From the window of the room where I am, I look at the beautiful Sunrise and cold in Glasgow. The heat comes a few hours later, with the first rays of Sun and the laughter of children who enjoy the recess, in the courtyard of a school very near to my building.
I look to the streets through other window of the apartment; I see parked several modern cars, buildings of elegant architecture, and a park with trees and leaves with the colours of autumn. A man walking his dog, a group of students from different countries performed their morning race; a woman with her children are targeting their building. I imagine a street of Havana in the middle of this scene. A couple of unpainted buildings, people greeting on the street in a loud voice while going to buy bread, or the chicken they are given by the ration card; street vendors shouting their cries and my neighbors and I, in the corner, discussing about politics and football. It would be fun, interesting, mixing these two realities for a moment.
In the middle of this great city, with a blend of modernity and tradition, excellent and much technology at the fingertips, it seems incredible that I and my people can be happy there, in Havana, in my neighborhood in “Cerro, where so many things are missing. Just find it hard to believe that without the Sun of our island the people of Scotland can live and be happy. But it happens. The Scots laugh much, as we there. Love the arts and sports. They have solidarity with strangers and are interested in knowing about their lives. I do not understand how a you Scots and a Cuban can be so similar, when they say the social scientists that climate is everything and ours are so different.
Discover life outside Cuba begins to be for me as bite the forbidden fruit, the awakening to a new inner world. I will continue being me, but at the same time I will change and there will be no return back.
The doorbell rings, is the postman. I’m surprised, I thought that in this age of internet they had disappeared. I almost run to the door but I can’t see him because he slides the envelope through the hole in the door and immediately leaves. I would have liked to see his face, even if it was only an exchange of glances without words, just wanted to see the face of a Scottish, of those who get up well early in the morning, facing to the cold and rain, to make this land a great country.
Hugo Rivalta. Glasgow. October 29
