CAMAGÜEY.- We had not been able to see the city for days. A cloud of dust everywhere. Scaffolding and house painters. The noisy and hurried work of builders to finish the work, because even at home when we don't set a date for our goals, we leave things for later... and then we don't do anything.

Well, in the midst of all that atmosphere of discomfort, through which one avoids those routes of dust and noise, we were missing this beauty of flowering plants, which today seems like a bouquet to pamper our beloved city for the symbolic day of its birthday.

Much has been insisted on the values of these spaces that compile history through the buildings, the names of the streets, which become an atlas and a compendium, all at your fingertips, because knowledge awaits the return of each corner.

The Argentine sociologist Enrique del Acebo Ibáñez especially points out that “living is creating and man creates a space, creating himself.” Only not all inhabitants are aware of their possibilities of creating at greater heights.

To inhabit, to dwell, to live-in-a-house, supposes a foundational act. It is the inhabitant, more than the architect, who is the true builder of houses and cities, because the inhabitant founds them from his being-himself-in-society.

We are time, space and memory. Let's take a moment today, on the day of our birthday, to think about our Camagüey. We are going to locate ourselves in the city and also identify the city that inhabits us.

Happy 510th anniversary to those of us who today carry the weight of the magnitude of the Villa de Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe. My wish as I blow out the candle on the cake is that for a long time to come, Camagüey will be that city and also that emotion of those who love and those who embrace.

 Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez