Lisette Perez Perez, Cuba’s Ambassador to Barbados
We recognise Christmas is a worldwide holiday very related to the history of the religion around the world for hundred of years. We also think nowadays Christmases are more familiar and social events than before.
In Cuba, because of the nature of the Cuban people this festivity has always been celebrated in a family atmosphere, and without any dogma we usually get together and have fun among us and share our well-known Cuban cuisine of pork, black beans, fried plantains and others. We do not place much importance on if we have a Christmas tree or not or if we have a keepsake memento or not.
After Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, the Government decided to declare December 25 an official holiday festivity. In Cuba there are, with the Catholic, an important presence of afro religions from whom we are very proud of as part of our multi-origin culture.If you ask me about our wishes this year, I can tell you not only for Christmas time, but for the next year and the time ahead, our deepest wish is PEACE. The world deserves peace and a peace with dignity.
There are millions of people living in this “unique air ship” suffering hunger, isolation and all of us are facing the possibility of being involved in a war that can be a nuclear one and can mean the end of the humankind. Our wishes are for those in the Third World that are suffering curable illnesses, and for those like in Haiti that do need not official speeches and promises that are just words in the air.
Our wishes are our decision to be (like thousands of Cuban doctors and teachers) with those giving them “a helping hand”.
