Letters from Cuba

Dayma Crespo Zaporta

I cannot remember when it started. In the beginning, he drank a glass or so on holidays and on special occasions. By my teenage years, he had became a full-blown alcoholic. One day he was happy, the next he was a different person: glum, threatening, and highly strung. He was sliding downwards. He was no longer my father.

It’s hard to fathom why such an educated person would fall into alcoholism. He is a mechanical engineer, highly intelligent. Before my mother divorced him, he had even built a farm on the roof of our house with ducks, pigs, and chickens.

I remember the sheer terror on my mother’s face, her cries that went unanswered. She kept silent about it to avoid a scandal in the neighbourhood. At times I wanted to hurt my father or just run away; but the idea of my mother alone at home with him stopped me from leaving. When I think back on those times, it seems like a nightmare; like a bad dream.

I used to play dolls with my sister Daymis. We would go to the park and ride our bicycles. We pretended to be teachers and propped dolls against the side of our house to explain the lesson to them. People in Havana are naturally happy, it’s in their character. Even amidst problems and chaos, people find a way to smile and live joyfully.

My parents got divorced in 2003 when I was 17. But we continued living together, all four of us in the same house. In Cuba, housing is highway robbery. A dream flat will cost you CUC 50,000 (US $50,000) or more. It’s all linked to the American embargo, which nearly destroyed Cuba. So, even though my parents got divorced in 2003, we lived together for more than a decade because we could not afford to live separately. We slept in the same room with my mother; while my father slept metres away. Most of the time my parents wouldn’t even greet each other in the house. They lived together, but far apart.

In 2014 we left that house. My mum landed a job that provided a house like a