Swimming Over the Graves of Cuban Rafters
Posted: 8/9/11 09:38 PM ET
I felt a shock on learning that Diana Nyad would make an attempt to swim
across the Florida Straits. I recalled the days in 1994, when my
neighborhood of San Leopoldo was swarming with people building
improvised rafts on which to launch themselves into the sea. I
especially remember one group that left, during that period in which the
Cuban authorities stopped preventing illegal departures. A craft armed
with pieces of wood, plastic tanks serving as floats, the image of the
Virgin of Charity, and a patched flag that no longer knew to which
nation it belonged. But the most striking thing turned out to be that on
that flimsy raft were only the elderly. There was a very black lady with
a colorful straw hat, a flowered dress and a smile, thanking in both
Spanish and English the boys who helped her to set sail. I never knew if
that rickety expedition made it to its destination, if all those seniors
disposed to start again got the opportunity.
Seventeen years later, I hear the news that an American wants to try the
same route, but this time protected by divers, a pair of kayaks and even
a medical team. Her laudable intention was to highlight the closeness
between the Island and its neighbor to the north, to help reconcile both
shores. But the Straits of Florida is also part of our national
cemetery, the graveyard where lie thousands of our compatriots. The
omission by the athlete of such an important characteristic did not
appeal to me. Nor the fact that with her nautical feat she would
highlight the twentieth anniversary of a most exclusive club, the
Hemingway Marina, where a Cuban, even today, cannot board a vessel and
may not enter -- on his own -- such a beautiful landing. I would have
preferred that the Gulf currents would be swum by someone who knew the
pain sheltered in these waters and who would dedicate their gesture to
the "unknown rafter" who died in the mouth of so many possible sharks.
When I learned, on Tuesday, that after a 29-hour effort the swimmer was
unable to achieve her objective, my superstitions were confirmed. There
are certain spaces, I thought, that need more than strokes or sports
records to seem less sad. State television said succinctly that
"insurmountable obstacles had emerged, among them winds of more than 12
miles per hour." I can imagine Diana fighting against the waves, the sun
gaining strength overheard, the intensely salty sea flowing into her
mouth. I am going to go further and fantasize about the inexplicable
detail of a straw hat, the colorful sombrero of woman who passed close
to her, making her think herself delirious in the middle of the Florida
Straits.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/diana-nyad-swimming-over-_b_922840.html
No comments:
Post a Comment