HAVANA -- The rays of morning light splashing against this city's landscape offered a far different view of Havana than nightfall had disguised just hours earlier.
Havana's dim night lights -- make no mistake, this is a dark city at night -- provided an unyielding mask to its scars and ills that daylight simply could not conceal.
Immediately, my thoughts were consumed by my two sons and wife. I could barely contain myself as I viewed my first Cuban sunrise, for this is a land where my roots are deeply embedded.
I thought back to my grandparents and parents, who made this their home before fleeing Fidel Castro's Communist regime in the early 1960s. How they must have grappled with so much pain and personal anxiety as they abandoned their homeland 36 years ago when John F. Kennedy's administration offered an alternative in the United States.
The knot in my stomach tightened as my thoughts raced. The dawn's light solidified in my mind how fortunate my family is to have been given the chance to pursue dreams in the United States, where hard work makes a difference.
It is not a unique story to my family, for many Cuban families took similar journeys: in the 1960s, in 1980 during the Mariel boat lift and more recently, when Cubans risk their lives on the open seas in makeshift rafts.
Havana is crumbling. Its artistic and elegant architecture, some of it more than 100 years old, serves as a reminder of the city's once glorious past, when people called it the Monte Carlo of the Caribbean.
Most of the buildings' facades seem to be begging for some -- any -- upkeep. A paintbrush alone would cure some of this city's ills, which include exposed, corroding and pockmarked streets and sidewalks.
"What can we do?" asked Orlando Ochoa (who strongly requested his real name not be used) of Havana's San Li Opordo neighborhood, a poor area where the government doesn't necessarily want foreign journalists venturing but whose friendly inhabitants enchanted me. "All you have to do is look around and see there are problems too big to take care of all at once."
Havana's wounds are not hidden behind some curtain in a remote area of the city. Prostitution is rampant because most young women can't earn a living, residents said. They also said it's doubtful it will be evident this week. A large foreign press presence is in town for the exhibition baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban National Team, and the city is putting its best foot forward.
The tourist area, where most of the nicer hotels are located, is not what Havana is truly like, the residents said.
The police presence is obvious from the moment you step onto hotel grounds. A 15-year-old boy from the neighborhood ventured near the cafeteria here, gesturing that he wanted some water, when he was quickly whisked away.
The nicer areas of Havana show the facade, but reality lies in its nooks and crannies. When Arizona Republic photographer Dave Cruz and I made our way to San Li Opordo, we were told of the crime spree that had engulfed Havana late last year and early this year, one Castro ended with heightened security and stiff prison sentences.
Like most every Havanero I ran into during my first full day in Cuba, they could not have been more warm or charming. They routinely opened their homes, welcoming and encouraging all kinds of talk.
Like Evelio Hernandez, they all said we could come back any time.
My obvious accent in Spanish made several people we ran into Wednesday ask about my background. Without exception, everyone who discovered I was born in America to Cuban parents told me how lucky I am. "You won the lottery by being born there," said one resident.
I was floored as similar responses came bounding my way.
"You have no idea of how lucky you are," Ochoa's 27-year-old son, Armando, said. "I would give anything to change spots with you. Anything. This system does not work."
Their words reinforced what I was already feeling.
Standing on the main artery of 23rd Street at night and closing my eyes, I am placed back in a time when roulette wheels spun and salsa dancers took center stage every night until dawn.
In so many ways, time has simply stopped in Havana: so few buildings have been built after the '60s and so many cars from the 1940s and '50 somehow are still driven.
But then the stench of pollution in the air fills my lungs and settles in my eyes, and I am reminded of the afflictions strangling Cuba.
The current decay is unmistakable and indelible. This is now considered a Third World country. But Cuba was not always so lacking in so many things.
No amount of Communist propaganda, which fills the city's billboards and buildings, can conceal Cuba's true ills.
The underlying theme of Cubans is that they are filled with both despair and an abiding sense of hope that seem to have no touch with reality.
They know of the promise and riches that lie nearby in the United States, yet they know they are trapped, unable to do much of anything other than go with the life they have been dealt, and one that very nearly became mine.
Editor's note: Baseball columnist Pedro Gomez, a first-generation Cuban-American, describes his impressions of his parents' homeland. He is in Havana for today's historic exhibition game between the Orioles and a Cuban all-star team.