Thursday, April 1, 2010

Industriales Champions!

Photo taken from havanajournal

To come up in my building you have to shout from the sidewalk.  There’s no way all the neighbors managed to install doorbells for each apartment and an intercom is a semi-utopian object barely known in Cuba. Sometimes I hear my visitors, sometimes not.

The other day a familiar voice rang out several times under my window: “Industriales Champions! Industriales Champions!”

It was a friend for whom, I know, baseball has the same importance as the theory of antimatter. When I opened the door, very surprised, I asked her, “Why are you shouting ‘Industriales Champions’?”

Her answer made me laugh, “That’s the only thing I can shout without them arresting you, so I took advantage of it.”

When I learned of Generation Y I immediately became a fan and translated some entries into French; I still remember the first one: “Posters yes, but only about baseball.” Three years have passed since that play-off Yoani spoke to us about, the posters continue, the slogans are allowed, as long as we’re talking about baseball.

Translator’s note:
Los Industriales is Havana’s baseball team, winners, yesterday, of the National Championship.

No comments: