dancing with alma

i haven't read a book assiduously for some time now. the last book i read was the book 6 of the infamous harry potter adventure. not having the time is a feeble excuse. i can give up sleeping when i like the book i’m reading. its just that, these days, i can’t focus on reading. i have started skimming some books from the hanging bookshelf in the house but i never get pass chapter 1. i easily loose my interest.

not until i got this book, dancing with cuba, a memoir of the revolution, written by alma guillermoprieto, a mexican writer who volunteered as a dance instructor in cuba in 1970. it’s a personal reflection of the writer's short-stint in cuba.

alma was an apolitical person when she went to cuba. a dancer from new york, alma was seeing the revolution in cuba from the perspective of an outsider. what’s interesting though, is that she finds the revolution as a sincere effort of the cuban people to liberate themselves and that it is inspiring enough, she herself reflects and strives to understand its depth.

in alma’s letter to jorge, her mexican friend, she wrote:

"…what’s turning to be hardest for me is this revolution. or rather, understanding what one must do in order to be a revolutionary. i’m beginning to understand that i’ve been greatly deformed by capitalism before coming here, and i see that what you were saying about the dangers of individualism is true. it takes a great deal of effort for me to stop thinking about myself. the other day for example, i was actually glad, deep down inside, when they told me that because of my cough (which is a lot better now, by the way) i wouldn’t donate blood for the people injured in the earthquake in peru. even though they’re in the most desperate situation imaginable, and we’ve been following it on the news here each day, and even fidel himself went to donate blood. i acted frustrated me not be able to go, and it did, a little bit, but not enough. i understand that this is a serious failing, and that i don’t know how to change. i mean that if i were to transform into a revolutionary like che, i would cease completely to be myself, and i can't help being scared of that."

what i appreciate in the book is the account of her experiences not from an ideological perspective but from a layman’s description. it is not rhetoric nor jargon but an objective presentation oaf what she experienced and what she felt about it.

reading the book is almost like dancing with alma. her description of cuba’s condition during those trying moments made me understand better what mao had said: revolution is not a party, not the first stage, not even after victory. i haven't finished reading the book yet, but so far, i can relate to alma’s dilemma: the desire to fully understand the fundamentals of a revolution and an almost resistance from within of the sacrifices that comes with understanding.

i am the last witness to my body
i feel myself feeling
the cold of marble
and the green
and black
of my thoughts
i am the last witness to my body

(ortiz de montellano)

yes, alma, sometimes, that's also how i feel…