Letter from Pinar del Rio. By: susanna kohly
Cuba, you are beautiful and you are desolate.
You are the most beautiful destruction I have ever seen.
A difficult paradox to accept.
You wear your heart on your sleeve and you do not hide the pride that swells from your monuments and architecture.
The faces that peek at me through your windows tell me that you are expecting someone. What are you waiting for Cuba? Who do you want me to be and what do you want me to be carrying in my arms? I only bring hope.
The colors of your decade-old walls scream revival. I hear them like a voice.
I am already out of money but I have something that is of more value than tomorrow’s dinner.
I have come to your door to give you the help you really need. I know because I need it too.
Listen to my heart because it is the only thing that will help change this country.
It is not hard for me to tell you about this hope I have because you are my brother.
And my heart hurts when yours does.
And I want you to have what I have more than anything else.
Here, take this shirt off my back so that you my see, not just hear, that what I’m saying can be trusted.
It’s ok to have hope.
The guards in green cannot take that from you. Their rifles can’t shoot that down.
This tobacco house and corn field will not speak of what you say to me here.
Cuba, you make me happy and you make me sad.
How does it feel to know that your people live in fear?
And worship gods that they do not love?
There is coming a day Cuba, that you will be restored.
I came to tell you that. And I will come back every year to say the same thing.
And tell you about the beauty that I see in you.
Do you see it too?
One day, you will be beautiful again. You will not have to hide your hope with guilt. You will be free to have hope.
And you will see goodness, and the fruit of your hope in the land of living.
We are not done with you Cuba. Our grandfathers and grandmothers that are buried in your soil have rendered us to carry you.
How great is our God.
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