Cuban YouTuber Frank Camallerys recently shared a childhood memory that he confessed had been kept hidden for years: the day his family tried to leave Cuba by sea when he was only about eight years old.
In an Instagram video, the content creator explained that the memory resurfaced while he was looking through photos from his childhood. One of those images, taken around 2006, prompted him to relive an episode he hadn't fully understood at the time.
"I remember that day I left school and told my cousin I was going to the beach with my mom and dad," he recounted. At that moment, he thought it was just a regular family outing, but over time he realized it was actually part of an attempt to leave the country illegally.
According to their account, their family and others arrived at a beach at night, where they hoped to board a boat that was supposedly going to take them off the island.
"We were there waiting, we were a group. At night we got into the water to wait for the boat to arrive," she recalled.
However, the boat never appeared. The situation became complicated when the authorities arrived. "The police came and we had to separate. I stayed with my mom and my dad swam to another place," he recounted.
At that moment, he did not understand what was happening. For the child he was then, it was just an evening out at the beach. “I thought we were at a regular beach. Then we left as if nothing happened, as if we had just gone for a little while,” he explained.
Over the years, after discussing it with his mother, he came to understand what had really happened that night. As he recounted, some time later, the same people tried to organize another escape.
On that second occasion, his family decided not to participate, but others managed to leave: "The second time it was attempted, everyone left except us."
Camallerys reflected that, had that first trip occurred, his life would have been completely different. “By now, I could have been in the United States,” he remarked.
Finally, years later, the content creator ended up emigrating to Spain, where he currently resides and develops his career on social media.
His testimony adds to the stories of thousands of Cubans who, for decades, have attempted to leave the island by sea in search of new opportunities outside the country.
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