Sports

Now this is a quick no-brainer. In Cuba and most other Caribbean Island countries, baseball is the dominant sport. After school, I would sometimes play catch with my dad, or go play with some school friends either in Las Ochovias, or at the big park in front of the local Catholic church. The church was quite old, being built in the 1600s by the Spanish, and is probably one of the oldest buildings in Cuba. I would love the feel of playing, the sweat in my glove, and how the ball hit my palm as it entered the glove. It would feel so good when I would get somebody out right as they were about to hit home plate, it felt so good. It made me feel like I was important. I loved the feeling and the thrill of the sport. I guess you could say I was addicted.

Another sport we sometimes played was soccer(futbol). I had an old soccer ball we always used for playing, and we'd play maybe for two hours. It was nothing like baseball though, people barely cared about soccer. I find this quite sad, since now I am an avid soccer fan and player and wish Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and France good luck in the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

Sport was also a way to get out of the life and normal problems in Cuba. I remember when sometimes I was frustrated from school, or just the house, and I would unleash my frustration in sports. It was a good getaway.

Another thing that is very popular is martial arts. Tae-Kwon-Do, Jiu Jitsu, Karate, and Judo are among the most favorite styles. I myself did karate for the last 2 days I was in Cuba, and I loved it, and wish I would have kept learning. I have always loved martial arts and watching kung fu movies, I love the moves and I like Eastern Philosophy.

Honestly, now as thirteen years old, baseball is boring to me. I don't like it. I like soccer much more, I love the thrill of scoring a goal for your team at the last minute and watch the crowd go up in roars. It's spectacular.

Cuban food

Our diet didn't consist of much. The most common thing to eat was rice and beans, and maybe some kind of meat or pork. Fish was often scarce, which is ironic because Cuba is an island. In my town, El Calvario, in Havana, we would get bread for how many people there were in a household a day. We had three people in our house, therefore we would receive three small breads a day. We did not eat them like in the United States, with cheese, and ham(there were very rare). We usually just smeared it with sugar and it was good to go. My dad often gave up his to me because he knew I was hungry and he would rather I be healthy then he be healthy, saying he was much older and did not need the energy any more.

Often after coming home for lunch from school, my mom would be ready to serve some hot rice and black beans. Oh man, was it good. It was heaven for us, especially me, after being at school the whole day, and in Cuba, school is hard, with no AC, and just the windows open. This is all fine, except that in Cuba the weather is very warm, and lets say that school uniforms aren't exactly comfortable.

On Christmas, we would buy pork and have a big feast with the family, forgetting past troubles and coming all together as one for at least one night in the year before we went back to the Communist hell that was Cuba. We would eat and eat into the night, especially on Noche Buena (Good Night). I especially loved the pork. It would take at least half the day to cook. It's kind of like in those movies you watch where the characters are out in the wilderness with those fork looking branches slow cooking the pig. That's what it looked like for us. One time, I got to cut a pig's head off with a machete. It was very exciting, but kind of nasty as I got pig blood all over myself.

The pigs were very fat, treated specifically for this occasion. They would be slow to walk because of how fat they were, and were all natural, no hormones or anything, treated on leftovers.

Now for daily food, I would go to some trees in the town and try to get mamoncillos, which are small fruits which look like very small lemons. I would eat them with my friends. Then we would get fresh mangoes, ripe off the tree, and eat them, their juice spilling out of our mouths. It was delicious. Natural fruits are the best. Then we'd make natural lemonade from picked-off-the-tree lemons, and put little ice cubes in it and treat ourselves to a cold drink in a warm island country.

I would eat lots and lots of oranges. Tangerines too. It was quite popular in our town, all the kids loved it. But for me, I didn't really like them, but there was nothing else to eat so I had to eat it or else spend a very sad day without anything in my stomach, which is almost quite equal to Hell.

When I was born

I was born in Havana, 1997, my parents had been together for about 3 years and they already had tried to have a baby, but it died. So I'm an only child, they never tried again. My dad was super excited, to the point where he had diarrhea because he couldn't control his excitement, and my mom was in the hospital thinking of a name. No one knew what to name me. So my uncle Orlando and my aunt Caridad come to visit my mom in the hospital and say "You should stop worrying so much. You should just name him Ricardo, like his father." So that was how it would be. I was born Ricardo Montano Alvarez, with my parents being Ricardo Montano Navarro and my mom being Barbara de los Angeles Alvarez Rodriguez. My godfathers were Caridad and Orlando. I was baptized in the Catholic fashion. I was then taken home in a friends of my dad's car, and we got home where my parents had already bought some clothes and put them on me.