CITYLIFE:ADVENTURESINURBANLIVING: “The Ladies in White: Cuba's Shame”, por Achy Obejas.

I remember a time when the only reaction the Ladies in White would get in their native Havana was discomfort and shame. Back in 2004 or so, those early years, when they were just a fistful of women, a silent handful with their orange flowers staining their stark presence down Fifth Avenue or, sometimes, the Malecón, the city’s seaside boulevard.
I was in Havana then, living there in a way, in and out of the country but present enough to have routines, rituals. And I remember well my friends’ faces when those women would suddenly appear, like ghosts, on the rim of the seawalk ... We all did the same thing -- myself included. We’d turn away, dismayed, uncomfortable and ashamed.
Only later, maybe, privately, we might exhale a little loudly, give a knowing look, say, “De madre ...”, shake our heads.