"One day... I think that it was in 1994 or 1995... if you want exact dates from me, you'll probably have to come back another time... I walked out onto the street and said to myself: 'This has to end.' Back then, thanks to listening to Radio Martí, I knew that counter-revolutionary political parties and movements exist. So, I started looking. I tried to find someone from the people whose names were mentioned in a publication printed by Radio Martí. First I went to Guinera Street, but the person I was looking for was no longer there. Apparently, he had moved some place else. Then I ran into a guy on the street in the Esperanza neighborhood. We chatted for a moment and afterwards he said: 'Agustín, if you look at things this way, I'll take you to an independent library.'– 'Oh my friend, that would be excellent. Really fantastic!' And he introduced me to the library directed by Omaida (Padrón Azcuy), which I think was located on Twelfth Street... It was in the city district of Vedado, somewhere between Línea a Malecón streets. And it was really something extraordinary. There I started engaging again; I was completely reborn. I got involved in various activist projects of the library and showed Omaida my writing. He told me: 'I will send you to certain people... I will give you his telephone number and they will surely accept you, because you belong among them.' She gave me the telephone numbers of Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani Sánchez. The name Yoani Sánchez I had already noted on Radio Martí. I always asked myself: 'Who might that be?' Is it a man or a woman? Who might that be....?' I wanted to get in touch right away... My friend, I left El Globo here and went straight to a telephone booth. I called Reinaldo Escobar. He picked up himself. 'You do not know me. I got your telephone number from Omaida... I would like to meet you.' – 'Yes‚ fine, so come on over!' The feeling I felt when I returned home can not be described with words. I was on my way to meet Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani Sánchez. You know, I always felt I was... not that I underestimated myself, but I never accorded myself much importance. I understood that others were much more skilled in such matters, and I wanted to follow them. Today I feel like I should have dived into all of this much more headfirst. I could have presented myself more confidently. So I went to see Yoani. I introduced myself by saying: ‘The only thing I can say about myself is that I write, I think, I am critical and I make analyses of Cuban society. But I am neither a writer, nor a poet, nor a journalist. I am a person who writes what he thinks.’ Reinaldo shook my hand and said, ‘You are the friend I needed but couldn’t find anywhere.’ And he introduced me to Yoani. Those few hours with them filled me with hope. When I left, I mentioned that I had around 30 disks at home with recordings of my thoughts. Earlier, I had thought that if things did not go over peacefully, I might tend to somewhat less than pacifist actions. There was a potential for things to turn out more violent, i.e., the pressure from the state would force me into that. I explained to them: 'I have one friend who recorded that with me, because I helped him by explaining by what means one could float over to the United States of America. I told him that he had to have a specific start at his back all the time. If he sees it in front of him, that means that he's drifting in the opposite direction. So, he has to keep it behind him all the time.' He later came to me, because he saw that I liked the camera and have a certain feel for it, and gave me such a camera... similar to yours, only with discs. Sometimes, I jump around in time, but it is all part of the story. I started recording my thoughts on tape, everthing that I had previously written up, criticisms of Fidel Castro. I wanted to have it recorded in case something accidentally happened to me, in case they came after me, so that this witness would remain after I was gone. Reinaldo Escobar watched part of those recordings. We were talking and he told me: 'Agustín, we can train you in certain matters.' After a few days, he brought me a notebook. My friend, I did not even know what that was. He says to me: 'Look, this is a laptop.' – 'So, leave it here, I'll sort it out...! He left. I opened it, but I did not have a clue about what to do with it. I did not know what a mouse was. I had never touched one in my life. So, I turned to a little group of young people I saw on the street corner. 'Do you know what a notebook is?' – 'Yes‚ we know.' So, they showed me a little of how one can work with it. Later, I came to know another person and he told me: 'Don't you want to found a blog?' 'Blog? Explain to me what that is...' -- 'That is a place on the internet...' – 'On the internet?' I asked him: 'Will my name, my photograph and with that also my thoughts be there?' And he responded, yes. – 'Good. Then found a blog for me.' We founded a blog and I started for the first time to sort everything there that Fidel Castro had not wanted to sort with me. What do you say to that?"
