coming home | klance

1. youth

Cuba may be one of the most crowded places for holidays, especially all the resorts on Varadero, but Emanuela Ramirez doesn't think about this place in any kind of superlatives. Life in a traditional community is tiring, particularly if you look at the fact that the girl is only seventeen years old and has many plans for her own life.

It's one year left and she'll finish high school, after which her biggest dream is to go to college and continue on educating herself. But nothing is that simple, not here in Cuba and the reason behind it it's pretty simple, yet also dumb and pointless. Emanuela is a woman and in order to the tradition she should stay at home and look after her children, definitely not think about any kind of education.

All women fight for this life and Emanuela doesn't understand why it's happening. They don't have to care about money, okay, but the girl looks at her mother every day and she knows that working at home is not as simple and easy as people like to describe it. It's hard to get even a minute of proper rest, especially when you have to maintain four kids.

Emanuela is the oldest child and she's been looking for a job for a few months now, even though her mother keeps saying that it's not necessary at all. The girl, however, can't stand preying on María — a woman who gave her everything she could've ever dreamt of.

At school Emanuela has only one familiar soul, who's Diego, a boy from one class above her. One year earlier she completely didn't care about being in a relationship, but now everything's different. Every person in her family likes her friend and they even may be planning a secret marriage for them. Emanuela thinks about that too, but only sometimes, in the middle of the night and she will never ever admit it, even if it was completely obvious.

Emanuela knows she can't put her own plans above her family's well being. Recently, nothing goes as it should be. Her dad, Enrique spends only more and more time in the casino and Emanuela's the only child who knows what he's really doing there. She understands the man is done with everything, if she was him she would more likely break down long ago. But, as much as she tries to, she can't get why he leaves her mother with all the stuff, completely alone. The woman lacks support, husband's helping hand, because she's ashamed of asking her daughter for help.

The girl is barely at home now. She works at nights as a waitress at the bar near the hotel that's always crowded with many foreigners. She talks to them with bad, stuttering English she learnt mostly by listening to tourists from the United States.

But still, men are disgusting and only Diego standing behind the bar's counter saves her from absolutely losing her mind. The boy reminds her why they're actually here. They both have messed up houses and the atmosphere in them is not the best and that's the main reason why they get along so well. Diego's father is an alcoholic, but nobody really minds as he is the householder and deserves something from his life. The way he achieves said 'something' it's up to him and him only, so nobody has the right to judge him. Mother raises five kids, but she can't deal with it all alone now. Diego and his older brother, Santiago, do everything they can to lead the family to the better life they all deserve. Neither of them ever thought about about further education, they just knew they couldn't be distracted from what they had to do. They're relatives, even their father, were more important than some stupid papers o diplomas.

Emanuela tries her best, but deep in her heart she wants to get out of here. She dreams about being like these young American ladies: free, unlimited with some stupid tradition which was making her value even less valuable, if it is even possible.

She can write a book about how much life in Cuba can suck ass. She hates generalizing, but it cannot be avoided in this case: adult men in this country shouldn't have the right to call themselves 'citizens' or not even 'people'. They reduce women's presence to some sort of 'thing' at worst or their personal servants at best. Yelling at them in the streets or treating them as their own property are on a daily basis, but no woman has enough courage to oppose this state of affairs.