On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Historian’s Office of Camagüey city, I wanted to offer a testimony of my time in it for several years. They ask me, and they have already done so countless times, as is logical, for the years that I have been working there, and I still do.

What does the Office of the City Historian mean to me?

Like almost everyone who is asked this question, they answer that “everything good”, in addition to the joys it brought them; in my case I am going to be honest saying that it still gives me a lot of joy; but it has also given me somewhat darker sides. Of course, yes I will know, because in addition to the satisfaction and smiles that, of course, came to me there, I also cried, yes, I cried many times, sometimes with tears that perhaps hardly anyone ever saw, other times inside and for things that happen, which are usually even “drops that filled the glass” and that is why it spills and they are a small thing within a whole. Perhaps because of the sensitivity of my character or perhaps because of how passionate, such events turned into a tsunami.

Satisfaction

But the truth is that all those spots, those “moles”, as I sometimes say, cannot overshadow the great joys and gifts that life gave me when I left my house and was about to go to my workplace, to that person that sometimes knew when I left, but not when I would return. There were times when the whirlwind of work was such that we had to close our eyes and continue until the work we were involved in was completed, or at least moderately, because this place, this institution, covers so many different edges and tasks, that whoever knows it in depth will be able to perfectly understand what I SAY.

A confession

Sometimes I dream, and I think I have never told this, with my colleagues having a conversation or activity of the many in which I participated, I even see their faces with great clarity making plans and projects, we reach conclusions, and even sometimes, we disagree. And then, when I wake up, I manage to feel a pleasant sensation, which I suppose is due to my high sense of belonging towards it and because, indisputably, in addition to enjoying my work, I am one of those many grateful women, who prefer, as Martí said, to see that , “…The sun has spots. The ungrateful speak only of the spots. The grateful speak of the light.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García