Matanzas/“When I was young I gave me a good life, maybe that’s why I got to the point of having where to live.” José Luis, former worker of the Marina Gaviota in Varadero and today vagabond in the city of Matanzas, is sincere with 14ymedio. The alcohol pushed him to make erroneous decisions and, without realizing it, one day was dirty, without money or anyone to resort. “At that time I felt desperate, but little by little ideas arose in my head and got to work.”
The man speaks while displaying on a table some pieces of recycled paper. With medium -spent medium colored pens recreates the scene of young people sitting in a bar. Drawing, a hobby that previously cultivated, is now his way of life. “I am not good to ask for money as well as if nothing. If someone helps me, I think that in this way I can give back their gesture. No one is to blame that my decisions have taken me to this point.”
José Luis’s routine is uncertain. Sometimes he sleeps at a friend’s house, sometimes in the Cathedral Park or in any corner where the night surprises him. “The important thing is to eat something without having to ask for alms and, well, also to take a drink from time to time. You have to enjoy what you like in life, if not, it is not life,” he sentences while the drawing ends. With the paper still fresh approaches the youth portrayed and gives it to it. If you are lucky, they leave 50 or 100 pesos in return.
/ 14ymedio
Also in Vive Urbano street, known as The tank. Camagüeyano of origin and Matancero by adoption, sells songs to whom you want to buy them. “Two for twenty pesos to delight those who know in good music,” he announces with a poster hanging on his shoulder.
“I live with my aunt here, years ago. My family is from Camagüey and they want me to go there again, but not even dead,” he says with the conviction of who made the decision a long time ago. “Here people love me. Today, for example, I sang at Faustino Pérez hospital; people applauded me a lot and I like that. They gave me money and food,” he says, stroking a jaba with his few belongings.
He has never had problems with the police or anyone for singing, he assures this newspaper. “I have even gone to the Navy and the handsome There they don’t want me to go. They always give me money and tell me to look for them if I have any problem, that they solve it. “Urban knows that the situation” is hard “, but insists not stealing or asking for alms.” I do something that I like, I help my aunt and I do not walk in bad things, “he concludes with my eyes wide open, like who defends his own piece of dignity.
Both José Luis and the tank are part of that growing group of Cubans that survive aside, before a state unable to solve the serious crisis that the country is going through. But if there are Cubans who suffer institutional neglect, they are those that suffer from psychiatric disorders. One of them is Yoel, diagnosed with schizophrenia and resident in a small room in the navy. In spite of everything, every day he goes out with his notebooks full of notes in English and German, ready to “hunt” tourists.
“Here everyone is very busy. Only foreigners have time”
“I worked for a private library for a long time carrying books throughout the city, but I went into crisis and I could not continue,” he explains. Now his brother helps him in what he can and he is dedicated to looking for foreigners to talk with. “Especially in German. They almost always give me money,” he says shyly.
When asked if he asks for money, his expression changes: “I just want to practice the language. What I ask is a book. If they give me a coffee or money I accept it, but I am not a Jinetero. The problem is that I don’t have to talk to and here everyone is very busy. Only foreigners have time. ”
A few days ago, a couple from Canadians invited him to eat and talked for a long time in English. “Too bad that Germans no longer come for Matanzas. I have not had books in that language for a long time. I will have to learn Russian or Chinese,” he jokes while he moves away with his notebooks under his arm.
Perhaps the cartoons of José Luis never reach the galleries, nor urban a song contest, nor Yoel talk again in the language of Goethe with a German visitor. But they have found their own ways to survive, in the midst of a country that sinks more and more in the crisis, without sight solutions.
