My Neighborhood Belongs to Everyone

My neighborhood belongs to everyone, and also to each individual. That’s why whatever we do concerns every neighbor: the child who just wants to stay at home but escapes from his elders to play marbles or ball in the same street where cars pass without taking all the precautions. And it also belongs to the old man who practically never leaves his home and needs help that he doesn’t always get.

There, everything is “cooked,” everything is talked about, and everything is known. It belongs to those who care about keeping the building’s staircase clean, who make sure the motor is “ready, just in case water comes in today,” and to those who unload their nylon bag outside the trash bin that should always collect the neighborhood’s garbage.

My neighborhood, which means all the blocks surrounding my house, belongs to the women who, early in the morning, after preparing the children for school, head to their workplaces after the battle to “catch” transportation that will take them to their destination.

But look, the neighborhood also belongs to those who don’t let you rest, because they think they own it completely and blast their recorder or speaker with the latest reggaeton, without caring how annoying the notes of a little horn can be at the wrong hour, like in Juan Padrón’s classic film.

We could never mention them all, but in the neighborhood there’s the engineer and the ballplayer, the plumber and the nurse, the mason and the lawyer, the peanut vendor, the little bag of bread at 250 pesos, or the package of coffee someone brought from eastern Cuba or Miami, as well as those who prefer to spend their time telling stories on the curb until very late at night.

We’re all here, some since birth, others who arrived yesterday and already think they own the place, and those nobody knows, because they arrive late and leave early, but show up when least expected—perhaps on a Sunday morning at the call of the CDR president or someone else to weed or clean the street, something long forgotten in many neighborhoods.

It’s one of the main stages where shortages, blackouts, the lack of daily bread, and the almost endless line at the ATM or bank branch play out, just to mention a few battlefronts.

That neighborhood of so many struggles for the common good, of the CDR meeting or the People’s Power assembly, of the neighbor who, tired from so many chores, goes around informing others about the latest guidance from the doctor at the clinic, is one of the places that recently vibrated with the “Signature for the Homeland.”

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