Cuba Is the Country They Won’t Let Me Live In
HAVANA TIMES — The imposed silence, resignation disguised as virtue, and the constant feeling of living a life that others chose for me are more exhausting than the blackouts, the inadequate salary, or the endless lines.
I’m not the kind of person who needs a manual to express herself. This is not theory—it is the reality I breathe on this island where I live. I speak from my modest home, with its small shop where I sell fish to survive; from the daily concern for my daughter’s health and future; from the exhaustion that comes from lowering my voice, measuring my words, and calculating the consequences.
Every day I become more certain that I do not want to keep living in a country where everything is decided in advance, and daring to question it is treated as a criminal act.
I deserve to live in a place where choosing is not a privilege reserved for a few, where the rules of the game are not written by an untouchable elite, where different visions for the country can confront one another through arguments and votes, not slogans and fear.
I do not care if someone believes in a specific model. If they think it is perfect, let them defend it—but do not impose it as an eternal and unquestionable dogma.
I want a country where filing a complaint is not synonymous with asking for trouble, and where demanding what is rightfully yours does not lead to interrogations, veiled threats, or punishments disguised as something else. There are people who prefer to stay silent and endure. That is their right. But that silence should not be mandatory or held up as an example. I need to speak without feeling that I am putting my family at risk.
I long for a country where education is not a one-size-fits-all mold, and where children are taught to think, create, make mistakes without fear, work, and choose their own path. A country of free people with independent judgment, capable of saying “yes” or “no” without becoming suspects because of it. I am tired of cardboard heroes and human statues repeating the same arguments.
It is only fair that everyone has the right to revere whomever they wish, including figures from the past, because clinging to a myth is a personal choice. But no one should force me to share that devotion or pretend to respect ideas that I do not feel are my own.
I often imagine a country where forming associations is natural and not a subversive act; where it is not necessary to receive the blessing of those in power to create a project, a movement, or a political party; where no one has to finance, obey, or applaud what they do not believe in simply to avoid problems.
A country where paying for a service means receiving it with dignity; where hardship is not sold as heroism and sacrifice is not the only possible narrative; where work is worthwhile, prosperity is not a dirty word, and entrepreneurship does not make you an enemy.
I dream—because dreaming is still possible—of clear laws, judges who do not look “upward” before issuing a ruling, leaders who are truly accountable, a police force that protects citizens, a press that questions, challenges, and scrutinizes instead of merely repeating, a country where there is no need to escape.
I am not interested in what that system is called. Perhaps it has many names, or none at all. I have never cared much for labels. What matters to me is a life that allows for everyday dignity and the possibility of existing without fear.
Read more from the diary of Fabiana del Valle aquí en Havana Times.
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