Mea Culpa y Gracias

I had planned on penning a nice long post to publish on the fifth anniversary of this blog, but circumstances at home, coupled with a bit of an emergency and other issues, prevented me from having enough time to sit down and wrap the right words around the emotions and event.

From day one, this blog wasn't meant to be about politics - Cuban or American. Sure, I wanted to get some truths about the situation in Cuba out there and possibly help clear up many misconceptions, but truth be told, Babalu became a reality so that my nieces and nephews -and perhaps your nieces and nephews- that were born here and have grown up here in the States, would have a place to hold on to their cubanidad. A place to not only read stories of their Cuban family, but maybe get Cuban history lesson or maybe learn a Cubanism or two, and maybe help them to understand themselves and their family and its values and mores just a little better.

Of course, it is impossible to speak, discuss or write about Cuba without having politics get in the way. They will always be there no matter how hard we try to ignore them and circumvent them. That's just the nature of the beast of the Cuban topic.

And I don't know how it happened, but this humble blog of humble origins grew, it seems, almost exponentially form one day to the next. One minute I was thanking one or two people for commenting on the postings in the blog and the next I was sitting mouth agape reading emails from Cubans in exile all over the world, from Bulgaria to Iceland, from Australia to Arizona...everywhere. The most common theme of those emails being a thank you for giving those folks a little dose of Cuba, helping them conjure up memories of baseball games with their grandfathers and their Abuela's mantecado. To be honest, I'm still pretty amazed at the reach and reactions to the blog throughout the years.

I'm incredibly proud of this endeavor. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the extents the words posted herein would go to. And I could not have imagined that the blog would have had an impact on lives, such as those we've had like helping garner donations for war veterans through the Spirit of America Campaign, or being one of the top twenty blogs in donations -that's top twenty out of millions of blogs- during the Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort. Or the small things like helping a family that had just had a couple of devastating losses be able to enjoy a Noche Buena with a new Caja China, or helping a man married to a Cuban woman get enough money to try to bring her to the shores of freedom, or the time we helped an ailing father here in Miami after being contacted by a daughter that lived too far away, or putting people together that hadn't seen each other in decades. We have had countless drives for donations for one worthy cause or another, people from all over the world have stepped up and offered to help many a time in one way or another. We have helped get the word out on the struggle and strife of Cuba's political and ideological prisoners and we have maybe opened some eyes or four.

It is an incredibly beautiful thing to witness first hand human nature at its best.

Of course, it hasn't always been good times through the years. The unfortunate truth of the subjects we cover are both frustrating and enraging, and it really does feel sometimes like we are battling windmills. Not to mention the detractors and the pretenders we've had. I suppose that goes with the turf, but it's pretty disheartening when your intentions are good to be called a fascist, an evil bastard, a homophobe, a heartless so and so, an intransigent, antiquated extremist terrorist, etc...the list is pretty much endless. I have heard it all and been threatened almost on a weekly basis. And on more occasions than I care to remember have I found dead chickens and coconuts in my front lawn, placed there by folks who either benefit from the bondage of the Cuban people or have some kind of misplaced envy not of me, but of the success of the blog, or, maybe even simply because they disagreed with one statement made in one post or another.

We've had our fair share of pretenders as well, from people that disagree with the travel restrictions policy that we for the most part support because they cant go see their ailing grandmothers only to later find pictures on the net of them in Cuba having a blast with jineteras and exploiting their own. There are other pretenders as well, mostly all of them have come here with ulterior motives or simply wanting to either discredit the work done here or just to stir up the shit. And of course there are other detractors that are detractors simply because, well, they're assholes.

But detractors and the negatives aside, we have always published here what we have believed to be right, and while sometimes our opinions may be open for criticism, the archives of this blog speak for themselves. Each word in each post on each day of each week in each month of each year is here on the net in perpetuity for all to read and gauge and opine for themselves. I, personally, really have no regrets with regards to the work we've done on this blog. None whatsoever. There are five years of honesty in those archives. Nothing more and nothing less.

But I digress. Let me tell you what I am most thankful for these past five years:

It isn't that I've been on TV or that Ive been on the radio or that Ive been interviewed by the MSM or, even, that I've been afforded and invite to the White House. While, yeah, those things are pretty cool and I'll never forget them, the best part of this whole blogging thing is bigger and better than all that.

Thanks to this humble blog called Babalu I have met some incredible people. Men and women who are like family to me. Unbelievably good human beings that have not only become a part of me, but who have enriched my life. Folks that have honored me with their love and friendship and privileged me because they have found it worthwhile to know me and I them. That, folks, makes every letter, every word, every sentence, ever paragraph in every post written and published here in every day of every week of every month of every year absolutely fucking beautiful.

There are way too many people to list here, and, not only am I grateful, but I am a better human being because of each and every one of you.

Thank you.

Posted by Val Prieto at June 30, 2008 11:22 AM

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