Before leaving the country I meditated well because I am a father of a family, with children, parents and other members that make up a family environment that has been dismembered because they have been taking different directions in search of a better future.
I remember that, like all the decisions we made, we met and asked me why I was leaving the country, if I knew what awaited me, what would happen to my children and the other members of my family that I was leaving behind. I confess that, as on that occasion, my chest still tightens and my heart aches.
It is true that this process of emigrating is hard, it is an uncertainty because you face an unknown world, it is very difficult not knowing what you are going to find, if you are going to find a job or not, if you can get ahead and help your family. But, it is also true that by staying I could not solve these questions, so I took the hardest decision of my life and left the country and left my family, to try to have it later.
Some family members who did not agree asked me the reasons for leaving and I told them the following:
- The economic situation of the country is unsustainable.
- The salary does not cover the basic food needs of my family.
- There is a deterioration of services that make chaos on a social scale because everything is scarce or at such a low level of existence that it is barely enough for a small group of people.
- As a young family it is impossible for me to have access to housing because its cost exceeds my economic possibilities and, like me, many young people live in a house in which two, three or even four generations live.
- Access to a hotel with my family is unthinkable and I have to work for a year to see if I can afford to spend two days in one of these places.
- There are serious problems with energy, transportation, food, recreation.
Other elements that I told them were:
In my case I am 35 years old, I have a family to take care of and a child who is barely two years old. To make this decision I had to meditate very well on what to do, but one thing was certain: I could not stay there because I was suffocating and it broke my heart to see my children, my uncles or my elders wanting to eat a piece of meat, have a glass of milk for breakfast or satisfy a need and not being able to do it because the money is not enough for almost a week of food.
There are several problems that affect the country and that I will be able to explain in another publication, but the lack of finances, the prevailing high inflation and the growing corruption that can be seen in a part of the society is so brutal that anyone who has studied economics knows that the way we are going the solution will always be the same.
The other element is that any country that needs to develop must have investment as one of its essential points because investment generates employment, moves money, generates profits, creates infrastructure. Many times investors leave the country because the conditions imposed on them are not advantageous for them and they decide to leave.
Another fundamental aspect is that Cuba has become a country with no future for young people and there is no light in sight that can get it out of the blackout it is in because every experiment that is made leads it again and again to a dead end and unfortunately those who suffer the consequences are the ordinary citizens.
Faced with these and other realities, they had no choice but to accept my decision.
I confess that it has been a hard decision because December 19 was the second birthday of my youngest child and I could not be with him. It has been one of the saddest days of my life because I could not be with him, hold him, take a picture with him in my arms, sing him congratulations. That has been very hard, but, I was able to send them some resources so that they could have his birthday party.
Finally, according to conservative sources, in this last migratory wave more than 750,000 Cubans have left the country, mainly to the United States, but also to other regions of the planet such as South America and Europe, mainly to countries such as Uruguay, Nicaragua, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Brazil and Spain, just to mention a few.
One more element
For some people I have made the right decision, for others it has been a wrong one. Everywhere I look I see pros and cons, but I had no other way to help them financially. My parents gave me everything they humanly could, it is up to me to do the same for them. Staying in Cuba I could not achieve this because I did not have the necessary means to do so.
Unfortunately, my family joined the long list of Cuban families who have relatives outside the country and who have had to emigrate in search of better living conditions, with the express purpose of being able to help their families. This does not mean that I do not love my country, what happens is that what I had there was not the life I dreamed of nor the one I could give to my family.
Important: As I am not fluent in English I have used the translator Deepl Translate.
The photos that appear in the publication are of my property taken with my Samsun Galaxy phone.