Maddy's Travels

I got hugged and kissed more in Cuba than anywhere or anytime in my life.  One is always greeted with a kiss.  It’s a one sided, cheek to cheek air kiss.  With a new acquaintance it will be just one smack, but by the time someone is more familiar (maybe the third time you’ve met), it will be smack-smack-smack, maybe even five smackeroos with a hearty hug.  A fifteen year old boy I was introduced to greeted me this way - so different from the grunt of an American 15 year old.  This affection was my favorite thing about Cuba, not to mention the music in the air, coming out of every window, every café.

 

The most often asked question since my return has been, “Was there any anti-Americanism?”  I experienced none whatsoever.  The only travel problem I experienced was harassment by our own customs agents on my return - xeroxing, phoning, and questioning my perfectly valid and legal visa to travel to Cuba..  One day when I was sitting on a stone wall in a park, a four year old boy asked me where I was from. When I told him I was from the United States, he broke into a huge grin.  That was as far out to him as if I’d said I was from Mars.  Actually, there was one Cuban travel problem - it’s called a 420Yakk - the Soviet-built plane I flew on to and from Cancun. I was told this was the airplane with the worst safety record in the Soviet commercial fleet.  As I wondered where the armrests were to my seat, I hoped that instead of interior amenities, they had spent the money on engine maintenance.  I popped a “Xanax” and gave one to my seatmate.  The engine started and the cabin proceeded to fill up with condensation - sort of like dry ice special effects at a disco.  Off we went, and thank goodness I’m still here to tell the story.

 

Cuba is such a screwed up place economically.  There are two totally different economies - one with dollars and one with Cuban pesos.  There’s not much to buy with either on, but certainly less with pesos.  I went to eat ice cream at “Coppelia”, the ice creamery featured in the movie “Fresas y Chocolate” (“Strawberries and Chocolate”).  I was ushered into the tourist area.  I told the guard I wanted to see where they had filmed the movie, but I was not allowed in the “Cuban” area.  My ice cream cost US$2.50.  Ice cream, coffee and cigars are three things done well in Cuba.  

 

The next day my Cuban guide Alexis took three people from our group back to “Coppelia”.  This time we ate our ice cream on the Cuban side and paid one peso ( four cents US).  There were four flavors to choose from on the Cuban side, ten on the tourist side.  The tourist ice cream definitely tasted better.  So the Cuban teacher who earns the equivalent of US$15.00 a month can afford to eat ice cream or go to the ballet for about 25 cents.  This might all work out if there was anything to buy with Cuban pesos, but the shelves are bare.  Everyone needs some way to make dollars to spend in the “dollar stores”, which don’t have a lot on their shelves either.  I went to three dollar stores with some Cuban friends to buy diapers for their baby, but to no avail.  “What will you do” I asked?  For the baby, they could make do with cloth diapers, but I had to wonder about what women do at their time-of-the month given the skin tight clothes that are so popular.  I am so lucky to have been warned to bring my own toilet paper.  There is always a woman sitting outside the bathroom in a restaurant or hotel to sell you a piece of toilet paper for a peso or two - and I mean “a piece”.  I asked for two and was rebuffed.  In my own hotel, the maids would leave a half roll to augment the remaining half roll from the previous day.  I really didn’t begrudge them the full rolls I knew they were stealing for their own homes.  When Cuba opens up to commerce, I am going to go down there and make my fortune selling toilet seats.

 

After dance class one day, a few of us went for a bite at a cafeteria across from the theater.  The food prices were in pesos, the drinks in dollars - most confusing!   I had the ubiquitous ham and cheese sandwich - Cuban fast food.  These sandwiches can be had for pennies on the street, most often served pressed in an iron to melt the cheese.  When I once asked for a plain cheese sandwich with NO ham, I was told they didn’t have any; they only had cheese with ham.  Later that day, I met a woman on the street who asked me if I had visited the nearby cigar factory.   I hadn’t.  She told me that she worked there and she stole cigars to sell for dollars.  Did I want to buy any?  I bought a few for my pals at work.  Hopefully they were good ones. 

 

The thing so obviously different from other Caribbean island cultures is the level of education.  One day, as I looked at my map from the vantage point of a fort across the bay from Havana, an eight year old school boy approached me.  We looked at the map together, his map reading skills being every bit as good as mine.  The audience that attended the ballet and other dance performances with me were sophisticated and appreciative.   In addition to the high literacy rate is good healthcare, but a scarcity of basic medical supplies.  My Cuban friends have been waiting months for some kind of catheter for heart surgery for their four year old daughter.  When my dance teacher had a headache one day, I emptied 90% of the bottle of Tylenol into her hand, saving a few for me, just in case.  The Cubans are nothing if not resourceful.  The same friends awaiting the catheter came to pick me up in their ‘52 Chevy.  Ivan had to open the hood to pop the cable to open the door. 

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I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful, but crumbling architecture and the perfect beaches.  People spend more time talking face-to-face instead of using those damnable cellphones.  Also so apparent to me was the lack of advertising and billboards, (except for the occasional ‘Che Guevarra - Tus Ideas Perduran’ [your ideas last]).  I asked myself, “do we really need 15 varieties of Crest toothpaste, 15 of Colgate, and so on?”  Wouldn’t it be nice if the Cubans had at least two?  

 

The administration of George W. Bush strictly enforced the travel ban to Cuba, making it difficult to go - particularly for arts groups.  This year, the bi-partisan “US-Cuba Trade Act of 2003" will be introduced to Congress.  I can only hope that it passes and we can freely trade with and visit our friends in Cuba.