Like a Silent Bleeding, The Young Leave Cuba, Launching Themselves Into the Sea

Exclusive to Huffington Post.

Carlos Manuel has made three attempts to leave illegally. The first time, one member of the group denounced them and they didn't even make it off the coast. When he decided to go again, he managed to reach territorial waters where he was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard. Just recently he returned from a third try when his propeller and engine seized up for lack of oil. This year, he claims, he will manage to go, meanwhile showing off the plans for a monstrosity made from metal plates.

Illegal emigration from the Cuban coastline is like a silent bleeding that takes hundreds every month. Almost always they are young and leave from dark places, plagued with mosquitoes, where the police rarely venture. They work on constructing their rustic rafts in the early mornings before dawn, hiding them at the rising of the sun. When they hear a weather report promising "calm in the Gulf of Mexico," groups of rafters launch themselves on the sea, powered by an old motor from a Chevrolet or Ford.

To escape from the Island is to leave behind the house they share with their parents and grandparents, a nominal wage, and a mountain of unfulfilled dreams. Some don't make it across the waters that separate them from Florida, while others touch land on the other shore, suffering from sunstroke and thirst. Those are the few because patrol boats along the coastline make it difficult to touch ground without being seen. An immigration agreement between Cuba and the United States means those found at sea are returned to the Island. Carlos, however, is not frightened though he knows the chances are few and the sharks unpredictable. He has a feeling, he says, this is the year he will make it.

Read Yoani's interview with Carlos Manual: The Story of an Obsession.
Something to Escape offers another viewpoint.

Yoani's blog, in English translation, is Generation Y.