Family Of Refuge

Family of Refuge--Hope of Dawn Crack! Seeeewww! Brrruerrrqqe… The sound of the attack shot the ground to make us scurry for shelter, me from my third-base position, my dad from his pitcher’s spot, and my friends from their spots. Smoke settled over the ball in a way that tickled my spine. Shuffling to my mother who just stopped cooking her all Cuban meal of brown rice, fried banana, and flavored pork, my sisters and I tried to staunch the fear by doing what we usually did: eat. In one moment, all the silence in the world seemed to find itself in our little house, and I had to stop eating, stop eating to put my hand over my mouth to keep from breathing. Only the clink and hiss of the kettle dared compete with the noiseless evil that oppressed us. Our father finally stepped in; we expected some kind of comfort or hope but only found his stern face. He began to tell us of the culprit behind the attack and of how he tainted our home, one day erasing it completely. “His name is Fidel Castro,” Papi said. “He is the new leader of our land except he is none better than the last one. He promises prosperity and freedom from the previous dictator Batista. He promises to take Batista's doctrine out to bring in a new, better way of life for us. Strength and dignity, he says lay in his hands, but greed and ruthlessness take over. I know the
Day after day of bobbing around made us grow wearisome, but we tried techniques to cope with the long journey. Dancing, singing, telling stories—we did what we could to make the time pass. We kept the hope of finding land close but knew the weather took charge over where we landed and when. In hard times, when the winds knocked our boat clear in the air, we would pray aloud, scream aloud to the sky to hear us. We used prayer as our only weapon against the roaring storms, and it always got us through; we always came out safe, but one storm, the worst storm of all, came one