MY TWO BROTHER DIED YOUNG.

TO MY TWO BROTHERS WHO DIED YOUNG.



    ONE DAY SOMOEONE KNOCKS THE DOOR 

  AND THEY THOUGHT THAT IT WAS THE YOUTH WHO COME TO SALUTE THEM.

  IT WAS TWO LADIES IN BLACK DRESSES WHO WERE COMING TO GIVE A LONG JOURNEY.

   THE FIRST WAS TAKEN TO HIS THIRTY YEARS. IN LOVE OF A CURVILINEA MULATA THAT GAVE HIM A DAUGHTER HE NEVER KNOWN HER.

  HE FELL IN A SLEEPING TRANCE AND WAS NOT AWAKENED ANYMORE. 

  HAVANA'S DOCTORS DID NOT KNOW THE DIAGNOSIS.

  I TAKENHIM BACK TO THE CITY OF GUASO WHEN THERE WERE NO HOPE.

  THE CAUSE OF HIS DEATH IS NEVER SUPPOSED. 

  I KNOW HE DIED FROM LOVE.

  TO THE OTHER WAS FOUND CANCER IN THE BRAIN. I SAW HIM TO SUFFER LIKE A BRAVE AND VIRAL MAN. 

  WE SEE HIM WITH HIS RED PREDILECT SHIRT, AS TO CALL THE ATTENTION OF A BULL OF LIDIA.HE WAS NOT AFRAID OF THE ENDING IMMINENT.

  THE PREBISTER FATHER J.V. EXECUTED A CATHOLIC CEREMONY BEFORE THE DOME. THE ASSISTANT, CRYING AND CURIOUS, SEE FOR THE FIRST TIME OR IN DECADES, THAT CATHOLIC RITUAL. 

  ALL SAID "AMÉN" 

  THE FIRST STAGE OF THE DUEL: WE HATE GOD FOR LOSS FOR A FEW MONTHS. THEN THE RESIGNATION ARRIVED AND WE FORGIVE THE HIGHEST.

  LIKE THE VERSE OF CESAR VALLEJO:

  "There are blows in life, so strong ... I do not know!
  Blows as of the hatred of God; as if before them,the hangover of everything sufferedit will be empowered in the soul ... I do not know!"

GOODBYE BROTHERS.

 YOU DID NOT SEE THE GROWING OF THEIR CHILDREN.

SINCE THEN I HAVE LIFE AS BORROWED.

                                              Orlando Vicente Álvarez.

A MIS LECTORES DE MI BLOG.

 A MIS LECTORES DE MI BLOG.


   GRACIAS A LOS 130 823 LECTORES QUE HASTA HOY FIJARON SU VISTA EN MIS DISPARATADOS BLOG DE CUALQUIER SITUACIÓN DE LA VIDA Y LA POLÍTICA.

    TRATARÉ DE CONTINUAR CON MI BLOG MIENTRAS USTEDES LOS LEAN.

   MIL GRACIAS POR SU PACIENCIA Y FIDELIDAD.


                      LA DIRECCIÓN DEL BLOG ES: arcoorlo.blogspot.com


                                           MIL GRACIAS.

                                                               
                                                              Orlando Vicente Álvarez.

DESDE ENTONCES YO TENGO LA VIDA COMO PRESTADA.-EN MEMORIA DE MIS DOS HERMANOS QUE MURIERON JÓVENES. ADIOS HERMANOS. NO VIERON CRECER A SUS HIJOS.

      DESDE ENTONCES YO TENGO LA VIDA COMO PRESTADA.-EN MEMORIA DE MIS DOS HERMANOS QUE MURIERON JÓVENES. ADIOS HERMANOS. NO VIERON CRECER A SUS HIJOS. 

EN MEMORIA DE MIS DOS HERMANOS QUE MURIERON JÓVENES.

  UN DÍA TOCARON A LA PUERTA Y PENSARON QUE ERA LA JUVENTUD QUE LOS VENÍA A SALUDAR.

   ERAN DOS DAMAS VESTIDAS DE NEGRO QUE LES VENÍAN A DAR, A DAR, UN LARGO VIAJE.

  AL PRIMERO SE LO LLEVARON  A SUS TREINTA AÑOS. ENAMORADO DE UNA MULATA CURVILÍNEA QUE LE DIO UNA HIJA A LA QUE APENAS CONOCIÓ.

  CAYÓ  EN UN TRANCE SOMNOLIENTO Y NO DESPERTÓ YA MÁS. LOS MÉDICOS DE LA HABANA NO SUPIERON EL DIAGNÓSTICO.

  LO LLEVÉ DE VUELTA A LA CIUDAD DEL GUASO CUANDO YA NO HABÍA ESPERANZAS.

  NUNCA SE SUPO LA CAUSA DE SU MUERTE. YO SÉ QUE MURIÓ DE AMOR.

    AL OTRO LE HALLARON CANCER EN EL CEREBRO. LO VI SUFRIR COMO UN HOMBRE VALIENTE Y VIRIL. LO VELAMOS CON SU CAMISA ROJA PREDILECTA, COMO PARA LLAMAR LA ATENCIÓN DE UN TORO DE LIDIA.

   NO LE TEMÍA AL FINAL INMINENTE.

  EL PREBÍSTERO PADRE J.V. EJECUTÓ UNA CEREMONIA ANTE LA BÓVEDA. LOS ASISTENTES, LLOROSOS Y CURIOSOS, VEÍAN POR PRIMERA VEZ O EN DÉCADAS, AQUEL RITUAL CATÓLICO. TODOS DECÍAN "AMÉN"

  LA PRIMERA ETAPA DEL DUELO: ODIAMOS A DIOS POR LA PÉRDIDA POR UNOS MESES. DESPUÉS LLEGÓ LA RESIGNACIÓN Y PERDONAMOS AL ALTÍSIMO.

  COMO EL VERSO DE CESAR VALLEJO:

  "Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes… ¡Yo no sé!

Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos,

la resaca de todo lo sufrido

se empozara en el alma… ¡Yo no sé!"

   ADIOS HERMANOS. NO VIERON CRECER A SUS HIJOS. 

  DESDE ENTONCES YO TENGO LA VIDA COMO PRESTADA.

                                            Dr    Orlando Vicente Álvarez. 

cubano uruguayo
GENIO

CLIKEA EN

https://www.amazon.com/Memorias-niño-guantanamero-Guantanamero-Spanish/dp/1520725884

DULCE MARIA LOINAZ: ANOTHER POET IGNORED TO THE STUDENT.

   When I studied the four years of Secondary School and the three years of the Preuniversity, the Ministry of Education excluded from American poetry so many poets and poetesses who marked the path of modern Cuban poets.

  And see that there were so many in the Universe of poetry that spurred us, for ideological reasons, erotic or language too cryptic for our age.

  First they did not speak to us in any year of study to the exalted Cuban poetess DULCE MARIA LOINAZ who still lived in her house of the capital city. She never support the Castro or condemn him. She immersed herself in the secrecy of her loneliness and confinement, only violated by the visit of some poets who also despised the new society imposed on us by the Castros.

  Of mambisa lineage on the part of father Enrique Loinaz del Castillo, author of the Invader anthem. In her past there were poetesses of the stature of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and other figures who contributed to the fight against the Spanish colony.

  She published many poems among which stands out JARDIN-Garden-. In her work she used the so-called "magical realism" pioneer in this style that decades later  used Gabriel García Márquez.I

 t was her apolitical attitude to the new regime that isolated her from society. Other countries, USA, Spain, claimed to go into exile. But she remained firm in her rooms. She once said:

  -I am the daughter of one who fought for the freedom of Cuba, who has to leave is the son of whom I wanted to remain a colony.

  She received the Cervantes Prize in 1992, the Order of Isabel the Catholic. She was elected a member of the Cuban Academy of the Language that she presided until her death. The Cervantes Prize and the Felix Varela Order.

She got married twice. She did not have offspring.

  When the Castros realized that they could not silence her figure and her height as a poet, they paid her honors that she rejected in silence and some interviews where she did not qualify or condemn the Castro regime.

  She died on April 27, 1997 and was buried in the pantheon of the Loinaz.

  Her silence about the Castro regime or the lack of criticism against the system was the only way to express her isolation from a society she did not feel part of.

She remained faithful to the Catholic Church until the end. Like a lily in her garden she remained cloistered in her mansion faithful to the numerous poetesses of the world who did the same as the famous posthumously American poet Emily Dickinson who also robbed us in the educational system.

  Fragile flower that fell quietly before the tyranny that surrounded it.

 That's why in my years of study they did not let us know the Loinaz, but their poetry speaks for itself to the sensitive souls of the faithful Cuban and to the whole world.

ORLANDO VICENTE ALVAREZ

https://www.amazon.com/Memorias-niño-guantanamero-Guantanamero-Spanish/dp/1520725884

         

Jose Lezama Lima. A cuban writer hidden to us.

   

 JOSE LEZAMA LINA. A CUBAN WRITER  HIDDEN TO US.

A generation of the 70s that did not access important figures of world literature supported the Castro in a neo Mac Chartism or purge of those who did not agree with the onerous regime.

   That they were excluded from us, the students, and only the most curious who had any contact in the provincial library and kept in hermetic drawers hid those true gems of universal literature mainly the authors of the twentieth century.I became a close friend of the old woman who guarded those treasures and so I was able to get some of the so-called "cursed" for the revolution.

   Among these books was the same Roman and Catholic Bible and the Gadfly.I once in full Literature class I asked the teacher:

  -Dr. X.  Eroticism in literature has to do with the erection of the penis?

  She blushed and diverted the answer. Of course I knew the explanation but I wanted to impress my other fellow students like a clamor of adolescent nine.

  Orphan of great authors of world-wide level, of musicians who spread the Cuban music by the world, we cried in silence the unquestionable absences. But we listened to them at our private parties.They repudiated by their exacerbated exaltation other world figures who did agree with the oppressive system of the Castro because they had said some phrase of support for Fidel, had belonged to a communist party-especially of Spain-and made flattering evaluations of the prevailing system.

  One day a friend brought me wrapped in brown paper the book "HISTORY OF MAYTA" of  Vargas Llosa. I had 24 hours to read the secret book. It was the story of a homosexual guerrilla and his young subordinate. They were in love. There was no explicit sex. The writer then explained that homoerotic love among men was no more than a pretext to further marginalize the guerrilla.It was the first time I read something about a homosexual guerrilla.

  Later in exile I was able to read his other books on the freedoms of a democratic country.Vargas Llosa was a friend of Gabriel García Márquez until in a meeting gave Márquez a loud punch. However, this distancing was not only on the personal level, but also in the ideological one, since after the Cuban poet Huberto Padilla was arrested by the Cuban regime in 1971, a group of intellectuals decided to distance themselves from the Cuban Revolution.

    However, another group decided to continue supporting it. Vargas Llosa was in the first group, García Márquez in the second.

  The beautiful girl, of French descent, Spanish, had beautiful blue eyes that dazzled. She study journalism. When I was in Nicaragua as a doctor, we exchanged correspondence where we talked about Virginia Wolf and Hermes Hemingway. She told me that I had made a mistake in my profession, that I should have studied a career more related to that of Writer.

  Once in Cuba I discovered that she was a climber and had the ambition to climb up to Havana. She became a lover of an officer of higher rank and of legal age of State Security. This catapulted her to unsuspected heights. She directed important newspapers and even communes with the regime in TV programs and round tables. I do not criticize her because that was her dream since she was young when she was walking in foreign clothes and wearing glasses in her head in a government jeep doing interesting reports for the national newspaper.

 She has talent to write and face to lie to the people with her lies.

  Until I discovered LEZAMA LIMA in the 80s. And everything changed.

  I discovered the novelist. Essayist and poet after an arduous search with my friend the old woman in the provincial library.

   It was his novel PARADISO, masterpiece of the neo-baroque Hispano-American and a reading exercise that took me a month to digest, with a dictionary and everything by my side and where sometimes the mataburros assistant could not find the word invented by Lezama.

  The support of Cortázar, who managed to publish his essay "To reach Lezama Lima" in the Casa de las Américas magazine, was important, which meant an important support for Lezama in the face of attacks from the most orthodox sectors of the government.

  Finally, the novel was again published, authorized by Fidel Castro.

  José María Andrés Fernando Lezama Lima, simply known as José Lezama Lima (Havana, December 19, 1910 - August 9, 1976).The appearance of Paradiso represented an event José María Andrés Fernando Lezama Lima, simply known as José Lezama Lima (Havana, December 19, 1910 - August 9, 1976).

  The appearance of Paradiso represented an event in the literary scene of the time. The most effusive acknowledgments came from abroad, telling Octavio Paz and Julio Cortázar among the most enthusiastic.

  He participated as a jury in poetry of the institution, created by the new regime, Casa de las Américas.Between 1937 and 1943 he founded three magazines, Verbum (1937), Espuela de Plata (1939-1941) and Nadie Nadie (1942-1944), and published the poems Enemigo rumor. Around this time he met the poets Gastón Baquero, Eliseo Diego and Cintio Vitier, who later joined the Orígenes Group.

   Directed by Lezama and José Rodríguez Feo, Orígenes was one of the most important cultural publications in Cuba at that time, it managed to publish forty issues between 1944 and 1956, and it brought together a group of artists and intellectuals among whom were, among others , Gastón Baquero, Eliseo Diego, Cintio Vitier, Fina García Marruz, Virgilio Piñera, Octavio Smith, Mariano Rodríguez and René Portocarrero. Among the foreign collaborators was Juan Ramón Jiménez.

  The harsh official criticism, which with exceptions such as Vitier or Carpentier, described it as "hermetic, morbid, indecipherable and pornographic work", especially for its homoerotic passages.

  During this controversy (which included the withdrawal of the novel from the bookstores) the support of Cortázar was fundamental, who managed to publish his essay "To arrive at Lezama Lima" in the Casa de las Américas magazine, which meant an important endorsement for Lezama before the attacks of the most orthodox sectors of the government.

  Finally, the novel was again published, authorized by Fidel Castro.He is considered one of the most important authors of his country and of Hispano-American literature, especially for his novel Paradiso, one of the most important works in the Spanish language and one of the hundred best novels of the twentieth century in that language, according to the newspaper Spanish The World.

  Paradiso conceived as the synthesis and culmination of his poetic system, the novel follows the formation of the poet José Cemí, from his childhood, going back to his family origins, until his university years. It is a complex text, not only for its baroque and poetic exuberance, but also for its heterogeneous nature, which combines narrative, poetic and essay elements, in a work of an initiatory and partially autobiographical nature, which has led some to consider it as a learning novel.

  He wrote other novels, poems and essays.He was considered a writer "cursed" by the Castro regime.

  Paradiso left a mark on me that I still remember after 30 years, especially the famous chapter XVII homoerotic, without explicit language and where the poet strips himself of his baroque style and speaks to us with clear and simple language. I remember the passage from Badulaque, a young student boy that had a disproportionate phallus. When the teacher punished him to sit on a desk behind him, the boy masturbated at the sight of his classmates and they smiled mischievously.

  The owner of a coal cellar in the Badulaque neighborhood spoke with a black boy to intercede for him and obtain the young man's homophobic favors. The sexual scene is almost caricaturesque - Lezama remained a virgin all his life - while the coalman scratched the sacks of coal holding the push of the immense erect member, Lezama resembles him "an old man who was giving birth to a snake"

  Lezama was obese and asthmatic and only in his youth made two trips abroad, staying locked in his house with his mother - the death of this meant a hard blow for the writer - surrounded by an intimate circle of young writers who were inspired by him and they took him as a teacher.

   The ill-fated Cuban writer who died of AIDS in exile Ricardo Arena, says in his autobiography that he sat on Lezama's legs like a child loving his father.

  When I gave Anatomy classes to fifth-year medical students, I asked them a question when describing the male reproductive system:

  - Do you know the writing Lezama Lima?

   - None- responded, because they had also stolen the great Cuban writer in their pre-university programs.

  -Would you like to know how the glans described poetically for Lezama?

  Absolute silence.

  - Well as a fine purple filigree waiting for its special function for concern.

  Silence of the whole classroom.

  That brought me problems with the PCC because most of them were civil servants without a culture that did not want anything to get out of the course of education dictated by the totalitarian system.

  His obesity and being an inveterate smoker deteriorated his health.

 He was Catholic all his life.Lezama died in 1976.

They say that medical care was precarious, doctors did not know who he was.

   They did not mention his death as a scoop on the news of the time.

   The most important Cuban writer of the 20th century had died.

ORLANDO VICENTE ALVAREZ 
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ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH: DIALOGUE OF TWO OLDER MEN IN URUGUAY.

 ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH: DIALOGUE OF TWO OLDER MEN IN URUGUAY.

   ANOTHER RAIN DAY IN THE STOP OF MALDONADO HOSPITAL.

        URUGUAYAN TRIBUTE TO OUR LOVED OLDER MEN.


    It was shift day with the Diabetologist. He is the only doctor who does not fail to consult. It would be because he had studied in Cuba and there he was taught how to be a good professional but he was expelled from the faculty or he was imprisoned for several years.

   At the bus stop while I was waiting for the bus, my old friend suddenly arrived, the tall, tall man with a prominent nose - Andalusian descent or from another city in Spain - under a torrential rain. We were like frogs and zappers coming out of their hiding place in the middle of summer, confused by the change of climate.

   -Good afternoon, I say ... Good morning, Lord. This rain has us all tired. Not a ray of sun. Ostia! What we have done wrong to receive this.-commented the old man.

   -Less bad that I do not see the weather report on television. They say that there is going to be a radiant sun and a subtropical cyclone that floods everything and destroys the houses of the poor. Or they announce rainy days, not a day, but several weeks of rain and then the sun comes that could even go to the beaches. As simple as that.-But some success do, sometimes ...

  -It is that I almost do not have TV. My aunt Florencia the deceased that God has her in Glory, from Montevideo, gave me one in black and white with a screen of about 6 inches. Old model When it rains it sounds like a cricket and starts throwing sparks everywhere, like Christmas with fireworks and all that.

   -I have a wide-screen HD that my granddaughter gave me and I see even soccer games ... -he made a transition- I think I know you.

  -Yes. You are not the patient of chest wounds. And how are they going?

  -But in this hospital you can not keep secrets. Only the doctors and nurses knew ... Although to tell the truth, your accent when speaking I know it from somewhere. Where are you from?

  -From Jatibonico, Dominican Republic.

  - And where is that, I say, if you can know?

  -It is an island attached to Venezuela. And hear, here among us, there is a hunger of hell as in our neighbor Venezuela, that when there is no lack of rice the toilet paper is missing ... - and I added - Have you not placed worms in the wounds of the chest, look at Northern countries is the last thing to treat infected wounds like yours ...?

  -You're loading me, sir. It is loading me. Who said my wounds are infected?

  -Good. With so much time unattended and going to the Intendance every day ...

  - And what do you care about my wounds or ostia, if they are infected or something like that! Maybe you are a doctor, by chance-he looked me up and down-no, you do not look like a doctor or nurse, nor does he know anything about medicine, that's for specialists ...

  The old man had a nylon cape that sheltered him from the rain almost to his feet. More than a tent for the rain it looked like an old circus like that of "Circo Beat" by Fito Paez. I wore a simple shirt - this time I had put on a pair of trousers - you know, visiting a doctor in Bermuda is not appropriate for our age, etc., etc.

  - Do not you remember me? - I asked sweetly.

   -Do not. It's the first time that I see you. Pleasure. Ernestilico is my name because the deceased of my older brother was named Ernestino. Well, to differentiate us you know ...

- Yes- I said in a joke - it would not be that instead of burying his brother they buried you alive ... ha ha ha.

  I have noticed that Uruguayans do not have to mention the subject of death or in jest. They have panic ..

 .- And changing the subject - I said - that layer to shelter from the rain to Where did he buy it? I mean, to get one also because these days ..

  .-This layer was bought by my late wife Esmeregilda there in Piriapolis in a liquidation a few years ago.

  -But how old are you as a widower? They must be like 50 years because the layer more than the rain shelter looks like that of an old circus, of those that had before, because of the old and holes that it is.

   -You're charging me sir! I do not see that this raincoat is bought for me by the deceased ..

  .- By chance it would not be in Piriapolis in a liquidation?

  -And how do you know? If I had not told you about it, it's a memory of my deceased deceased ...

 -Smeregilda?

  -Who told you her name? Yes, she is in heaven.

  - This is my old man, we all come to this world just for a little while. But do not worry, with your infected wounds will soon meet ...

   - With Esmerigilda?

  -The deceased ...

    He interrupted me.I was going saing:

   -Yes. I think. But have faith and hope that only a few weeks remain.

  -Do not tell me about the deceased woman like that, or that death is around me! Lightning with you. You do not respect my 80 years.

  -It seems that all your relatives were "tuned" at death ...

  -You're loading me. Look, I call the cop  and I denounce you for disrespect to an old man of the third age ...

  - I am also of the third age. If I am 78 years old ...-He looked at me closely and whispered:- Plastic Surgery will not be done as it is today, to take off your age and look like a kid.

  -But Ernestilico ...

  - Perhaps I have told you my name? That gave birth!

  -If I'm poor like you. Note that the Municipality has given me a piece of land there in the boundaries of Nuevo Maldonado in the middle of a swamp to build a small house ...

  - What intendency or Intendance! If that institution gives nothing to the poor ...

  -But with a little help. Ahem…. Everything is resolved under the table.

  - And as for the material for the construction? Do not tell me that the Intendancy also gave it to you.

 -Look. Ernestic...

   -Ernestilico, do not forget it.

  -Good. Ernestilic. Over there they are building a very large barn. I do not know what it is for. I think it is to store the salary papers of the numerous army of officials and users that accumulate years after years in the Municipality and the BPS. I've already got a lot of blocks and bags from Portland like cement, every rainy day, when there are no guards, I'm taking something ...

  -Come here, Lord, and how much material has he stolen from the Intendancy?

  -Three bricks and 4 blocks ...

  - Fuck! You are loading me That way you will never build yours house nor when the Colorados return to power ...

  -Let me clarify that I already have 25 years of living here. I have voted twice in the elections but in the next ones, I do not know, if I decide for the yellow Front, the Colorado and the Whites ... Yes, so I do not forget so many colors to choose ... But that gives me hope , Ernestico ...

  - Do not tell me more Ernestico! My name is Ernestilico.

  -Ernestilico! You had known me before, because I do not remember ... Nice to meet you. I'm glad to meet new people. .. Ehhh ... - I said, because senile dementia had gone up

  .- Go with your fucking mother ...! What gave birth! Fuck! 

  And then his bus came, he got up without saying goodbye and he rose very high, very high until disappearing in the cloudy and rainy sky.

  - It will be that now he is another deceased, because of me!

  I do not tell you gentlemen, that everything happens to me because I am nice and polite to people, especially to the elderly.By the way, in a month I'm doing my well-deserved 78 years. 

   How well I cheat you! How well I cheat you!


                                       Orlando Vicente Álvarez


https://www.amazon.com/Memorias-niño-guantanamero-Guantanamero-Spanish/dp/1520725884

                                   

THE CUBAN PSYQUIATRICS IN TIMES OF THE SOCIOPATIC IN CHIEF.

THE PSYCHIATRICS IN CUBA IN TIMES OF SOCIOPATIC IN CHIEF.

   Photo made by the author. All rights reserved. Comments at the end of the story.



    There is an old HARE KRISHNA Mantra in Cuba that goes from year to year among medical students.

    "OMMMMMMM. OMMMMMMM.And Kristmas told his disciples these wise words:

 "Surgeons do not know anything but they solve a lot"

  "Internal Doctors know a lot but do not solve anything"

  "Psychiatrists do not know anything and do not solve even balls"

  When I was a medical student in the 5th year of my career I rotated for the subject of Psychiatry in a hospital near Stgo de Cuba, which previously housed leprosy patients.

  The "Locosomio" as the students called it, was a brick building, large, with spacious cubicles and long rooms for patients who still did not go completely crazy. Had or has, a large garden with benches, trees and much more that made the site cozy.It did not seem that it was a warehouse for psychiatric patients, but for overshadowed Zombies who wandered the corridors on their toes waiting anxiously for their next electro shock - they now call it Electro convulsive Treatment, to soften the aggressiveness of the old term - since then some could Going home for the weekend, I mean, the least dangerous.

  But what I most admired and remember were the professors who gave us theoretical and practical classes on psychiatry.

   Freud, the Doctor who revolutionized with psychoanalysis how to approach these unhealthy patients of mind, was not mentioned at all. Only the Oedipus Complex to remind us that there was another alternative to address the treatment of patients and childhood sexuality that was taboo in those days.

  The director woman of the center was called Finita. I do not know if it was a nickname or because she was combing her hair with a black 5-story bun - the students said it was to hide a "tonsure" or a kind of baldness in the center of her scalp.

  She was thin and tall. She put on makeup without skimping cosmetics- scarce in Cuba but she managed to make the trips that her husband made abroad, but we will talk about him later. Blue eyelids, abundant black mascara outlined her eyes, fleshy and large mouth, announced with a strong red the benefits of a kiss.

   She was the laugh of the girl students. They said that their eccentric, attractive and overloaded presence was to attract the eyes of male students, otherhandsome doctors and be the dream or the erotic nightmare of patients half mad or crazy at all. The truth is that she did not leave anyone indifferent.

  But my favorite teacher was Dr. Blanche, a woman of short height, obese, round face and thick lips. Her classes were a banquet for us.

   _Good. Now I'm going to introduce you to a young man, not so young, "he corrected," who has Schizophrenia. You will see the auditory hallucinations that he has and his biotype.

  There was passing a fat man with the face of a child and very serene-would it be for all the pills that harassed him day and night? -Which would sit next to her and the teacher would ask him questions:

  -To see Claudio. Tell us about the voices you hear?

  -I do not know Doctor. Sometimes someone talks to me and gives me orders that I do not understand.

  -Is it a woman's or a man's?

   -At times it's a woman's then I think it's Mom and other times as a man, which I think is Papa's.

   The patient suddenly slaps his right ear and adds with  altered face:

   - Right now, Papa is giving me orders!

   -And what does Claudio tell you?

  -I do not understand it, doctor. I think he tells me to get out of the marriage bed and go to my room. I dont know. They are going to do something very bad, very bad.

  - Enough for today Claudio. I just wanted to show the students how certain those voices are in your subconscious ... By the way ... Do you masturbate when it's your Mom who speaks?

  - And what is that doctor?

  -Ehh Good. Speaking in non-medical language that you will understand ... It is "pulling a straw". Do you understand now?

  The man opened his eyes and shuddered, as if full of guilt.

  -Sometimes. Sometimes

  .-Claudio. Thanks for helping us.

  -But doctor. My father keeps ordering me to leave the room again and again. I just want to be with my mommy ..

.- Wait for the tablets to take effect. Then you will hear your Son.

 -But doctor if I do not have children!-

  -You'll listen to it when your wife stops or gives your son a lift.

  -Doctor. I do not have a wife or I will not ...

 -You will have a child, you will have a child, when the pills take effect.

   Claudio left the room quickly. This time fighting with aunts, cousins and friends of her mother who were a scandal.

   Doctor Blanche followed him with her eyes, narrowed her lips and stuck out her tongue as Claudio closed the door behind him.

  -FAGOT! "She shouted.

We We students burst out laughing at the scene.

   In that Finita appears, first appeared the tip of the black bow - and asks:

  -Children how are you doing with Professor Blanche?

  We responded in unison as a choir of infants:

  -All right!

   -And are you learning how easy is the subject of psychiatry ... Ahh ... And how good are Psychiatrists?

  And we:

 - Yes!-Good. 

  -I leave you in good hands. There is no one like Dr. Blanche to get to the intricacies of what our patients suffer. Well, I continue my tour of the rooms.a deathly silence.Professor Blanche, when Finita had closed the door, Dr. Blanche very seriously said:


   -Good! 

   - And about Claudio do not worry -she told us- that with seven shock electrodes that complex of Oedipus is removed that has us crazy to all the psychiatrists of this center.

  "-Good. I'm going to tell you something very personal. A little bit more because I do not want you to think that I have the antithesis of Narcissus Syndrome. You know, the young Greek who fell in love with his own image in the waters of a lake "

   "It turns out that I hammered all the mirrors at home because I did not want to see my face. So ugly I felt. I put on makeup in the dark of dawn. I was groping for my eyes and there went the rouge, touched the site of my eyebrows and painted them to my senses- hence I came to work looking uglier than it was- For lips it was easier, I project them delicately and there the crayon goes, I did not remember if red, pink or black. The truth is that when I arrived at the hospital, all my colleagues "congratulated me for my beauty" and that's how they raised my self-esteem and I felt beautiful. I do not know why I have not found a husband yet. -made a transition-here between us. To ugly women, all men see her beautiful after the government assigns her the purchase of a car. That is my hope"

   And we the students believing her or not her story we laugh. 

  That's why Dr. Blanche's classes were our favorite.

  Finita, the director of the Psychiatric Hospital, had a husband who was our Anatomy teacher. When they turned off the lights to show a slide, some of the students' voices shouted:

  - Horned pino! Pino Tarrú!

  He did not flinch and continued the conference without responding to the anonymous attacks. To exemplify the evolution of man, from quadruped to Homo Sapiens, he would get on all fours feet as he spoke and would rise at every stage of Darwinian evolution to walk biped like a modern man.

  We laughed but the evolutionary history never forgot us. 

  After turning on the lights, he responded to the offenses I said at the beginning:

  -It is more succulent to eat a turkey between two than a scavenger bird alone.

  But Pine one day died of a heart attack. Great was the sorrow and pain of all because we wanted it.The girls say as  the wake of Professor Pino her wife Finita, who was many years younger than him, more make-up than ever, voluptuously embraced each handsome doctor who was going to present Condolence.

  Envious legends about Finita, I think, or they are true because some psychiatric syndrome she had hidden.

  I discovered Freud for his complete works. A single copy that was kept locked in the library of the Faculty.I was not so interested in the psychoanalytic part about mental illnesses but in the semiotic and psychoanalytic analysis he did on Leonardo da Vinchi's painting.

  In the painting "The Madonna and the Child" a whole tangle of his eloquence to attest to the end that Leonardo was Homosexual.

   Also the analysis of the sculpture of Michelangelo "Moses" A whole artistic compendium and a new vision about the work of the Renaissance sculptor.

  I dont know. But many of my classmates who already had personality problems seized Psychiatry as a specialty. At two years they were crazy to change to Pathology. So yes they solved the human sufferings but dissecting them.

   I was fascinated by Freud. But it was hardly mentioned in the Medicine career. It seems that the Marxist theory about society, psychiatry, etc., did not match the ideas of the Jewish doctor. 

   The Psychiatrist Commander-in-Chief, although he was the first sick patient who had to be given 3 electro shock a day, was explaining about the new Hospital for the mentally ill in Havana, Mazorra, where the crazy people were finally happy and radiant. 

  Gentlemant of Paris "mythical wanderer of the streets of the capital, dressed in red cloak and long copious graying hair, which was already a folkloric figure of the country, he was hospitalized in" Mazorra "and stripped of his original clothing and shaved his hair . The people said nothing. They did interviews for the magazine Bohemia and said "how good it felt" clear, after the usual 27 electro shock.There is a nu  There is a new scientific theory nowadays that some Cuban psychiatrists have adhered to. Repeat again and again, that the earth is flat and not spherical as was previously thought.

  Lately hospitals also continue to shelter for those who disagree with the Revolution. Although they speak coherently and defend their ideas with clarity and security, Electro treatment convulsive for them, just like that.

  What happens to psychiatrists in Cuba? Is it a method of torture or, with some exceptions, a refuge for mediocre doctors who have had low qualifications in medicine and have no choice but to opt for psychiatry? 

   Total, if they after a few years of exercise are ready to inhabit Mazorra Hospital in the capital.

    Cuba has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

    NOTE: the photo at the beginning of this story is how they leave a dissident in a psychiatric hospital after 5 Electroconvulsive Therapies.