Trying to Shake My Fear
HAVANA TIMES – Almost every Thursday I take the opportunity to do the week’s grocery shopping. Often, it’s a major shopping trip, but sometimes I’m just picking up a few extras—a product that ran out or something needed for a social gathering.
Sometimes I organize myself to get all my chores done early so I can spend the rest of the day relaxing, since it’s my only day off during the week. I wash my work uniform, take my daughter to school, and stop by work to take care of a few details.
Then I go to the supermarket and do the shopping. I usually carry a large backpack and a basket attached to my electric bicycle.
This past week, however, I didn’t organize myself the way I should have, and I ended up at the supermarket without either my backpack or my basket.
When I walked out carrying a large number of plastic shopping bags, I threw my hands up in disbelief. I started hanging the bags from the handlebars of my bike until they were almost completely covered, then headed home.
Along the way, I passed a police car and couldn’t help tensing up, thinking the officers might stop me asking where all that merchandise had come from.
It was only a fleeting thought, but it shook me to realize how deeply my mind was still conditioned by the oppressive system I had lived under for 43 years.
I had to remind myself that I now live in a free country and that my purchases had cost just over 250 reais (about US $50 at the exchange rate) before I could stop feeling guilty. What I had hanging from my bicycle’s handlebars amounted to little more than a few treats and a bag of rice, yet for most Cubans, it would be completely out of reach.
In Cuba, the police would have viewed it as stolen merchandise. They would have been suspicious about where it came from and would likely have tried to confiscate it for themselves.
During the 43 years I lived in Cuba, I was only rarely able to make a purchase like that. And when I did, it was never routine—it was extraordinarily expensive, required traveling to distant stores, and came only after waiting in line for hours.
I still wonder whether I’m suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress, or whether fear itself has become a comfort zone.
Read more from the diary of Osmel Almaguer here on Havana Times.