Walking Cuba: El Camino del Cimarron

Night time in Potrerillo

I eat dinner at the house of the promotora and on the way back to the Casa Cultural I ask the woman accompanying me what the young people did for fun around here. She is young in my book, late twenties or early thirties.

“Nothing.” She laughs and tells me about the new club that I had seen walking in. “That’s why we’re hoping the new club in the center works. We are all bored. All the time. That’s mostly why we think of leaving. Because we’re bored.”

“Leaving town or leaving the country?” I ask.

She thinks for a moment. “Both.”

Speaking obliquely of reasons to leave Cuba makes me think of an unlikely character. I ask my host if she had ever heard of Orlando Bosch.

“I think I’ve heard the name,” she says, her face making it clear that she was searching her memory.

“He’s a terrorist,” I say. “Accused of bombing the Barbados flight of Cubana where the fencing team was killed way back in 1968. Before your time.”