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Nine-year-old Luisa Maria thought she was dreaming when she heard her father whisper very softly and calmly, Honey, get up, stay low, and do not say a word. He held her hand and, in a crouched position, led her to the top of the stairs where she saw her mother holding Luisa Maria’s newborn brother. Her twelve-year-old brother was kneeling next to her mother. She thought this was not the way she would usually wake up every morning. Where was the unique sound of the tocororo bird letting her know that it was a brand-new day? Instead, she woke up listening to whispers, sounds of bombs going off, and faces full of fear. What is going on? Luisa Maria thought to herself. She saw her family all gathered by the large wooden mahogany door that guided the entrance to the grand front balcony of their home located in the suburb of Alturas de Belen, the Heights of Bethlehem, which was just outside Marianao, Cuba.
Maria Luisa asked, Where am I? She thought in her semi-asleep state. She did not know what was happening. Was it real or all part of a terrible nightmare? She became frightened. It was an overwhelming fear, one that she had never experienced before in her life. It was not the fear that she had when her older brother would play tricks or pranks on her. It was not the fear she experienced when she would hear her Aunt Isabel’s ghost stories from the old days. It was not the fear of the crazy woman that would walk the streets, throwing stones at houses. It was not even the fear caused by the famous El Caballero de Paris, the Count of Paris, a very well-known harmless transient that roamed the streets of Havana. This time it was different. This fear was one that left her speechless. For it was more than fear; it was sheer terror.
The First Day Of Many recounts the journey of a young Cuban girl coming to America and the trials and tribulations she endured along the way to reunite with her family in a foreign land which came to be known as home for them
