Everyday solidarity
 
By Laidi Fernández de Juan, April 14, 2017

Source: http://oncubamagazine.com/sociedad/la-solidaridad-de-todos-los-dias/

Translator’s note: The article appearing below testifies to the Cuban people’s response to hard times. The author writes about ways they rely upon to cope with daily problems. She also recalls the adjustments they made to their lives in order to survive the “special period,” that era of deprivation following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1991. Her observations are relevant these days as, once more, Cubans are having to deal with serious economic troubles and worsening shortages.
A Reuters news story of April 28 provides some background to these developments. The article’s title is “Cuba warns of further belt tightening as Venezuelan crisis deepens.” Excerpts follow:

“Cuba plans to reduce spending further in 2018 following two years of budget cuts, the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma wrote on Friday, as a deepening crisis in socialist ally Venezuela puts the squeeze on its finances. The Caribbean island began to slash imports and reduce the use of fuel and electricity last year, sending its centrally planned economy into recession for the first time in nearly a quarter century. …

“In the wake of the 2014 crash in oil prices, Venezuela has reduced shipments of subsidized fuel to communist-run Cuba, as well as payments for Cuban professional services … Cuban President Raul Castro admitted a year ago that the country was strapped for cash, adding in December that it was having trouble paying suppliers and thanking them for their patience. The economy shrank 1 percent last year, he said, after averaging 3 percent growth the previous four years.”

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    We say this without chauvinism: we are a sensitive people like few others on the planet. This is implicit in the saying “throw us a line,” which is part of our particular code of ethics – norms that don’t appear in any manual, or in any legislation. We have been that way throughout our lives, and may that never change, even slightly. Perhaps our aboriginal peoples began the tradition as they ignited each other’s pipes, or helped one another find refuge when the conquistadors arrived. I don’t know. What’s for sure is that we consider it natural to cooperate with friends, with a neighbor, with the children on the block. And we do so as a token of our unselfishness, and also with strangers, some of them far off, a long way from our borders.
Doctors for good reason may recommend not moving a wounded person who had an accident and fell in the street. But there’s no one who beats us Cubans in lifting up and fussing over the injured person in question. Then someone in the midst of our usual uproar shouts out “a car, a car.” Perhaps the patient arrives at the hospital with a displaced cervical spine, but he is one of those who on arrival is alive.

The privileged in that sense are the old people and the children.  Although our world falls short in arranging for a society that accommodates the current (and precipitous) aging of our population (statistics show Cuba is the top country in Latin America in numbers of older adults), grandparents get priority in lines, on benches, in medical offices, and in daily routines generally. In spite of our habit of mangling the language, of deficiencies in formal education that are more every day, and of the indelicate hubbub we live with, we are a people in solidarity.

Such phrases as “Make way, sir, a grandmother is coming through,” and “Come along, grandfather, I am helping you cross the street” are heard every day. In helping out older people, we are trying to make up for shortages of materials.  The frightening public transportation system is one of them. I have seen rental cars stopping to help a very old lady get on board, and people walking along the street and, coming upon such a case, holding out their arms to help a grandfather with a walking stick get off. And there are people who come over when an elderly person needs to go up, or come down, a stairway. In general the ones who help are always on the lookout.

The children of each block belong to the block; they are part of it. We see them wandering along the street, perched up in trees, on walls, climbing over roofs, while we mothers are looking up at the sky, as if asking for help.  But it makes no difference who gave birth to that little mulatto kid with the blue tennis shoes, or where that little blond guy without a shirt comes from.   
When my children were little, there were many times when a neighbor woman told me, “Fulanito split open his eyebrow with a piece of flamboyant tree” and “Esperanza was taken to the hospital.”  Also, in our house on many occasions, we took care of wounds that happened to kids in the district, who were always plaguing the alleyways, parks, and public places.  When street brawls broke out among the boys, we adults in the locality intervened, although the guys under discussion weren’t ours. This, as it happens, is our way of taking care of ourselves.

What’s been said here is about daily routine. But the high point of Cuban generosity is reached in critical moments, and among them – this is certain – there was the so-called “special period.” A lot has been written on this subject. Writings along these lines have appeared in the theater. Whether directly or as an aside, that most painful business shows up in whatever artistic form as a demonstration of how badly we were hurt.

Beyond the famine, the chaos, the lack of gasoline and of almost everything, our unvanquished tendency to “throw each other a line” flourished. Remembrances of that era never end, because it had deep after-effects, and if what was bad about it affected us, the instances of help we received left their trace too. Many friends from other countries (from that mysterious “outside,” mostly Spanish-speaking) collaborated, sending medicines, food, soaps, and other materials like detergents for pre-schools, insecticides, tablets for purifying water, etc. Argentina and Spain headed the list of countries that helped us the most, and it’s time that our gratitude goes out to those peoples.

We ourselves did everything possible: collective stews where the neighbors contributed what they could (a garlic clove, half a squash, a bunch of chives, small amounts of salt and water — water mainly — and a great deal of imagination) and then we distributed the concoction to everyone.  We inter-changed electrical lines and converters so as to take in energy according to the macabre scheduling of blackouts for each zone. That was so the August heat might not asphyxiate us. People moved from one block to another, massively, taking advantage of the period of electricity for each barrio; luckily it was alternating current. We distributed the little milk and scarce meat we obtained, so that the smallest children would be fed.

Everything was shared with everyone, from soap enclosed in henequen mesh, a plate of “lucky rice” (rice with bits of meat), and even a salbutamol spray [for asthma]. People giving birth in this dark period never will forget the help of neighbors, colleagues, and friends who came to the house bringing a small something as a gift for the newborn. I speak from my personal experience: half a piece of soap, five chiffon strips for wiping yourself, a used baby bottle, surviving nipples, half-rusted needles, faded little housecoats, mended tiny shoes. Everything was given – and received – with expressions of endless love.  Always we are grateful for the solidarity characteristics of this people. But in the hard, unforgettable, and most brutal years, we shined.    

It will be bad for a Cuban woman to say this. But it’s the truth: we who are born on this island under such a bright sun are by nature generous. No matter where they live, or how, a Cuban hand is always extended. Although it may be for just a time, it draws the curtain over hopelessness.

Translated by Tom Whitney

La solidaridad de todos los días
Laidi Fernández de Juan, 9 abril 2017

Somos, sin chovinismo, un pueblo sensitivo como pocos en el  planeta. En nuestro particular código de ética –esas normas que no aparecen en ningún manual ni en legislatura alguna– está implícito lo que se dice “tirarnos un cabo”. Así hemos sido toda la vida, y ojalá que al menos en eso no cambiemos nunca. Quizás nuestros aborígenes empezaron la tradición encendiéndose pipas unos a otros, o ayudándose a encontrar refugio cuando llegaron los conquistadores, no sé. Lo cierto es que consideramos natural cooperar con amigos, con el vecindario, con los niños de la cuadra y, como muestra de nuestro altruismo, también con desconocidos, incluso fuera, bien lejos de nuestras fronteras.
Si bien los médicos sugieren no movilizar un herido, un accidentado, a alguien que se ha caído en la vía, a los cubanos no hay quien nos gane levantando, traqueteando al lastimado en cuestión, en medio de nuestra algarabía habitual que incluye gritos de “!Un carro, un carro!” Tal vez el paciente llega al hospital con la columna cervical desplazada, pero de que llega vivo, llega vivo.
Los privilegiados en ese sentido son los ancianos y los niños. Aunque nos falte un mundo para llegar a ser una sociedad condicionada al actual (y galopante) envejecimiento poblacional (las estadísticas muestran a Cuba como el primer país de Latinoamérica en prevalencia de adultos mayores), en las colas, en los bancos, en las consultas médicas, y en general en la rutina diaria, se les ofrece prioridad a los abuelos. A pesar de nuestro hábito de estropear el idioma, de las faltas de educación formal que cada día progresan más, y del bullicio indelicado en el que vivimos, somos solidarios.
“Abran paso, caballero, que va  a pasar una abuelita”, y “Venga, abuelo, yo lo ayudo a cruzar la calle” son frases que se escuchan todos los días. Intentamos paliar las carencias materiales, entre las que se incluye el espantoso transporte público, cooperando con las personas mayores. He visto carros de alquiler que se detienen para ayudar a montar a una señora muy mayor, a gente que camina por la calle y, llegado el caso, tiende los brazos para que descienda el abuelo con bastones, las personas se aproximan cuando un miembro de la tercera edad necesita subir o bajar una escalera, y en sentido general, el auxilio siempre acecha.
Los niños de cada cuadra son de ella, de la cuadra. Los vemos mataperreando en plena calle, encaramándose en árboles, en muros, trepando por las azoteas, mientras las madres miramos al cielo como pidiendo ayuda, sin importar quién parió al mulatico de los tenis azules, ni de quién es el rubito sin camisa.
Cuando mis hijos eran pequeños, fueron muchas las veces en las que una vecina me avisó “Fulanito se partió una ceja con un gajo del flamboyán, y Esperanceja se lo llevó al hospital”, y también en muchas ocasiones en mi casa curábamos las heridas que los muchachos del barrio se hacían, siempre jeringando en pasillos, parques y zonas comunes. Cuando se arman reyertas callejeras entre niños, los adultos de la zona intercedemos, aunque no sean nuestros los muchachos que discuten. Es, en fin, nuestra manera de cuidarnos.
Lo dicho hasta ahora pertenece a la rutina. Sin embargo, el punto más alto de la generosidad cubana se alcanza en momentos críticos, y entre ellos, claro está, estuvo el llamado Período Especial. Mucho se ha escrito sobre el tema, se han llevado al teatro textos al respecto; de forma directa o colateral, ese dolorosísimo asunto aparece, bajo cualquier formato artístico, como muestra de cuánto nos lastimó.
Además de la hambruna, del desconcierto, de la carencia de combustible y de casi todo, floreció nuestra imbatible tendencia a “tirarnos un cabo”. Las memorias de aquella época no terminan nunca, porque honda es su secuela, y si lo malo nos marcó, también las ayudas que recibimos, dejan su huella. Muchos amigos de otros países (de ese misterioso “Afuera”, generalmente hispanohablante) colaboraron enviando medicinas, alimentos, jabones y artículos de aseo colectivo como detergente para Círculos Infantiles, insecticidas, pastillas para clorar el agua, etcétera. Argentina y España encabezan el listado de países que más nos ayudó, y es hora de que vaya hacia esos pueblos, nuestra gratitud.
Entre nosotros, se hizo todo lo posible: Ollas colectivas donde el vecindario aportaba lo que podía (un diente de ajo, media calabaza, un puñado de cebollinos, pizcas de sal y agua, mucha agua, y mucha, mucha imaginación) y luego nos repartíamos el mejunje entre todos; intercambios de cables y de convertidores que acumulaban energía según los macabros horarios de apagones de cada zona, para que no nos asfixiara el calor de agosto (la gente migraba de una cuadra a otra, masivamente, aprovechando el tiempo de electricidad de cada barrio, que por suerte era alternante); reparticiones de la poca leche y de la escasa vianda que se conseguía, en aras de que los niños más pequeños se alimentaran.
Se compartía todo de todo, desde un jabón hecho con henequén y un plato de arroz con suerte, hasta un spray de salbutamol. Quienes parimos en esa época tenebrosa, jamás olvidaremos la ayuda de vecinas, de colegas, de amistades que venían a casa trayendo un detalle como regalo por el recién nacido. Hablo desde mi experiencia personal: medio jaboncito, cinco culeros de gasa, un biberón usado, tetes sobrevivientes, alfileres medio oxidados, mediecitas sin elástico, baticas desteñidas, zapaticos zurcidos… todo era entregado con mil amores, y recibido de igual forma. Siempre se agradece el carácter solidario de este pueblo, pero en los años duros, inolvidables y crudísimos, nos lucimos.
Estará mal que una criolla lo diga, pero es la verdad: Los nacidos en esta isla de tan ardiente sol, somos, por naturaleza, generosos. Sin importar dónde vivan ni de qué manera, siempre una mano cubana se tiende, y aunque sea por un rato, descorre el cortinaje de la desesperanza.