Chapter 1: CUBA
"You will have to spend the night in Mexico City and fly to Cuba in the morning," the Mexicana ticket person informed us.
"Will you pay for our hotel room?" I countered. The Mexicana person looked highly doubtful. Then Ashley and I boarded a flight for Guadalajara on a plane whose engine made a strange lawn-mower sound. Or did it sound like electric hedge clippers. Worse was yet to come -- there was no inflight movie! That is as close to aviation hell as one can get. Ashley and I didn't even get to sit together. And Ashley was holding out on our last few pieces of chocolate walnut fudge.
I read Elmore Leonard's book Cuba Libre to pass the time and to keep from throwing up.
More hours passed. I chased my luggage all over the Guadalajara
airport, ate more fudge, met new people, crocheted on my afghan and read more Cuba Libre. "Where is Gate 11?" I said in basic
Spanish. "De donde esta puerto once?" It was 4:30 pm already and we weren't even off
the ground in Guadalajara. Our flight to
Cuba left at 6:30. "I don't think
we're going to make our Mexico City connection," I told Ashley. She shrugged.
6:00 pm: "Anyone who needs help making a direct
connection should see the Mexican representative upon deplaning." Yeah. Right.
Our Cubana Airlines flight was supposed
to leave at 6:00 pm and we haven't even landed in Mexico City yet.
Ashley and I deplaned. No one was there to meet us. No one knew where we were going and someone
had disappeared with our luggage claim tags. Ashley and I desperately combed the Mexico City
airport -- looking for luggage, looking for Cubana Airlines, looking for help!
"Will you help us!"
I begged a Mexicana official. And he
did. "Tell me where you came
from," he said.
"But we have to make the
Cubana flight! They may still be holding
it for us!"
"Tell me where you came
from," he repeated firmly.
"But our luggage claim
tags have disappeared and our luggage was supposed to be on that flight
and..."
"Tell me where you came
from," he repeated. Oh well.
"We came from Oakland,
California via Los Angeles via Guadalajara." The man disappeared for five minutes, came
back, punched up some computer buttons and smiled.
"Come with me," he
said. We went around some corners, up
some stairs and into a small back office occupied by tall, thin good-looking
Cubans smoking cigarettes. "These
people are here for the 6:00 pm Cubana flight," explained our Mexicana
hero.
But guess what? The plane really was broken and a new plane had to be sent from Cuba and the next scheduled take-off time was 3:00 am.
"Can I help you?" a woman said. "I am from Global Exchange." Global Exchange was the non-profit organization that had organized our trip to Cuba. I was so glad to finally see someone who knew what we were supposed to be doing. I could have kissed her. "Follow me," she said. We did.
"Because the plane does not leave until 3:00 am, we will take you to dinner at the Airport Marriott and then set you up with a room to sleep in while you wait." I could have kissed her again. By then, it was 8:00 pm. Ashley went off to the Marriott with the Global Exchange lady. I went off to track down the luggage.
The Mexico City airport is not as large as SFO or LAX but it is getting there -- three or four football fields long at the least. I covered every inch of that airport three or four times, crying, "Have you seen my luggage! Have you seen my luggage!" One hour later I had luggage in hand and was eating chicken soup and flan and salad and pork chops and Coca Cola at the Marriott.
Two hours later I was wallowing in a hot bath and fluffy towels and clean sheets. One hour after that I was sound asleep. Heaven.
December 28, 2000, 2:45 am: The phone rings. "Huh?"
"Be at the boarding gate by 3:00 am." And there we sat for another hour or so but at least we had gotten some sleep. But guess what? Our plane didn't take off for Cuba for three more hours. We sat around Gate 9A and sulked until 6:00 am. The flight crew came at last and all the Cubans clapped and cheered. Cool.
That was about the highlight of our air travel experience. The rest of it had sucked. We arrived in Cuba looking like war orphans; hollow-eyed and bleak. But Cuba made up for it all!
Coming to Cuba was like stepping out of an old black-and-white movie of airports and bureaucracy and frustration and bad air -- and into the Technicolor world of palm trees and friendly people and fine old cars. "Oh, look! There's a '55 Chevy Bel Aire!" I cried. Ashley had not a clue what I was talking about or why I was insisting that she take my picture standing next to it.
Then we went off to our hotel and slept.
11:30 am: "Can you
remember what we did next?" I asked my daughter later. The whole morning had been a blur.
"We went out to lunch in
a restaurant and we went and looked at the bay and watched little boys jumping
off the sea wall into the waves, wearing little girls' underpants!" I guess Ashley was impressed by the fact that
boys didn't wear boxers in Cuba. Travel
broadens.
Lunch consisted of fresh fish,
rice, salad, black beans and Cuban beer. Lunch was enhanced by a strolling samba band,
patio dining, strolling peacocks and strolling chickens -- yuppie chic meets
the farmyard. Quite upscale.
1:00 pm: "Let's go on the bicycle tour of Old
Havana!" I said.
"Sorry. That bus is full," said Tatiana, one of
our guides. "The bus to the model
city is available however." The
model city? Ho hum. We went there and it was boring but on the way
back the tour bus let us off at the local flea market and that was wonderful. We got four Che Guevara berets and it started
raining and Ashley and I ran home along the Malecon sea wall, laughing in the
rain.
8:00 pm: After dinner, Ashley washed her hair and went
to bed. I went out again, into the rain,
walking through the narrow street of Old Havana on the way to the Casa de
Africa. Old Havana was enthralling
because its streets were paved with stone blocks, no cars were allowed and the
houses were tall, old, covered with wrought iron; historical and brave. One could imagine hidalgos and pirates living
there.
"Santeria is a
combination of the Yoruba religion from Africa and the Spanish Catholic
religion," said the curator of Casa de Africa, the African-Cuban museum in
the heart of Old Havana. She showed us
costumes and banners and instruments worn and carried and played by the African
slaves in old Cuba. "Come this way,
please," said the curator. "We
will show you some African-Cuban dances."
The Casa de Africa was a
three-story townhouse with stone block floors and very high ceilings, typical
of all the houses in Old Havana. I
wonder where they got the stone? Earlier
we had walked through a gallery and up and up high narrow stairs with wrought
iron banisters. Louvered shutters haloed
the windows. It was all very New Orleans
and very charming; historic.
The curator led us downstairs
again, past galleries in the old sense -- narrow walkways between the stairwell
and the walls of what had once been bedrooms. Charming.
African dance is usually based
on tribal ritual. The dances we saw this
night were different -- these still retained an African flavor but they were
highly influenced by the one overwhelming factor in the lives of the Cuban
Africans from centuries past: Those
Cuban Africans had been slaves.
The Casa de Africa dance
troupe re-created that feeling -- that the lives of the slaves had been filled
with hardship and oppression and slavery and labor in the cane fields that had
been almost beyond endurance. The dances
were also filled with memories of Africa and...and joy. Yes, the downtrodden and abused members of the
lowest caste society had still held on to their exuberant appreciation of the
dear gift of life, no matter how hard that life might be.
"Life
for a Cuban slave was truly miserable," the curator had mentioned earlier.
"Unlike in America where slaves
were taken care of because they were considered property, Cuban slaves,
imported directly from Africa, were merely worked to death and replaced with
other Cuban slaves imported from Africa."
December 29, 2000: 8:30 am: Breakfast was a buffet operation -- pancakes, chirizos, papayas, croissants. Pretty good food. The hotel itself was pretty good as well. It was a modern hotel, built in the 1980's in
the style preferred by Holiday Inn. But
we had a fabulous view. Our window
overlooked the Malecon, the sea wall/promenade that keeps the ocean out of
Havana. The waves come crashing right up
to the wall and sometimes crash over. On
windy days, one stays off the Malecon. People
have been known to have been swept off to sea from there. "I wonder what will happen to Cuba when
global warming raises the level of the oceans?" I asked someone in our
group. "Even a raise of one foot
could overwhelm Havana."
The guy laughed and replied,
"Don't you know? Global warming is
America's secret weapon against Castro."
"Does that mean that if
Castro steps down, they'll call it off?" I said.
We finished breakfast and
prepared to depart for the day's tour program. I took an elevator up to my room where a maid
was making the bed. It's funny but here
in Cuba almost everyone has a college education. Even the maids. American tourists here live pretty high on the
hog. I had thought that we would be
living on bread and water and sleeping in crumbling buildings without running
water. Hell no. We are doing quite well for ourselves down
here.
"Where are we going
today?" I asked Tatiana.
"We're going to see the
special children," she replied. "We have special hospital areas for Cuban
children with acute asthma and diabetes. We also have about 250 children from the
Ukraine -- children from the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Many of them have leukemia. We sponsor them here because our physicians
are excellent in this area.
I was impressed. "Are they children from the original 1986
accident or do they come here, get treated and then go back to the
Ukraine?"
"The children here now
are recently arrived. They generally
stay a year or so for treatment and then go back." We got on a bus and drove to the countryside
on the outskirts of Havana, to what looked like a funky 1960's housing
project/industrial park where both facilities were housed.
We toured the Cuban
children's' school and dormitory first. The
children, seventh and eighth graders, were healthy-looking, intelligent,
normal-looking and friendly. They were
very happy children too. As a mother, I
realized that happy children are usually produced only in a nurturing
atmosphere of kindness and love. These
children were getting the real thing. I
was really impressed.
"This is my daughter Ashley,"
I told some of the children in my fractured Spanish during their recess. "She is in eighth grade in Los Estados Unidos." Ashley smiled shyly and the Cuban boys and
girls smiled shyly and the inter-cultural exchange was a big hit.
I was also impressed with the
healthy vigor of these children. "They use fresh air, diet and exercise as
the main line of defense in controlling their health problems," said one
of the teachers there. "Insulin and
inhalers are only our second line of defense."
"In the United States,
those are the first line of defense," I remarked.
"They may appear less
expensive and easier to use in the short run but in the long run, fresh air,
diet and exercise produce better results. We only use the medications when absolutely
necessary." I could see the results
of this policy in the faces of the healthy children around me.
10:30 am: After touring the school, we walked down the
road to visit the children of Chernobyl. An older woman met our group and introduced
herself. "I am the assistant
administrator of this hospital group," she said. "Come with me and I will introduce you to
some of the children. Altogether we have
250 children from the Ukraine. Right now
only four of them are in the intensive care ward." She smiled. There must have been many more in the near
distant past.
We walked across a lawn to the
main hospital. The building was airy,
tropical, simple and inexpensively built; not at all your typical US hospital. The paint was old, the concrete floors
uncarpeted, the pipes exposed. Yet some
of the best medical care in the world was provided here.
We stepped into the ward and
were introduced to the children. I don't
know what I was expecting but even these terribly ill children looked bright
and happy as if the tropical air was giving them new life. One of the boys had kidney problems, another
had lung dysfunction. All of the
children smiled at us from their beds. I
was touched by their bravery and honored that they shared their stories so
readily with us.
"Each child has a parent
come over from the Ukraine with them," the administrator told us. As we were leaving, I saw two blonde women
walking together. They could only have
been Russian mothers. They did not look
Cuban even though there are many Cubans who are blonde. They looked like strangers in a strange land. And I have never seen two people look so
bored. I could almost read their
thoughts -- here we are, sophisticated city dwellers stuck out here in the damn
countryside with nothing to do in the hot summer for months on end, far away
from our country. I felt sorry for them.
The children seemed to have adjusted to
their new life in Cuba so much better than their parents.
Noon: There is an open-air souvenir market near Old
Havana. Ashley and I strolled through it
just before lunchtime. We saw more Che
Guevara T-shirts than we had ever imagined existed on this planet! Suddenly two women were fiddling with Ashley's
hair. "What are you doing?" I
said.
"Braid hair? Braid hair?" one woman asked -- or rather
commanded.
"How much for the whole
head?"
"25 dollars only." It amazed me that the main currency of Cuba,
the world's last Communist country, is American dollars. Everyone uses them. I wonder what happens to them when they get
all torn and wrinkled. Does the US
Treasury exchange them for new ones?
"For the whole
head?"
"The whole head!"
"But we have to be back
at the restaurant in one-half hour."
"Oh. No
problema! We two can braid it in ten
minutes." She made a motion with
her hands for "really fast," twisting Ashley's hair in pantomime.
"Ten minutes? Por
cierto?"
"Si!" I nodded yes and
the two women grabbed Ashley's hands and ran off with her, just like that. One woman signaled for me to follow. I did. I wandered along after them. Only I wandered too slowly and suddenly Ashley
was gone!
Ashley was gone. Totally gone. Dragged off by two complete strangers. In a foreign country approximately 7,000 miles
from home. Jesus. I searched for her. "Ashley! Ashley!" I screamed. No daughter.
A policeman helped me out. "See that street over there? That's where they went." I looked down the street. I saw nothing but houses. I panicked and froze. Ashley could be in any one of those houses. Why did I bring an eighth-grader to a foreign
country? What was I thinking? Damn. My
baby might be lost, kidnapped or worse. Get a hold of yourself, Jane. This was Cuba. Everyone here was friendly and safe. Yes, correcto,
yet my young daughter had just disappeared into thin air down a back street of
Havana.
Just then the clouds parted
and the sunshine that was Ashley came bopping down the street out of some dark
colonial doorway into the light of day. I was never so glad to see anyone in my life!
3:00 pm: Lunch was rice, beans, salad and pork. And Crystal cerveza too. "Next we
go on a tour of the Museum of the Revolution," Tatiana said. Tatiana had been born during the Cuba-USSR
friendship period when Russian names were popular." My brother's name is Alexander," she
added. The museum was in an old
Presidential palace or something, right in the main part of Havana. Ashley bought a Cuban flag at the gift shop
for $15 and I bought a Cuban T-shirt. Then
we looked at pictures and pictures and pictures of Che Guevara. We even saw
pieces of his hair and beard.
"Don't you just love Che
Guevara?" asked Ashley as she bought a T-Shirt with his photo on it. I thought he had kind of a beer-belly and
looked like the kind of joker who would be telling stories in a bar somewhere.
8:30 pm: After dinner, Ashley and I walked around the
neighborhood, listened to salsa music coming from the houses, savored the
tropical night and stood in mute appreciation in front of the blocks and blocks
of historically antique houses made of concrete and stone and ironwork, carved
and decadent and decaying benignly.
You have to go to Havana to
comprehend this faded grandeur. It is
too difficult to describe this metropolis that is a living museum with any
justice. It is difficult to imagine
blocks, acres, miles and miles and miles of colonial souvenirs, each of which
would be considered a palace back in the States.
It was a nice walk. We passed along the Malecon on our way back
but the waves were too high and the breaking spray was to "act of
nature" for me. Earlier a guide had
told us yet again, "Don't walk by the Malecon when it is storming. Just the other day a woman was swept out to
sea and drowned." All this oceanic
drama was happening right outside our hotel! Ashley grabbed me and tried to pull me into
the spray. "Get away, hell
spawn!" I replied. Ha! She got her pants all wet.
Then we went back to the
hotel, located a housekeeper, procured some toilet paper from her and went to
bed. Toilet paper is rather hoarded in
Cuba -- but we were persistent.
December 30, 2000: Ever heard of the Bay of Pigs? I've been there! Apparently the Americans used the same
technique on the Cuban invasion that they used on Normandy Beach. It worked at Normandy Beach.
We arrived at the museum
commemorating the invasion of this area, called by the locals "Zapata
Peninsula" and Playa Giron. "The enemy began the attack by bombing
every airport in Cuba," said Tatiana. "Here is an airplane from the Cuban Air
Force that was used to repel the attack." We looked at this very small propeller-driven
plane. We took our pictures standing in
front of it.
"Cuban soldiers and
civilians fought the enemy," Tatiana said. "In only three days, the invaders were
repulsed. 80 Cubans were killed. 1,118 American-trained mercenaries were
captured and traded back to America for medicine and food." We wandered through the small museum and saw
the photos of the slain soldiers, etc. "The enemy picked the Zapata Peninsula to
spearhead their landing because it was isolated." We looked around at the tropical landscape. Guess what? It was still isolated.
"However," Tatiana
continued, "This area used to be very poor before the Revolution and the
people were hungry and abused by Batista's government. After the Revolution, the lot of these people
was greatly improved. Houses were built,
food was supplied, people were taught to read and doctors were supplied. So when the invaders came to take back the
land the way it used to be, the people who lived here fought with all their
hearts, holding the enemy off for long enough for the Cuban army to come and
help them."
1:00 pm: You've heard of the sparkling clear waters of
the Caribbean where schools of brightly-colored exotic fish swim by you on the
coral reef? It's all true! I've been there! The water actually is that clear and that blue
and the fish are electric-colored just like the ones you see in the pet shop. I was so amazed. Ashley rented a snorkel mask, dived right in
and spent the afternoon on the reef.
"I'm going in," I
told her, "not because I'd like to swim but because I'd feel like an idiot
when I got home and remembered that I was that close to a Caribbean ocean and
didn't go in."
"But Mom," replied Ashley,
"You didn't even get your hair wet."
"Yes, but I swam around
up to the neck! That counts for
something. And one of those sweet exotic
Technicolor little fishies just bit me!" I was all proud of myself for having gone mano a mano with nature again. Then I went back to my cabana and drank rum
and coke and had the most wonderful massage in the world for only $15 -- by
someone who obviously got a masters degree in the subject and was probably an
MD as well.
On the three-hour bus ride back
to Havana, we wrote letters, read, knitted and slept. At one point the bus lurched to a stop as a
bull, dragging the tree he had been tied to, ran across the roadway in front of
us. The driver cum toreador executed a
marvelous pass and we emerged unscathed.
As we drove back through the
streets of Havana, it occurred to me once more that we hadn't seen Fidel, we
hadn't heard Fidel referred to -- and we had the chance of a snowball on
Veradero Beach of doing so. Mr. Castro
kept a very low profile in Cuba. One
could hardly even buy a post card of him let alone a T-shirt. No statues of him by himself existed. It was almost like he kept in the shadows
deliberately, focusing the spotlight on Che.
As for Castro's secession, I
don't think it will be a problem as there are a multitude of highly-educated
people in Cuba. Even the bus drivers
have university educations. Not like in El Estados Unidos where the school systems suck and very few kids go to
college let alone med school. Don't get
me started on education in America. This
is supposed to be a vacation.
"Wanna go to the `Havana
Nights' revue at the theatre tonight?" I asked Ashley.
"Not really."
"Oh, come along. I've heard it's really good. Lots of singing and dancing."
"Oh, okay."
Ashley loved it. There was one song and dance number after
another, each one a take on some part of Havana life -- old cars, salsa, Santeria -- even a take-off on hip-hop. It was all very Las Vegas and light-hearted
and highly professional and fun. "This is the kind of production they have
in the world's only remaining communist country?" I laughed as balloons fell from the ceiling
and sequined dancers in rumba costumes cavorted across the stage. I loved the performance -- it would have fit
perfectly in Atlantic City or Reno, what was not to love -- but it definitely
did not contain sketches of the rebels fighting in the Sierra Maestra or the
heroic workers harvesting the sugar cane. Wow!
"I have to go to the
bathroom," said Ashley after it was over. While we were doing the samba in line at the
ladies' room with the other Cubans, our bus left without us and Ashley and I
had to walk three miles back to the hotel at midnight.
"How could they forget
us?" Ashley grumbled. "My feet
hurt!" As for myself, I enjoyed the
night air, the exercise and the experience of being whistled at by the Cuban
men who couldn't tell in the soft dark night that I was old enough to be their
mother.
Sunday, December 31, 2000: We went on a bike tour! Would my old, creaky knees get me all around
Havana by bike? Hummm. A block away from our hotel, the University of
Havana Bicycle Club had a shed full of bicycles in pretty good shape
(considering the condition my bike at home was in, these bikes were like new!) I ran from one bike to another, looking for
one with a high seat and stable frame. "I ride a 1955 Schwinn to work every
day," I told the student who was helping me. "Do you have anything like that?" He did.
We biked hecka far. We biked all over the city. I did pretty good.
"We're going to an art
center first," said our leader, Ignacio. There were 30 or 40 of us and he had a large
flag of Cuba on a pole on the back of his bike and he had a neon vest and a
helmet and a whistle and biking shorts that read "Velosport". He was a serious biker. He commuted 15 kilos by bike each day and lead
500-mile tours of the island regularly. He was intelligent, informative and funny. I was impressed.
Ingacio blew on his whistle,
all the traffic stopped and we were off through the streets of Havana. The art center turned out to be an alley near
the university where students lived and painted. There were bright murals,
sculptures and paintings everywhere. They had used their homes for their canvases. Surprisingly, the theme of many of the murals
was Santeria: Oshun, Yamaya, Chango,
Santa Barbara.
We biked uphill past the
university. As usual, I was the last one
in the group. A club member rode up
behind me and gave me a push.
That day, Ashley was feeling
very sick and all the club members were very very nice to her and very helpful.
"You can ride in the car,"
they offered. A Jeep with a bicycle
trailer followed us just in case us touristas
wore out. Ashley rode in the vehicle for
a while until she felt better.
"Next we go to a
state-run market," said Ignacio. "Here
in Cuba, every family gets so many pounds of free rice, beans, eggs and milk
each month." He rattled off how
much each family got and what other things they received but I forgot what they
were. "Old people and babies get
more cows' milk. The others get soy
milk." We looked around the
building -- it looked like a high school gymnasium converted by the Red Cross
into an emergency food distribution center, except for the ancient adding
machines on the counters.
"Next door is the
farmers' market where people buy food to supplement their government rations. Each individual and family is rationed and at
the end of each month when their free food runs out, the people supplement
their diet with food from the farmers' market." As this was the day before New Year, the
market was bustling with people buying meat and vegetables and fruit and eggs
in preparation for celebratory feasts. Ashley took a picture of me standing in front
of a whole dead pig hanging on a meat hook.
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Ignacio once again whistled, stopped traffic and signaled us onward, toward the Colon Cemetery. "Here is where the old wealthy colonial families buried their dead. Now the Cuban party leaders are buried here also."
"Is Che buried here?" someone asked.
"No, he is buried in Santa Clara." Colon proved to be my favorite cemetery in all the world -- even better than New Orleans, even better than Hong Kong, even better than Brooklyn! There were marble statues of saints and angels everywhere; more monuments per square foot than any patch of land on earth. I was so happy there.
"The cemetery is laid out with a church in the center," Ignacio told us. It was an octagonal church. I would have liked to have gone in but there were several funerals in progress. I could hear a priest droning the liturgy, just like at home only in Spanish.
"Here is the most famous grave in the cemetery," said Ignacio. I thought he was going to say Christopher Columbus, after whom the cemetery was named. Instead he pointed to a statue of a woman, madonna-like, with a young child in her arms. A line of people were circumambulating the statue, waiting to make their offerings and to present their petitions for help.
"In 1851," Ignacio continued, "this woman, Amelia, died in childbirth and she and her baby were buried in the coffin together, with the child at the mother's feet. Well, it is the custom in Cuba to dig a body up after two years and transfer it to a smaller box." I think that's what I heard him say.
"After two years, they opened the coffin and found the bay enfolded within its mother's arms. Everyone considered it a miracle and now people come here to ask Amelia for favors -- like to get well or find a house, that kind of thing. She is very famous." A miracle? Right. The poor mother and child were obviously buried alive and this lame story was their way of covering up the grisly discrepancy. I'll bet you anything on that.
I went through the line and left a picture of my children. "Please St. Amelia," I said, upgrading her to sainthood for her accidental martyrdom and for the way she answered the prayers of her believers, "watch over my family and bring peace to all the peoples of the world. And I'm sorry that you got buried alive and I wish that your pain also be released as well." Immediately I felt better. I looked up into the sky and it was a beautiful blue color. Perhaps the Cubans were right about St. Amelia. It never hurts to want to have faith that the future will be better.
"Let's go," said Ignacio. "We will ride past Plaza de la Revolucion, Chinatown and old Havana -- and we did. I spotted approximately ten Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, three or four Eurasians and one actual Chinese -- but he was with us and came from California.
Old Havana was beautiful and exotic and etc. but not as mysterious as it had been the other evening in the starlight. Nonetheless, it still was like walking through a time warp, a living museum of cobbled streets and grandiose stone facades.
4:00 pm: We went home, took a nap, had dinner at the hotel, fancied up our outfits and went off to El Morro Castle for the New Years Eve party of the millennium. People from all around the world were coming to this party, organized by the Millennium Society of New York and held in an ancient Spanish castle guarding the Havana harbor. Its miserable dungeons were legendary. It was the real McCoy. Great place to start off the next century!
10:30 pm: The New Years Eve Party of the Millennium sucked. They had canned music and no food and cold, windy tables and no strawberry daiquiris at the bar. Nobody danced. Everybody huddled in a corner out of the wind, wrapping themselves in red tablecloths to keep warm. There were no Cubans dancing salsa.
Of all the adventurous, wondrous, joyous festivities in all Havana, here we were huddled in the corner with a bunch of touristas and bored-looking bartenders. Hummph.
The sole redeeming feature -- and what a redemption! -- was that we were huddled in a cold windy corner of El Morro Castle! Built in the sixteenth century to expel pirates from Havana Bay, its fortifications and dungeons were legend in the New World. They'd chain you to the wall and let you rot there forever. El Morro Castle was awesome.
"I've got to go to the bathroom," said Ashley. She had just finished drinking what she described as "herbal medicine to keep me warm" but we both knew that she had just snuck a taste of the rum.
"No rum for you, young lady," I replied. No rum for me either. But soon the Americans were downing it by the gallon and at last the party started to liven up. "Let's go look for a bathroom." And we did. We wandered all through the bowels of the castle. The stone corridors stretched forever and the looming hulk of the castle itself towered over us. The party was up on top of the castle, near the cannonade and overlooking 365 degrees of the Havana harbor and the lights of the city itself. No pirate barque could ever sneak up on El Morro unnoticed.
The bathroom was down at the level of the sally port. As we were leaving the restroom, the lighthouse keeper was leaving too. "Would you like a tour?" he asked us in Spanish.
"Absolutemente!" I replied. The lighthouse was beautiful. The light house was historic. The lighthouse was out of the wind.
"Watch out here," warned the lighthouse keeper. "The steps are very narrow." And they were. We wound our way up and up and up, around and around narrow stone stairs. After what seemed like hours enclosed in darkness and the musty smell of old stone, we emerged into the light of a 2000-watt bulb greatly magnified by a hundred prisms curved around it. The light shone everywhere, out onto the cold waters of Havana Harbor.
The lighthouse keeper showed us the clock-work mechanism that caused the light to revolve on its pedestal. "It is hand-driven," he said. "I must rewind it with this metal crank once every five hours. There is someone on duty here 24 hours a day, to protect the light and to keep the harbor safe."
The lighthouse keeper seemed young and intelligent, like so many other people in Cuba. Even the waiters and maids looked like they had plenty of gray matter behind their eyes. I asked the lighthouse keeper if he had a degree in navigation or whatever. "Oh yes," he replied. "I was trained at the university. I studied the ocean, to be a sailor." I think the word he used meant sailor. His English and my Spanish were equally awful and we communicated a lot in sign and pantomime. For instance, he showed me the writing on the light bulb package as he said "2000 watts" in Espanol.
"Gracias," we told him as Ashley and I wound our way down the stairs again. "Felix ano neuevo!" We were glad that he brightened our evening and he was glad that we brightened his.
Back at the party, people were finally starting to get into the spirit of the event. At 11:55 pm, some bagpipers and soldiers dressed in powdered wigs and uniforms of the eighteenth century ushered in the New Year (and the new millennium) and everyone hugged and kissed each other. Even I had begun to have a warm glow of camaraderie and communion with all mankind -- or at least benign toleration for American party-goers like myself who could not samba in Havana on New Years.
We took the tour bus home and were in our beds by 1:00 am. Happy New Year!
January 1, 2000: The new year did not begin auspiciously at all. Most of us -- tourists and guides alike -- were miserable, sleep deprived, unorganized and/or hung over.
"Wake up, Ashley," I said at 7:00 am. "Our bus leaves at 8:30!" Guess what? My bus to the orphanage tour was postponed until 11:30 and the bus to the UNESCO biosphere was cancelled altogether. And Ashley's bus to the beach was postponed until noon. No one told us. We could have still been asleep. "Next year, why don't you just not plan anything on New Year's Day and let everyone sleep in," I suggested to a very tired-looking Tatiana. She thought that was a brilliant idea.
So. At 11:00 am, we drove off to the orphanage. It was a very small orphanage, housed in regular one-story house like all the other houses on the street. The children there met us at the door and gave us candy. They were so sweet. I showed them pictures of Ashley and they got all excited. One boy said, "I like Rap . Do you know Rap?"
"Yo conosco Eminem, Lil' Kim and Nelly," I replied. He looked puzzled.
The orphanage's administrator herded us into the front room and gave us a talk. "There are 14 children here, one of the largest orphanages in Cuba. Most only have four to eight children. These children here appear normal at first glance but they are all mildly mentally retarded. We have 14 staff members here, one for each child. All of us have university degrees in child psychology, teaching, physical therapy or nursing." I was impressed.
"After they are grown, these children are able to hold jobs and be productive members of society. We try to mainstream them and make them self-sufficient through their experiences here."
"Do these children go to public schools?" I asked.
"Yes, they do. They also go out shopping and to medical clinics so that they understand how to operate in the real world."
"What about adoption," someone else asked. "Are there very many orphans in Cuba?"
"No, as a matter of fact there are not. Most orphaned Cuban children are absorbed into their extended families. In fact, many couples would like to adopt but cannot. Actually, we are considering bringing abandoned children from Latin America here for those who would like to adopt, if it would be of help to those countries."
"Cubans love children. We never hit them," added one of our guides. "If a Cuban hits a child in public, everyone gathers around immediately to protect that child. In fact, that was one of the reasons we hated the Russians. They used to beat children a lot. It made the Cubans very angry." I was impressed. There no laundry children in Cuba -- the kind, like laundry, that are hung out in the morning and taken in at night. There are no throwaway children in Cuba either. In the United States, throwaway children and laundry children are everywhere.
"As to foster homes," the administrator continued, "we have a few `substitute families' but they are volunteers and do not get paid to keep the children."
We thanked the administrator for letting us visit. She then introduced the children to us and we presented them with a cake and toys and school supplies.
This little celebration should have been a lovely occasion but by then it was 3:00 pm and I was tired and hungry and grouchy and made sure that everyone around me knew it. Finally I went back to the bus and pouted and sulked and even missed the cake and ice cream. "I just want to get back to the hotel," I snarled at poor Tatiana. "We were supposed to be finished and eating lunch two hours ago. Humph."
Then when I finally did get back to the hotel, there was poor sweet Ashley, sitting in the lobby and trying to look nonchalant. "Ashley! What happened!"
"The bus was supposed to leave at noon and it left at 11:30 without me. And I locked the key in our room and couldn't get back in. So I've been sitting here for three hours."
That was it. I grabbed the first tour guide I could find and absolutely went off on him. "Next time schedule your planning better. This is pathetic!" Then I went up to my room, slept for three hours, felt better and gave everyone I had yelled at a box of cookies in order to make amends.
Sidebar about food at the Hotel Deuville: Dinner consisted of buffet food each night. The food was technically typical American food but with a Cuban twist. I liked it except that it was re-heated and served as leftovers a lot. More on that later.
What was it about the food that was different from American food? Not much. "Where are the tortillas, enchiladas and hot sauce," I asked our guide Carlos.
"Cuban food is based more on the European model," he replied. "The same as American food. You must remember that Cuba was a direct colony of Spain for much longer than the rest of Latin America and the Spanish influence is more apparent here." That made sense. The architecture of Havana was definitely Spanish. And Cuban accents resembled Spain rather than Mexico. Even that Spanish tendency to lisp still lingered in Cuban speech.
Still and all, I missed having tortillas.
In fact, there were a lot of things I missed having in Cuba. Like easy access to toilet paper (we always carried spare Kleenex in our backpacks or purses) or hot water on call. But here is a list of things I didn't miss: I did not miss seeing homeless people, drunks, bag ladies, lunatics and panhandlers clogging the streets. In all Havana, I spotted only four or five of the kind of economic outcast that America seems to mass produce.
I also did not miss American violence. "Cubans never hit their kids." Those words rang in my head. "The streets are perfectly safe at night." Or what Tatiana said, "I hitchhike to work every day. Complete strangers pick me up. It's perfectly safe." It's perfectly safe in Cuba. It's perfectly safe in Cuba.
8:00 pm: "Tonight we are going to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba to see a film about Fidel Castro by an American named Estelle Bravo. She has lived in Cuba since the 1960s and was given access to the Cuban government's film archives for the project," said Carlos. "The Nacional was the center of the American social whirl in Havana during the Batista dictatorship. American gangsters, politicians and movie stars stayed there in grandiose style. The hotel now has been completely restored." And it was -- first class tourist Havana at its apex. Bell captains and tile floors and suave lobby shops and well-dressed Americans and Euro-trash littered the place.
The documentary on Fidel was interesting. "Can I buy the video of it," asked Ashley afterwards.
"No. It's $30."
"But I want to take it to school to show my history teacher. Mr. Williams would love it!"
"You can buy it in the States for $22," said one of our group members. As usual, the US had out-priced Cuba, even with regard to a movie on Fidel. Pity the poor Cubans.
The "poor Cubans" -- their major crime seemed to be that they aspired to make education, health and idealism more important than economics. They were like me! And I identified with the Cuban people even further in that I too had to struggle to keep from making economics my top priority. There is such an advantage to being rich! I too believe in the vast importance of my ideals. Yet I too get very bored very quickly with not having any toilet paper.
As we drove back to the hotel on the bus, we passed thousands of people dancing at a Fan-Fan concert held in the open air beside the pounding surf of the Malecon. People laughed and did the samba. I watched from the window of the bus.
January 2, 2000: "Mommmmmy, I don't feel so well," said Ashley. Opps, she was calling me "Mommy". That was not a good sign. "My stomach hurts," she said. Poor Ashley spent the next 24 hours in the bathroom.
We missed the electric train tour to a sugar mill located at Hershey, a town founded many years ago by the Hershey chocolate company. Hershey was located in Matanzas province, the sugar cane capital of Cuba -- if not the world. I bathed Ashley's forehead with compresses and sang her hip-hop songs and tried to coax her to eat some rice and chicken soup but to no avail. Our Ashley was really sick. I spent the day either holding her hand or watching her sleep.
At around 3:00 pm, I took a break and went to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba again -- a mile's walk down the Malecon -- to look for cigars. Buying cigars in Cuba is a matter of some intrigue. One is always taking a chance. Sometimes one can get really good bargains on the street. Sometimes one can get stuck with expensive duds or counterfeits that won't even light. Urban legends abound regarding Cuban cigars.
One group member said, "A policeman gave me a cigar this morning. He said you can buy 200 cigars for ten dollars and all these other prices are just a rip-off.
"Did he say where we could buy all these great cheap cigars?" I asked.
"No -- but I didn't ask." Knowing what Havana's police were like, I smiled at that remark. There is a "Neighborhood Watch" type policeman on almost every corner in Havana but they are usually highly disciplined men whose major credo seems to be "avoid all eye contact." Most of them appear to be highly unapproachable. But I digress.
The night before, a Cuban slid onto the couch next to me as I sat in the lobby of the Hotel Deauville. He said, "Hello. My name is Robert. I work here at the hotel. I can get you cigars."
"Oh? Can you get me Romeo y Juliets?"
"Si. I will meet you here in the lobby at 8:30 tomorrow morning. I will bring you a box of #3 cigars. It will be $60." Sixty dollars was a good price for Romeo y Juliets. They were one of the best brands besides Colitos. But what did he mean by #3s? I asked Orlando, one of our guides.
"Cigars come in different sizes," he said, "and in different qualities. They are rated by their numbers." So. Was a #3 a Churchill-sized cigar or was it a teeny-tiny cigarillo? It didn't matter because the next morning, in the lobby, Robert didn't show up.
When I got to the Nacional, I sat around their big cigar store reading their literature on cigars. All the tourists in Cuba want to buy cigars. Why? Because they're there. Who even smokes cigars? It was a mystery to me. I wanted to buy them to take back to America to sell them. But it is illegal to sell Cuban cigars in America. One could own them but one cannot sell them. I could get busted for violating the "Trading with the Enemy" act. If I were to sell a box of Cuban cigars then I, me, Jane would become a danger to national security.
I looked at all the boxes and boxes of cigars at the Nacional store and finally settled on two boxes of Romeo y Juliets; ten to a box, wrapped in aluminum tubes. "Quanto questan para los dos, Senorita?"
"Sesena dollares."
"Bueno." I bought the boxes for $35 each and walked
along the Malecon; 12 blocks back to our hotel. Ashley was still limp and pale and sleeping
when I got back.
3:00 pm: Before I left for the Nacional, I had my first
experience with Cuban medicine. I had
heard about the excellence of the Cuban medical system for years now but Ashley
and I were about to glean first-hand knowledge of it. Was there a doctor in the house? Yes, there was. The hotel actually had a resident doctor and a
resident nurse. They were located on the
sixth floor, three doors down from our room. Tentatively, I knocked on their door.
"Me nina tiene la Tourista, Doctor. Can you come help her?"
"Si. Of course." The doctor was young, personable and highly
professional. Excellent bedside manner. And he made house calls -- er -- room calls.
"Has your daughter any
history of major diseases," the doctor asked first, taking her medical
history in order to get the big picture. Then, "What are her symptoms?" Wringing my hands in motherly anxiety, I told
him. He prescribed and produced a bottle
of medicine.
"I have been giving her
some Chinese herbs," I told the doctor, producing my ever-reliable Po Chai
pills from Oakland Chinatown.
"Ah, Chinese
medicine," he responded. "We
have that here. I myself have studied it
and use it frequently." Why was I
not surprised. Holistic medicine in
Cuba? Si.
Had this emergency happened in
the United States, I would have had to bundle Ashley up, drive her to
Children's' Hospital and wait in the emergency room lobby for at least four
hours before she could be seen. The
doctors at Children's' are the best in the world but, like all American health
care services, their availability, as compared to the availability of Cuban
doctors, is way down on the list.
Evening: I took dinner alone
at the hotel dining room. Usually Ashley
and I played cards at our table after dinner -- Go Fish, Speed, Spit, Crazy
Eights, Jacko and Egyptian Rat Screw -- but tonight I just read a book over
dessert. I brought Ashley back some rice
and soup, which remained basically untouched. "Will you be okay if I go off to the tour
of the local block organization?" I asked worriedly. She turned her liquid, feverish eyes toward me
and nodded. "Okay. Well. Then.
I guess I'm off," I added guiltily,
thinking what a bad mom I was to drag my sweet little daughter off to a foreign
country and leave her alone and ill in a strange hotel room while I went out
learning about the CRP.
"CRP" stood for
Committee for Public Responsibility. It
was your basic community organization, improvement club, neighborhood
association. There was a CRP on every
block in Havana -- or at least every four intersecting blocks. "Are we going to have to sit through some
boring meetings with the neighborhood spies?" I asked the person next to
me on the bus.
"Communist party
bureaucrats, more than likely," she replied. I nodded. Oh, well.
When we got to the
neighborhood who's CRP we were to observe, we were herded into a large meeting
room and introduced to the neighborhood CRP leaders. They turned out to be very friendly and very
nice. And the whole thing turned out to
be a great excuse for a party!
What
did I learn? That in this particular
neighborhood, the CRP had degenerated into an extended family where everyone
helped everyone else. Burdens were
shared. Good fortunes were also
celebrated. As I watched the interaction
between the 100-odd CRP members, officers, neighbors and children, I realized
that all these people liked each other and liked spending time together.
"That is my
grandson," the woman next to me said, pointing out a cute little six-year-old.
"He is going to read a poem." And he did. After that we all went outside and other
children danced for us. Did they do
traditional Cuban dances? No! Two rows of eight-year-old girls looking very
self-conscious and very proud of themselves, demonstrated their proficiency
with hip-hop. We applauded wildly. They blushed and smiled.
We had been standing in the
courtyard of a block of houses but were then invited inside one of the houses
for coffee and cake. "These houses
remind me of the co-op housing complex where I live back home," I told one
Cuban lady who spoke English and had adopted me, making sure I felt
comfortable. "Even the buildings
are alike. The only difference is that
your neighborhood seems to work the way ours was supposed to work -- with
everyone co-operating. At our complex,
everyone is always trying to slit everyone else's throat." I don't think she understood the word for
"throat" or the word "slit" but she generalized that I was
trying to pay her a compliment. Which I
was. People back in my country had yet
to learn the concept of working together. I felt very happy that this CRP had mastered
that concept well.
The insides of the houses
turned out to be quite nice. The one we
went to had three bedrooms and a microwave -- our host had relatives in Miami. "My mother came to visit me last
month," she told me.
Seated comfortably on the
front room couch, my host explained that she was a dermatologist at a near-by
hospital, that she had ample opportunity to flee to Miami and that she chose to
stay and work in Cuba. "I am an
idealist," she told me. I
understood. I was one too.
We talked and laughed and
enjoyed each other's company and ate grainy cake frosted with a powdered sugar
meringue recipe similar to one my grandmother used to make back in the 1940s. I was having a thoroughly grand time. Then I looked at my watch. It was 10:15 pm! Ashley had been alone for over three hours! "Carlos, please," I said to our
guide, "can we go now? It's late
and I have to get back to Ashley." He
nodded. I said goodbye to my host and to
all the neighborhood children as well. They
were looking rather drowsy but obviously had no interest in going to bed while
Americans were there and a party was at hand.
When I got back to the hotel, Ashley
was sleeping fitfully. She woke up at
the sound of me getting ready for bed. "How are you feeling?" I asked.
"Just awful."
January 3, 2001: The next morning, Ashley felt better,
attempted some breakfast and was even up for the next tour. "Where are we going?" she asked.
"To a Jewish
synagogue," I replied. Apparently
there had been a rather large Jewish community in Havana before the revolution.
Apparently, many had gone there before
World War II in order to avoid the Nazis. And, apparently, American Jews used to go to
Cuba the same way that they now go to Miami -- to spend their winters in the
sun.
First stop on the tour,
however, was an artist's studio. It was
located in a house in the Copelia district. Havana is divided up into districts. Each one is a separate neighborhood -- almost
a separate city -- with its own downtown, homes and stores. The artist's studio/gallery/work space was
much like how an artist's home might be in, say, Malibu or SoHo. And judging by the quality of her art and the
quality of her lifestyle, this artist's work had been selling very well. Ashley and I both liked it; a combination of
pointillism style, Santeria themes and post-modern influences rolled up into
one.
"We still have an hour
before we are scheduled to arrive at the synagogue," said Carlos. "Let's go visit a rum factory." Everyone on the bus cheered!
"We
make rum from the juice of the sugar cane," said the rum factory manager. Much to my surprise, the factory was quite
small and was nestled among other businesses and houses on a typical downtown
Havana city block. "We begin the
fermentation process by storing the juice here in these casks made from
American white oak," he continued. Like
many good Cubans, the manager held an unlighted cigar in his hand and used it
as a pointer as he gestured toward the casks. Touring the back warehouse of the Snake and
Swan rum factory was much like touring a winery in the Napa Valley. Even the smells were the same. The main difference was that...what was the
main difference? Aha! Rum can knock you on your butt.
"This way to the tasting
room," said the factory manager. We
all followed him like good little sheep. Then we all headed off to the synagogue with
happy smiles on our faces.
At the synagogue, a Jewish
woman with a Spanish-Bronx accent showed us around. "This synagogue was built in the early
1950s," she said. It looked like it
too. It looked like my old elementary
school, also built in the early 1950s. Good old Green Hills Elementary School.
"During the beginning of
the Special Period, when Cuba was blockaded by the United States and there was
no money or construction material, this synagogue was badly neglected. But recently we got a rather large donation
from the Jewish community and now, as you can see, it has all been
restored." She proudly pointed to
newly-polished bronze doors depicting scenes from the Torah.
"How large is the Jewish
community here?" someone asked.
"At this particular
synagogue, we have about 15 families. However,
we do not at this time have a rabbi."
At that point, Carlos got a
call on his cell phone. "We have a
change of plans," he told us. "We
are now going to see a community garden." Apparently there are about 90 small plots of
land scattered throughout Havana, sort of like the victory gardens that
Americans had during World War II. When
the Special Period began and food was scarce, people began to grow their own. The government encouraged the gardens and
helped them become organic as well.
We visited a two-acre plot by
the side of the road in North Havana, out toward the old Ernest Hemingway
haunts. I bought some organic carrots
and two organic bananas.
Next we went further into the
suburbs of Havana, to a small intensive garden/farm near Jose Marti Airport. "This is a completely organic farm,"
translated Carlos. Spread out in front
of us was a feast, a groaning board, a cornucopia of vegetables, melons,
bananas and home-made baked bread. Good
grief! It was 1:30 pm and we hadn't
eaten since 8:00 am. Okay, you convinced
me, I'm ready, let's eat! But no-o-o-o. As we sat and stared at all that food, Renee,
our American translator took over. "This
farm produces.... They sell it at.... The organic seeds come from...." No, Renee! Let's not talk. Let's eat. But I knew Renee, a kind-hearted gringa who wanted to make sure we would
learn all there was to know about Cuba, get our money's worth and go home
knowing more facts and figures about Cuba's GNP than we had ever even known
about the GNP of California -- even after we had studied it for a whole year in
fifth grade (and even made the dioramas with the missions).
I was getting more and more
hungry. That papaya looked really good. "And now," translated Renee,
"the agriculturalists here will offer you an opportunity to help them work
in the fields."
Earlier that morning, another
tour group staying at our hotel had mentioned that they planned a trip to a Babalawa, a sort of Santeria fortune teller/witch doctor/healer, later in the day.
"I heard that you were interested in Santeria,"
their guide said. "Would you like
to go with us this afternoon?"
"I would just love
that!" I instantly replied. "When
do we go? Where do we meet?"
"Can you be in the lobby
at 2:30 pm?"
"Absolutely! And thank you." And here I was stuck out in the middle of
nowhere, playing at being the Venceramos Brigade and starving to death too.
Desperate times call for
desperate measures. I slipped in next to
Carlos and whispered, "Which way is Havana?" He pointed south. I grabbed Ashley, two pieces of home-made
bread and some watermelon and went off to the nearest road. "We have 30 minutes left to get back to
the hotel," I told Ashley. "Start
looking for transportation." She
did.
A few trucks drove by; a
bicycle and a moped; two more trucks; a 1949 Packard and a 1953 Buick. That was it. Then a miracle happened and a taxi picked us
up. "How much to the Hotel Deauville?"
"Ten dollars."
"Deal." We got into the spacious taxi and took off. It was a relatively new Russian car, a Lada. The Russians gave Cuba a hecka cars 10-15
years earlier. They were still like new.
Cubans knew how to take care of cars. "I could never afford a car,"
Tatiana had told us. "You have to
save up for years to get one. But
everyone knows how to drive. We are
taught in school."
Our taxi sped past rows of
hitchhikers, lining the sides of the road. "Stop for one," I told our driver. It is the custom to share one's ride with
one's fellow Cubans and I was all keen for Solidarity.
"One or two?" asked
the driver.
Ashley, always game to help,
scooted over toward me to make more room in the back seat. "Two."
At the hotel, we jumped out of
the cab and sprinted for the tour bus just in time -- or so we thought. But just as we climbed up the steps, the guide
told us the bad news. "The babalawa has cancelled," he said. "We're going to the Casa de Africa
instead." Rats. `See a Babalawa'
had been number one on my list of things to do in Cuba.
Scratch
that.
Then, suddenly, as I stood on
the steps of the bus talking to the tour guide, something else jumped up to the
very top of my priority list -- something that instantly became my absolute
number one thing to do in Cuba. I
couldn't believe it! I barely made it to my hotel room toilet. Guess what I did for the rest of the day?
6:00 pm: Somehow, between gastro-intestinal episodes, I
managed to struggle down to the hotel lobby for a de-briefing meeting by our
head Global Exchange representative. "When you go through customs in the
United States," Walter told us, "tell them that you have been to
Cuba. You have a legal right to be here.
This is a paper containing our license
information. I'm giving you each a copy.
Give it to the customs people and to the
INS." Okay. "Your plane leaves at 5:00 am,"
Walter continued. "I want you in
the lobby, packed, checked out and ready to go by 2:30 am." Universal
groans followed that statement.
Our last dinner at the
Deauville was a glum affair. I ate
chicken broth and drank Sprite. Over
half our group followed suit. We were
all sure that the food there was the source of our dilemma and weren't up to
eating more of it. The woman at the
table next to me was looking green but her husband had not even been able to
make it downstairs.
"I'm still glad I
came," she said over gritted teeth and soda crackers. "Stomach trouble is a hazard of travel. I wouldn't have missed this trip for the
world." I had to agree with her. Cuba had opened my heart -- not just my
digestive tract.
After dinner, I went back to
my room, took the last of my Po Chai pills (Hong Kong's answer to Alka Seltzer,
available anywhere in any Chinatown in the world) and felt better.
9:00 pm: "So, Ashley," I said.
"So, Mommy," she
replied.
"So what should we do on
our last night in Havana?"
"Sit on the toilet?"
I laughed. "Nah. We can do that at home. Let's go for a walk on the Malecon and watch
the sunset."
"Okay." The sea was calm all along the Malecon. There were very few people out walking. The place had a deserted look. We walked along, looking at the ocean on our
left and the decaying stone mansions on our right. Poor Cuba. Misunderstood, unloved and heroic. "We love you, Cuba!" I cried. Ashley gave me a funny look.
As we walked along, Linda from
our group joined us. Linda was a
professional court translator, knew Spanish like the back of her hand and had
not wasted her time in Havana. "It's our last night in Havana," she
said. "Let's go shopping." She didn't have to ask twice.
Old Havana is considered the
downtown area by tourists but about a half-mile from there is the downtown for
Cubans. We all stuffed ourselves into a
pedicab petaled by a really cute guy with mini-dreads and headed downtown. Half-way there, the street got too steep and
we had to get out and walk.
"I've always loved
dolls," said Linda.
"Me too," I replied.
"I collect them." We went into a small corner store and stocked
up on dolls. I got a wonderful Oshun doll dressed in yellow satin and
carrying a mystic symbol next to her heart. Then I bought a doll that Linda assured me was
"the guardian of the graveyards" and a Chango doll for Joe.
Ashley bought a slave girl
doll with a black stovepipe hat and cornrows. She loved it. It reminded her of the dancers at Casa de
Africa.
As we walked around, I saw a
sign on the side of a building. "Oh
my God!," I cried. "There's
the Hotel Ingleterre!" I poked Ashley
and shouted, "That's where the Elmore Leonard Cuba Libre story took place! The hero shot the bad guy in the year 1898 in
that very barroom!" I took advantage of the historic moment to use their
bathroom and then we walked back home to the Hotel Deauville via the lovely
smell of salt water pounding against the concrete seawall along the Malecon.
January 4, 2001: Next came the only thing, besides tourista at the Deauville, about Cuba
that I didn't like: Getting to Cuba and
getting home again. The journey began
with check-out at 1:30 am as promised. And
of course who could have slept that night? "Did you get any sleep last night,"
I asked Ashley.
She just grinned satanically
and said, "I slept like a rock." I'm glad somebody did. The housekeeper came and checked us out, we
went to the airport and waited around for four hours. We said teary goodbyes to Tatiana, we flew to
Mexico City. We waited. We ran from one airline to another trying to
book a flight out to San Francisco that didn't involve eight hours in the
Mexico City airport. What had our travel
agent been thinking of? No luck.
Eight hours in the Mexico City
airport. Right. We could do this. Just breathe.
"Want to play Crazy
Eights?" I asked Ashley.
"Sure."
Two hours later. "Want to play Egyptian Rat Screw?" I
asked Ashley.
"Sure."
Two hours later. "Let's eat lunch."
Two hours later. "Oh my God. There's an internet bar!"
Two hours later. "Flight to San Francisco. Now
boarding."
Four hours later. "Dallas/Fort Worth airport." Look, Ashley! There's a Dallas Cowboys store."
Four hours later we flew into
San Francisco. Two hours after that we
were home. It had taken us 24 hours to
get back from Cuba. I was glad when we
got home. And the cat was glad to see us
too.
Post Script:
June 21, 2004: I just
returned from Miami, where I talked with several Cuban Americans. "George Bush should invade Cuba too,"
said one Miami resident. Okay. Let's suppose George Bush did authorize the
invasion of Cuba. What would happen? To get an idea of what would be in store for
that island nation, let's look at what has happened to other countries that
Bush has invaded. If he follows his
current Modus Operandi, what would happen in Cuba would very likely be the same
thing that has happened in Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq; Shock and Awe followed
by corruption, drug dealing, torture, insurgency -- and incompetence.
"If Bush invaded Cuba, it
would become free and democratic," said one Miami Cuban. Not if you check the stats. Bush's record so far? Haiti is now being governed by torturers and
tyrants. Iraq is now being governed by
torturers and tyrants. Afghanistan is in
the hands of warlords (aka torturers and tyrants). Not to mention what happened in Columbia, one
of Bush's other Latin American success stories. Or in Argentina.
Compared to Bush's sad and
shabby foreign policy record, Fidel Castro, with his insistence on free health
care and free college education for all, is looking better and better. Would Bush give free education and health care
to Cuba? We don't even get it in
California!
In addition, many
Cuban-Americans still have relatives back in Cuba. If George Bush did authorize an attack on that
island, what makes them think that their relatives would be safe?
Cuban-Americans from Miami had
better be careful what they wish for. Do they honestly think that, under George
Bush, they would be gaining their island paradise back? That their relatives will be there to welcome
them? What makes them think that?
Halliburton will own the
island, not them.
However, Cuban-Americans will
finally be able to visit their relatives. They will be able to see them hooded and naked
at Guantanamo of course -- but more likely Bush will have found an even better
place for the relatives. They will be
peacefully residing at Christopher Columbus.
For those of you who are not
familiar with Havana, Christopher Columbus is a famous cemetery there. It's the place where you bury your dead. Moral: It's okay to hate Castro. But be aware: A Bush invasion would be much, much worse.
Endless War is still a thing -- and I still keep typing: Military Summary Channel reminds us about Ukra$ne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJDwKWhTK7s and Electronic Intifada reminds us about the Zionists' horrible Holocaust on Gaza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I91lelvtEdA
Danny Haiphong and Col. Wilkerson remind us how far America has fallen into corruption, grifting and immorality in the past 250 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymuk2wXEfjM
