Passion for Longina

Andres Castellanos
16.02.2024
3 minutes Reading

(...) if you are unfortunate, sing

J.L. Serrano

For twenty-eight years in Santa Clara there has been a different calendar: the new year begins when the Longina starts. With the first chords the party breaks and hugs rain down. Acquaintances, friends, poets, strangers, first-timers, all united by the verse shared under the dew.

Those who live outside Cuba (and the economy allows them to do so) return every January, arriving with more provisions "because things are tough" and mattresses occupy unimaginable places. The others send electronic messages, make video calls, illusions of technology unable to cover the absence.

But the songs come to save us, Ana, White sheets, Yolanda. A route is built: Margarita Casallas Hall, Mejunje, coffee to shake the sleep from the body, Museum of Decorative Arts, Casa del Joven Creador, La Luna Naranja that washes the dust of its extended construction and overflows with public. Early mornings in squares, parks and portals that are flooded with a slight glow.

The country hurts and its twists and turns are thought, voices explode, splinters of beauty in the aerial roots of the homeland. And a fan of the new trova collects empty cans at three in the morning while telling extraordinary stories of when he was a companion of Silvio Rodriguez during the Military Service. Then, overwhelmed by the weight of living, he cries and one feels "exiled from the present world".

In chorus we dream of "a country where friends prefer to return", we go to the bush with the Maroon and "at an altitude of nineteen hundred meters" we free Prometeo. The couple from a nearby bank approaches, contributes a thousand pesos for the ponina and then leaves without taking a drink. Santi's madrugón is born, an infinite discharge in the same bank where fifteen years ago the wonderful left-handed man woke up trovando.

A guitar master plucks the strings and magic happens, a girl climbs on her thirteen years and sings her song; a wise man accompanies a young troubadour and a singer from Olympus gives a premiere, with alcohol up to his bones. The concerts we didn't make it to, the Travieso-Herrera family recording everything, Santa Canción, Trovuntivitis and the certainty that only collective effort overcomes apathy.

The Longina ends. 2024 begins. We will have to protect the smiles, surround ourselves with friends and found. And when misfortune strikes, keep on singing.