When you turn off of Calle 23, the main road into the suburbs from Havana, the landscape instantly changes. Gone are the tall, beautiful buildings and statues of famous Cuban revolutionaries; in their place are crumbling streets, wide puddles from the most recent storm and tiny homes. This is Marianao, a southwestern suburb of Havana.
This is also the home of Yaliuska Lopez Vergara, her husband, Alejandro Rodriguez, and their 6-year-old son, Brian. Alejandro operates a tattoo shop in the evenings while Yaliuska’s father is a barber during the day. They use the same torn, broken barbershop chair to do both jobs.
Alejandro graduated from an art school in his home province of Las Tunas in eastern Cuba, but couldn’t break even as an artist because supplies were so expensive. He found the art of tattooing, and despite its continuing illegality in the country, he has built a business and a home for his family.
He says tattooing used to be much more taboo than it is now. Through expanding access to the Internet and American pop culture, more and more Cubans are willing to pay for tattoos. Even though they are still illegal, Alejandro says it’s not as risky to operate a parlor anymore. Times are changing. It’s good.
But Brian has an immunodeficiency disease. He is also in remission from cancer: Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Yaliuska says that if we had come just a few months earlier, he would still have been bald from the long chemotherapy. So far, doctors say his prognosis is good. She tears up just talking about it and pats his head.
There’s this feeling we get as journalists that I like to call the tingle. It’s that feeling when you know there’s a story here that deserves to be shared, and you just have to do something about it. So I start asking about the embargo, or the blockade as they call it here. I ask how it’s affected their access to medication or food for Brian, who is lactose intolerant and also suffering from chemo’s side effects. To my surprise, they agree to tell me everything.
Soon, it’s late at night. They call a friend to drive us home in his taxi so we don’t have to walk through the city in the dark. They don’t let us leave until they have hugged and kissed all five of us. Brian gives me a fist-bump and asks in Spanish when we are coming back. I tell him I will call and let him know.
A few days later, we return with a video camera. I ask only four questions, but Yaliuska speaks for more than 25 minutes. Brian shows us his room, where Alejandro has painted a mural of Buzz Lightyear in the night sky with stars that glow in the dark. He has an entire duffel bag of stuffed animals that have been donated by churches and other support organizations during his illness.
We also meet Brian’s grandmother. She has an entire room of the house dedicated to a unique Cuban religion, a blend of African and Cuban culture called Santeria. The altars are adorned with paintings by Alejandro, which he has done although he does not believe in it. It gets late and we don’t have time to get everything we need, so they call their friend again to take us home. This time, they give us two mangoes and insist we take them. Yaliuska says the Cuban always gives, even when the Cuban has nothing.
Last night, we returned again, likely for the last time. It can be an expensive taxi and we’re almost done reporting. Hopefully next week we can find a time to say goodbye — I am acutely aware that it would be so easy for me to leave, forget about them, and never come back. They have us write down our names and American phone numbers and I get a friend request later that night when I go online.
This time, we talk with Alejandro and Yaliuska for 45 minutes. They have proved to us over and over again that the Cuban is resilient, adaptable and strong. You can read their story here, in our magazine. I am still so surprised and humbled that they allowed us to film in their home and to film Brian. I am grateful for the insights they shared with us about how the embargo affects their lives — while being here, we have realized that there is so much that Americans just don’t know about what happens here.
When we first came here, our professor told us that our most meaningful experiences would be when we found a random Cuban who would open their life to us, and we actually did that. It was completely an accident, totally random, but it changed my perspective on this country and the reporting I have done here.
When we left last night, their friend wasn’t available to take us home. They walked us four blocks to the nearest big road to catch another taxi. They waited, flagged the guy down, and negotiated the rate down to a third of what we usually paid. We got more hugs and kisses; they helped us into the cab and waved as we drove away.
As we enter the last week of the trip, I’m definitely more reflective than I was at the beginning. While I know Cubans lack a lot of the rights given freely to Americans, if Brian had been sick in the United States, his family would have gone bankrupt trying to save him. His chemotherapy and his treatment for his immunodeficiency have been nearly completely free. He may require medication for the rest of his life but it will be at no cost. Yaliuska and Alejandro are grateful for that and they made that very clear.
Journalists don’t normally write this way. But, because I’m writing an article that incorporates their story, I felt like I had to immortalize my experience with their family in the first-person because that perspective wouldn’t be included in the piece.
Our deadlines for the Global Reporting course are all May 31 or June 1, so they are rapidly approaching. Then it’s just a few more days until I’m back home. It’s crazy to think about how fast this trip has gone and that I’m almost done. I’m looking forward to turning in my projects and then spending the weekend in Matanzas and Varadero, our last excursion out of Havana. I hope it’s a good last week.
