End of the Course

I know it sounds trite but when I started my blog I never imagined I would meet such wonderful people. I don’t remember the first time I went to Yoani Sanchez’s house, but I could never forget the four months of the Blogger Academy, I despair because the courts starts again, I plan to attend and listen at the next one. The classes of the lawyer Vallín, the conferences of Dagoberto Valdes, Cuban Culture from Miriam Celaya, Journalism from Reinaldo Escobar, in short, the space for interchange that Yoani Sanchez has created has marked me for life.

I know everything passes, the Cuba I was born in will be a different country, the people will be able to express themselves freely and these fifty years of secrecy will be studied in school like we study the Middle Ages today. Maybe the friends of my grandchildren will be board when I sound like a tape recorder, repeating the stories that today have defined my path through life, when I tell them there was only one president, only one party, only one news source… However, I will determinedly repeat the anecdotes of that fourteenth floor where for the first time I saw people be free, where for the first time I spoke without fear, where undoubtedly I felt the enormous joy of expressing myself without being judged.

I will show my diploma and it will make me happy that they will think I am crazy, that they don’t remember, that they aren’t afraid, that they don’t carry in their genes the memory of the time when thinking was a crime.