f3pez type of anarchist, who is as calm as the Chinese he has studied so well. He told her, \u201ccalm down, they have been here from the beginning, nothing happens, it\u2019s their job: that of the insecurity of the state.\u201d After a while, he also said: \u201clook what a beautiful moon.\u201d<\/span><b>1<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In case you haven\u2019t noticed, I am intellectually quite nerdy. There is no phrase I hear that I don\u2019t associate with another. I remembered poet and professor Guillermo Rodr\u00edguez Rivera saying that the \u201cPadilla Case\u201d was a problem of \u201cstate insecurity.\u201d Also, at some point during the blackout, I realized that it was November 27 and I got to thinking\u2014that happens in just seconds\u2014of Mateo Orozco, the completely unknown Cuban hero who killed Gonzalo Casta\u00f1\u00f3n, to become the beginning of the saga that led to the execution of the eight medical students in 1871.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The association was not fortuitous, Mario had told me shortly before that in the morning they had been paying homage to the students, to the black Abaku\u00e1s murdered in those days in defense of the students, and to Tato Qui\u00f1ones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAbsorbed in such deep thoughts,\u201d I am approached by Royma Ca\u00f1as, a friend and editor, with whom I worked for several years at the Social Sciences Publishing House. She tells me \u201cGuanche: they gassed me.\u201d<\/span><b>2<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Nearby, I hear other people talking about the same thing. One shows his eyes, very red. I ask Royma to explain. She is slim and petite, weighing less than half my weight. There was a strange mix of calm with fury in her voice. She and others had gone out to find something outside the block where the Ministry is located. Upon returning, they were prevented from re-entering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They asked why and were answered with \u201cthey are orders that we have.\u201d In her case, a couple of police officers turn their backs to Royma and another couple of her friends, with the spray can on their back pointed at them\u2015I\u2019m not an expert in police matters, I suppose that spray is some variant of pepper gas. One of them sprays the gas towards the ground. Another one yells at her, as she tells me while the others nod, \u201cspray it on the face.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That same story was being told by others who had gone through the same. All this happens in the middle of the power cut. I saw people with the visible trace of fear on their faces. I heard some people say to another \u201cI\u2019m scared.\u201d I saw someone leave, and I did not see anyone complain to him for doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But there were the songs. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve never felt in my life. As long as there was singing, everything was fine. When there was silence, without songs, the night took on a hard thickness. I don\u2019t think what I felt was fear, but it was not a pleasant sensation. Then another song would come, I would hum and everything would go into cosmic order. Then another silence. Silence. Suddenly, I hear someone say next to me: \u201cguys, no problem, next time we bring vinegar, that cuts the effect of the tear gas.\u201d I saw someone in front nod, but as if he had said, \u201cwe\u2019ll bring water.\u201d I was thinking about something else.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_231100\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-231100\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/93cf65deb95fe1f71dec77dab778244f3dfca849w-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-231100\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/93cf65deb95fe1f71dec77dab778244f3dfca849w-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/93cf65deb95fe1f71dec77dab778244f3dfca849w-1.jpg 900w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/93cf65deb95fe1f71dec77dab778244f3dfca849w-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/93cf65deb95fe1f71dec77dab778244f3dfca849w-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/93cf65deb95fe1f71dec77dab778244f3dfca849w-1-750x500.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-231100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Yander Zamora \/ EFE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One phrase I heard more than once was \u201cI couldn\u2019t miss this.\u201d This chronicle is not a space for in-depth political analysis of what happened. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/julio.c.guanche\/posts\/3827840470572893\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I already wrote briefly<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about this, and perhaps I will elaborate on it later. I refer here only to experience, which also matters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the almost seven hours that I spent there, what I saw was a Cuban microcosm. People of all kinds, friends, brothers and sisters, acquaintances, strangers, children of dear friends, themselves dear, different people; people who don\u2019t greet each other, but know each other. The normal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I didn\u2019t see them split into groups: the revolutionaries on this side, the counterrevolutionaries on the other. That, it\u2019s obvious, does not cancel the political belongings with which we arrived and left there, and with which we will continue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I\u2019m saying is that we have a moral and political obligation to understand the Cuba of last night as something that in no way is \u201ca gang of counterrevolutionaries making common cause with terrorists.\u201d Whoever supports and encourages this narrative must know that they are guilty of proposing the most horrible future scenario ahead of us: the one that ensures the space of the \u201cus\u201d against all others. Everything in that phrase sounds horrible, because of the resulting consequences, and, above all, for the ones that could result later on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s a nightmare I\u2019ve had for a long time. I feel obligated to do everything I can to avoid it. I believe that we, as Cubans, have that duty. In this country, as in others, there are mercenaries. But in this place, there was not a single praise for U.S. interventionism in Cuba, nor a single defense of the blockade against Cuba. There were people I have read who defend them, but that has nothing to do with the general spirit I lived there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This country, and the country last night, is not a country of mercenaries. What happened yesterday was the opposite. I lived fear and joy, I lived solidarity, I experienced concrete mutual help, I saw people talking normal in the midst of everything. Those are revolutionary values. When those who were in the meeting came out, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/cultura\/artistas-e-intelectuales-cubanos-que-se-manifestaron-en-el-ministerio-de-cultura-logran-primeros-acuerdos-con-el-gobierno\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and words were said that had never been said<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> like that in public in a public place, I saw respect and I saw hope.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That hope is about Cuba, about the best future of which we are capable. The future we deserve. Anyone who wants to think that it is only about San Isidro, can do it, but they are wrong. Anyone who feels that he must defend \u201cthe revolution\u201d against what happened yesterday, let him do so, but he is also wrong. The Revolution is not in a place, in a park, in a rally. It is wherever there is a moral conviction for justice and a political passion for freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cuban authorities can and should understand what happened last night. Revolution is lucidity, said Alfredo Guevara, now it has to be so, perhaps as never before. We are risking a lot. External aggression will continue, legitimate internal demands will continue, and projects to co-opt the latter in favor of the former will continue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Processing both effectively and legitimately requires a lot of wisdom and commitment. In Cuba there is that wisdom. The collective and patriotic Cuban wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we left, those at the meeting assured us there were guarantees that we would all go home without retaliation. Maybe someone needed to hear that. I really didn\u2019t. Personally, I entered, stayed, and left without any problem. I certainly was concerned about others close to me who were there, and I even told them to leave when it got darker. They didn\u2019t leave and nothing happened to them. What I have described happened to others and then they sat down and integrated. I haven\u2019t heard of anyone who experienced any problems leaving. It didn\u2019t happen to anyone in the large group I was part of when I left.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the end, we all sang <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">La Bayamesa<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/cuba\/sin-afrenta-y-sin-oprobio-la-bayamesa-el-himno-nacional-de-cuba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the anthem of Perucho Figueredo and Isabel V\u00e1zquez<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the anthem of all Cubans: the cry that in Bayamo announced the decision of an independent, free and just Cuba, on the ashes of their own homes.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_231101\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-231101\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/1d0048d7aad4badaeb9faa315ee745277d1791ecw-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-231101\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/1d0048d7aad4badaeb9faa315ee745277d1791ecw-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"566\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/1d0048d7aad4badaeb9faa315ee745277d1791ecw-1.jpg 900w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/1d0048d7aad4badaeb9faa315ee745277d1791ecw-1-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/1d0048d7aad4badaeb9faa315ee745277d1791ecw-1-768x483.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/1d0048d7aad4badaeb9faa315ee745277d1791ecw-1-750x472.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-231101\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Ernesto Mastrascusa \/ EFE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I returned home, I bought bread, around three in the morning, at the 23 and 12 bakery. There was freshly baked bread, a sleepy woman, with a mask and a polyethylene bag correctly placed in her hands so as not to touch the bread. I said: \u201cgood evening, compa\u00f1era.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of my teachers, Antoni Dom\u00e9nech Figueras, taught me that the etymological origin of \u201ccompa\u00f1ero\u201d is \u201cthe one who shares the bread.\u201d Its current use was already widespread among the European bakers\u2019 guilds centuries ago. From there it went on to the political use of the \u201ccompa\u00f1ero\u201d in the socialist tradition. I did not miss the opportunity to call the woman at the backery compa\u00f1era. She replied politely: \u201cgood evening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I couldn\u2019t sleep afterward until at least 5 am. A while later I got up to write these pages. Meanwhile, I\u2019m listening to Santiago Feli\u00fa and I have asked one of my sons to go get the eggs at the grocers\u2019. I feel calm. It\u2019s been a long night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><b>Notes:<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>1<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I asked Mario Castillo for permission to quote those phrases by him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>2<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I asked Royma Ca\u00f1as permission to quote those phrases by her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>*Editor\u00b4s note: This article was originally <a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/opinion\/columnas\/la-vida-de-nosotros\/la-cuba-de-anoche\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published by OnCuba<\/a> on November 28, 2020.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, November 27, was a normal day and a long night. Every day is more or less the same for me. Or work, or work. It started at 7 am with an event through zoom, VPN willing, with the German Max Planck Institute, with that bad habit that people have of not speaking Spanish all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":231097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17953],"tags":[8863],"ppma_author":[33569,33421],"class_list":["post-231096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-life","tag-cuban-society"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Last night\u2019s Cuba* | OnCubaNews English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That hope is about Cuba, about the best future of which we are capable. The future we deserve. Anyone who wants to think that it is only about San Isidro, can do it, but they are wrong. Anyone who feels that he must defend \u201cthe revolution\u201d against what happened yesterday, let him do so, but he is also wrong.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/our-life\/last-nights-cuba\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Last night\u2019s Cuba* | OnCubaNews English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That hope is about Cuba, about the best future of which we are capable. The future we deserve. Anyone who wants to think that it is only about San Isidro, can do it, but they are wrong. 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