Forbidden Voices

We went to the car wash today and happened to talk to a Cuban lady. She is my husband’s acquaintance then. She worked there as a cashier and her Mom was with her at the cash register. My husband was so curious about the politics in Cuba. He asked her Mom if she liked Fidel Castro, she just shakes her head. Then he asked her if she liked Bush- still the same answer, no. Finally, he asked her if she liked it here in the US better; she said not. She missed her hometown. She missed talking to the neighbors at the end of the day. It is some sort of social thing to them, she continued. I was so surprised because that was my Mom’s complain when she stayed here for over a month. She keeps complaining it’s so boring and lonely here. She can’t see any neighbor hanging around at night time. It’s pretty odd for her to go outside the house and see only cars passing by or maybe some people walking their dogs.

Things are very different from way back home. You will see a lot of bystanders hanging around alongside the roads. When I was a kid, I remembered how the neighbors gathered together in the streets as early as 5AM asking what the result of the lotto was. I remembered how my Aunt was so pissed at my Uncle because he was just scratching his rooster very early in the morning. Things are very slow way back there. There’s not much opportunity that people had nothing to do all day but wait. It’s even confusing to me at a young age, why people had nothing to do but just lurking, talking and dishing the dirt against their friends or whoever is absent in the group. It’s a very sad scenario where some mothers will just sit in there nursing the baby because they don’t want to miss the gossips, hahaha!

Anyway, I could go on and on with all my quetches but it’s not gonna change anything. Who knows, a good guy capable of being a President will soon rise and be a leader who will be of great service to the Filipino nation. I don’t know, it’s pretty hopeless though.