{"id":93405,"date":"2017-05-16T23:00:18","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T03:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oncubamagazine.com\/?p=93405"},"modified":"2018-10-02T17:36:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T21:36:54","slug":"havana-ready-to-receive-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/propositions\/havana-ready-to-receive-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Havana, ready to receive us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"justify\"><span>It was 11:00 am when my name was called. There were a great many of us, hundreds of men; of all heights, ages, colors\u2026. Only family men, students, average men, inmates. I was just a little man who barely knew what he was doing or how he got there. I had just turned 16 and was about to board a yacht headed to an unknown destination: Miami.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><span>It was May 15, 1980, the farewell date; a sad episode that has gone down in history as the \u201cMariel exodus.\u201d It was the day I left Cuba, my country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><span>Today is May 2, 2017. I remember the day I describe before for two reasons: it is May, and I am returning to Cuba \u2013 my country \u2013 by sea. Not on board a yacht belonging to an unknown, not like a \u201cMarielito,\u201d not only with men. I\u2019m returning as a passenger in the <\/span><span><b>Norwegian Sky<\/b><\/span><span> cruise accompanied by more than 2,000 passengers, 2,000 passengers eager to get to know my country!<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><span>While I walk through the corridors of the ship, en route to Havana, I feel enthusiastic, nervous; I notice an overflowing of curiosity. Many don\u2019t have the slightest idea about who I am, they are alien to my story. They know or have heard of the Cuban Revolution, of Fidel, of the Missile Crisis\u2026but they have no idea about the reality of Cuba and its people\u2026. I want to interrupt, lecture them, give them my experience; but I say nothing, I know that will change in a few hours.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><span>5:30 in the morning. I open the door of my balcony to view the city lights. I\u2019m not the only one; many are taking a peek. There\u2019s Havana, yawning, opening up, wide, long, beautiful, ready to receive us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><span>I could feel a knot in my throat and my eyes misted up. It seems I\u2019m not the only one, I can hear sobs: \u201cLook Jos\u00e9, look darling, Havana,\u201d a woman from a nearby balcony says. She says it in Spanish, with a very Cuban accent. And she continues: \u201cI really would have liked mom to be here, that she would have had the opportunity of returning before she died,\u201d I hear her cry. \u201cShe is here darling\u201d\u2026says the man, \u201cshe\u2019s waiting for you there, at the port.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was 11:00 am when my name was called. There were a great many of us, hundreds of men; of all heights, ages, colors\u2026. Only family men, students, average men, inmates. I was just a little man who barely knew what he was doing or how he got there. I had just turned 16 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":93590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[33566,7417],"class_list":["post-93405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-propositions"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Havana, ready to receive us | OnCubaNews English<\/title>\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\/propositions\/havana-ready-to-receive-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Havana, ready to receive us | OnCubaNews English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was 11:00 am when my name was called. 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