September 19, 2008
Uterus on Strike
She was going to be called Gea and she would come to relieve Teo of the burden of being the only child in the house. With her I might once again have prepared pureed malanga, boiled bottles in the night and washed loads of diapers. But thinking better of it, Gea remained the desire of another child that I did not have. I looked ahead twenty years, with the same housing problems of today and with two married children who would bring their spouses to live in our apartment. At first, with the three marriages, we would try to maintain harmony, but the fights would inevitably come.
Our house would be like so many, where several generations live and a suppressed battle takes place every day. The refrigerator would be divided into three zones and the couples would make love quietly, faced with the proximity of the other beds. The grandchildren would come to share the bedroom with the grandparents—in this case my husband and me—and make them feel like they were already a nuisance to the young people. The children would spend a good part of the time in the corridor or in the street, because of the little space available at home. They would become teenagers and look for partners, new potential occupants for the house already bursting at the seams.
If, before the hurricanes Gustav and Ike, my generation and that of Teo had to wait forty years or more to have a house, now the period has surpassed the span of a human life. Together with the roofing tiles and the windows that the winds took, they also sent flying our dreams of having our own roof. Where there are no resources to replace what the victims had and lost, how long will the wait be for those who had nothing.
Without sentimentality Gea has vanished totally from my life, now I know that we will have no space for her.
This was originally written and published in Spanish by Yoani Sanchez and translated and posted in her English version blog. Since the castro regime continues to curtail her internet access and continues to block access to her blog and other internet sites in and out of Cuba, we are posting Yoani's work in its entirety in solidarity and to help promote and distribute same.
Posted by Val Prieto at September 19, 2008 06:48 AM
Comments
A moving post. Yoani really puts things in perspective, always. Who knows what Gea and the millions of Cubans who were never born because of the regime might have accomplished. I can certainly relate to Teo, since I too am an only child because of the same reason.
Posted by: Gusano ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 19, 2008 11:09 AM
It's true that nobody has put out the issue as Yoani did. Welcome to the generation of "las mujeres nuevas". Thanks to that, I --and my three cousins-sisters-- am what today's considered a late bloomer.
My son was born after ten years of marriage because I always said that as long as I had the sligthlest chance to leave Cuba, I will never bear a child there. And I didn't. Actually, I was SO ready to go through my marreid life without children that now that I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes.
I've always said back then that, to have more hambre, miseria y desolacion (in all senses) with MDH and I would be more than enough. There was absolutely no need to bring another innocent to this world to live, hopelessly, throught the same failure.
It's been seven years and MDS is going to be two and I still thank God every single morning for allowing me to be free; and for giving me the gift of being a mother.
Posted by: Cubanita in Colorado at September 19, 2008 05:16 PM