I could say that I woke up Saturday morning and... I went to the backyard to breathe my freedom surrounded by nature, the cat did me mischief (he always scares me) because he has a very particular way of loving. I stopped to look at the trees, the leaves of the trees, specifically, and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of them.
There was a squirrel in the mango tree.
No, wait. It's not a squirrel.
It's Yin.
This could have taken him to Caturday, but what about the dramaturgy for this post? You'll understand that I couldn't part with such a relic.
So far I think it's a nice awakening.
Yes, it was. Then I went to make coffee, I start to cook some lentils, called my mother, read a few posts on Hive (so many I lost count), and I think I spent most of the day in virtual travels and musings, why?
Could it be that my life is boring and I need action, to get out of these four walls and travel?
So let's talk about travel
Okay. I haven't forgotten the pictures of the leaves, but everything will come in time.
It turns out that I was very little, I was in elementary school, and had not passed the 4th grade, when we went to a pioneer´s camp that was in Varadero. Exactly, Varadero, the beautiful beach that everyone mentions in Cuba, the most famous one. At that time there were two pioneer´s camps, that one, and another one in Tarará, a destination closer to Havana.
However, this is irrelevant because what did I know about travel, about places? Nothing.
That experience would be great for two reasons: because I was going without my family, with the boys and girls of my class, and the teacher, and because I think I had never left Artemisa, the town where I lived with my grandparents and aunts, on my mother's side.
Sincerely, what I am going to tell here are some memories a little unconnected, but they are there in my head, maybe because they marked me a lot, but I was so small that it will be difficult to bring them in a coherent way.
Maybe this leaf is like the map that I will try to follow.
The smells
I still remember the smells of the treats the teachers gave us there in the mornings, at snack time. Those scents come to me sometimes, as if they were ghosts. They visit me, I could say, and then they leave, leaving me with a very pleasant feeling of well-being.
There were sweets of all kinds, masarreales (I don't know how to say this in English, sorry), marquesitas (I don't know how can I say this either), sugary sticks, chocolates, ice cream, cakes, lots of them. I think it was a lot of sugar for a child.
The spaces
We didn't just go on vacation. We continued to receive our classes as normal. But the school was different from mine. It did not have the same smell (again the smells).
Yes, because in Artemisa the school had only one floor or level and because it was near a coffee roastery where coffee was produced, the smell was very intense and besides, there was smoke coming out of there and coffee shavings that I always found in my head. However, in the José Martí camp in Varadero, the school had several floors. Many stairs to go up and down, wide and sunny terraces, and there we went out to play and to receive our mid-morning snack.
I don't remember the inside of the hostels. I have made a thousand efforts and I can't get anything. I am impressed how some parts remain in my memory and others are completely erased.
Colors
Blue. Lots of sea, blue sky, blue saltpeter, well, it's not that color, pero ya que estamos... ;)
We had collateral activities to the classes and one of the ones that struck me the most was when they took us to the beach. There was a lot of waves and we could not get into de water, but we saw the children who were so white, had no hair and were smiling a lot, because, to tell you the truth, they were speaking a strange language and we couldn´t understand.
They were there also receiving medical treatment. I asked the teacher and she told me that they had been victims of an explosion. Eventually, I learned that they were a group of children from Chernobyl. The sea was very good for them, I know, because being blue it is magical.
I remember there were a lot of snails in the sand. And one of them gave me one. I took it in my hand and ran away.
It turns out that a lot of years went by and when I studied at the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Training Center, a classmate of mine, Abel, wrote a story entitled "Yodo", and it was about those children in the sea. Abel and I also had in common that he was born - like me - in the former USSR. It is a curious thing that he wrote that, because I never told him about my memory of the José Martí camp.
He may have gone there too, met the Chernobyl children and was shocked.
Life is so beautiful and at the same time so mysterious. So many connections are made, of all kinds. Look at these leaves.
I have taken the photo like this, with them overlapping and transparent, almost trespassable, because we are like leaves. We have so many marks on our skin, on our soul, we have veins!
I think so, this has definitely been my most significant school trip. At the University we went to another place, almost virgin, which is outside the Island (but inside it). How do you understand this? Well, it is on the Isla de la Juventud, that small extension of land that accompanies our green alligator.
It was another blue place, of blue saltpeter 😜. I made mischief and those memories are fresher to tell. One day I will surely bring them to Hive. You'll see, you'll see.
Ok, but now I want to show the missing leaves ;)
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