Paperboys Made in Cuba

Paperboys Made in Cuba / Victor Ariel Gonzalez Celaya
Posted on November 15, 2013

Isn't it totally iconic that the four or five newspapers — no more —
that are sold in Havana are distributed by old men?

Whether it's a way to flagellate myself, make myself laugh, and even to
get a spark that sets off something I end writing about, every day I go
and buy one or two of these gray pamphlets that should contain news. I
recognize that sometimes they succeed.

And one of the things that marks this regularity is that I always buy
them from a quite old gentleman. It's not that it's always the same
seller: what I mean is that in Havana it's the old men who sell the
newspapers, and in the morning, at dawn, you can see long lines of old
men(if we add their ages these lines would be millennial) waiting at the
newsstands to buy what they then sell for a profit.

So let's compare this: if you watch a move and see a newspaper seller,
for example, in the United States. His figure is diametrically opposed
to the "dealer" here because he has, let's see, a bike, he rides through
a nice neighborhood, and he's no more than 11 or 12 years old. He's a
child who sells newspapers to Americans. He rides quickly through on his
bike, hefting canvas bag with with its umpteen pages (obviously there
the newspapers breakfast better) and then he gets lost on his bike,
zigzagging childishly between one sidewalk and the other.

Now I turn my gaze to the daily Cuban move, where I am my own hero: I'm
walking down the filthy Carlos III Avenue (and still I have a song in my
chest just being out there) until I reach a corner where waiting for me
is a gentleman who could be my grandfather, surrounding by newspapers on
the ground. I look at the old man, who must be more than seventy, and
give him a peso or two for a few printed sheets.

These veterans of whom I speak are part of an army that is our living
image. This is because the situation facing the elderly in Cuba is the
extract of Revolutionary history. There is no one more helpless, no one
from whom they've snatched more because, to me at least, I have
overabundant youth and strength, but I don't have all the freedom I
want; to them, all that remains is pure waiting while their strength and
the years of their youth are left behind, "compensated" for such a
pension so miserable that they have to walk around, with their tottering
steps and trembling hands, selling the newspaper Granma, peanuts or candy.

4 November 2013

Source: "Paperboys Made in Cuba / Victor Ariel Gonzalez Celaya |
Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/paperboys-made-in-cuba-victor-ariel-gonzalez-celaya/