Rebeca Monzo, Translator: BW
Yesterday afternoon we were going in our old Lada (Russian car) by road
to a house of a friend who had invited us for dinner. Since she lives
in a beautiful building on 9th Street, very close to the Malecón on a
very high floor and they had announced the fireworks that they were
going to launch from the Flotilla of Liberty, I thought it would be very
convenient; from this height we could watch them in all their promised
splendor.
All day it stayed grey and rainy, with the arrival of the Northern cold
front, and it didn't improve in the afternoon. When we were arriving at
the area where she lives, we could see many more police than usual. I
supposed that it was due to the predictions that a great many people
would be gathering at the Malecón.
Very experienced in these practices of repressing and counteracting any
type of spontaneous demonstration, the authorities had taken methods to
avoid any trace of them.
In practically all the parks and open areas of Vedado, the spaces were
covered with tents, where they offered edibles and music. But what most
captured my attention was to see the group of X Alfonso, whose concert
was first planned to take place on the Streets 23rd and G, putting up
the platform and the equipment for it, exactly on the corner of 9th
Street and the Avenue of the Presidents, or G Street, as it is popularly
known, precisely where one can find the Maternity Hospital of Línea. In
my mind I couldn't conceive, how is it a concert would be permitted,
with the well-known speakers making so much racket, in a place where
there should be silence, where woman are hospitalized just about to give
birth, and there are recently born children, who mostly need silence and
rest.
I could observe the proximity of the Havana Malecón, covered by people,
that in any given moment, if the circumstances require, they could be
easily be used as an outraged public, to repress any citizen demonstration.
We left the house of our friend before 10 at night, the time the concert
was said to start. I never knew if finally the fireworks could be seen.
The night stayed very rainy and my friend told me, today, that from
her window she could see observe the small crowd that went to the
concert. What she says baffled her a bit, was to see the nurses
approaching the makeshift podium and after a while returning to the
hospital. It really ended, as I could say, being really disconcerting.
Translated by: BW
December 10 2011
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