5 Days in Cuba: Tuesday Part 3: Lions and the Liceo

So we leave the Archbishop’s house and walk past three doors back to TiaLourdes’ house on the Prado. When we get there we find it full of visitors including Mayulis’ mom, Mila. So much for meeting up at 4pm it isn’t even noon yet.

Olgita tells us lunch is ready, but she doesn’t look too happy because there are two extra people to feed. She can’t turn them away, but I’m sure her kindness to them is out of love for us. Not everyone in house is eating lunch; there is her doctor sister I never met, and an uncle too, who stay put and make no move towards the lunch.

 Two extra chairs are pulled up  for Mayulis and Mila around the table that my great-grandparents ate at and we share the chicken (or maybe it was pork), plantains, and rice.  Nothing tastes good, nothing tastes right, but I eat out of politeness. Olgita tells me to only drink this water from this cup, but I forgot and start drinking other water. Between her bites of food she notices this and takes the cup away. I feel protected and I’m not quite used to this.

Mayulis, seated across from me, keeps tilting her head towards the door, the universal signal for “lets ditch this place” but I can’t go, we can’t go, we just got here.  Our time in Cuba is short and precious; just like we divided our money into envelopes for each day and necessity, we also divided our time into pieces to be given out like candy and dollars.

This time, after lunch, I didn’t insult Olgita by trying to clear the table, trying to help wash or do anything in her precious kitchen. I join everyone back in TiaLourdes’ office and mom whispers to me that I should open the gusano and give out the stuff we brought for Olgita and her family. I completely forgot that we haven’t given anything out yet, and suddenly everyone converging on the house looks a little different to me, like they’re waiting politely but hungrily.

Tita gives TiaLourdes the gifts and treats from us and from her brother, my grandfather while I drag the rest of the bag into the long hallway, the one that still has my great grandmother’s turn of the century Singer sewing machine.

Olgita and her sister Cookie join me. What I have for them are clothes, piles of clothes in a range of sizes from me, from my neighbors and friends.  Here’s a long pink light sweater that flows like a cape when you walk. Here’s a shiny satiny white shirt. Then came more shirts, a dress, shoes and a pair of culottes.

It all looked like so much more when I was packing it and carrying it, filled with hope and generosity and abundance, but here, now, it looks not nothing, like odds and ends, like not enough. Still, they look pleased and start to sort the clothes between them, what to keep, what to give to their other sisters.

I notice Mayulis sitting quietly in the other room and then remember I haven’t given her or her mother the clothes we brought for them.  Maybe that’s why they came here early, or maybe it was to see us. I knew better than to ask.

Now Mom is playing on the floor with Barbarita, the former toddler who was fascinated with my iPad last year. This year we brought her a play tea set, and she was pretending to cook for and feed my Mom.  I watched for a minute, maybe five, but that’s as long as my attention lasts because I have an idea and grab Mayulis by the wrist.

Come see, I tell her, in English then Spanish, and pull her to the dimly lit bathroom, the one with the bidet that terrifies me.  

I’ve brought all my makeup and makeup brushes with me; concealer, foundation, mascara, blush, and and eyeshadow palette. Her eyes light up and she lets me unleash on her face. This is fun; in another life we would have grown up doing this, but here we are, a professor and a doctor, giggling over shiny peaches and glittery coppers.

Then I pull out the eyelash curler. Mayulis winces; apparently no one in Cuba has seen such a majestic piece of engineering.  I teach her to curl first, THEN put on mascara and we practice catching her tiny lashes and then squeezing them until the stand up straight and proud. She is giddy, and so am I. I pull out my iphone and show her crazy effects. In another world, she would be my Facebook friend, and I would know what's really going on in her life.  For now we have to be the kind of cousins who play with makeup and giggle. 

A line presents itself outside the bathroom door; this one wants concealer for her circles, the next one demands long eyelashes. I do my best to represent the very best of our capitalistic free market, and happily dab, swish, squeeze and beautify until everyone is entertained and satified.

It’s now about the time that we planned on leaving TiaLourdes house and going with Mila and Mayulis to walk around and see the things that would be intimately familiar to me if I’d grown up in Cienfuegos.  

I’m ready, they’re ready, and the four of us – me, my mom, Mila and Mayulis – give our kiss kiss hugs and goodbyes. We have saved a slice of Friday for TiaLourdes, and promise to come back with stories.

We leave the huge door and head to the right, the opposite direction of the Obispado. We cross a street and arrive at Casa de los Leones, the huge colonial mansion where my great-great grandmother lived with her brother when she came to Cienfuegos from Spain. I had seen this house before in pictures and last year we drove by it, but I didn’t understand that it was mine, that this house was our house.

 The lions looked scary before, now they are familiar, protective, hungry to be noticed.

The four of us stand in front of an open doorway to the mansion and see there are many people, many strangers lingering there. I don’t want to go in, and no one else seems to want to push this. This is Cuba’s house, now, this is what a revolution does; turns things upside down. The house belongs to everyone so it belongs to no one and seems to be slowing falling apart after two centuries of Caribbean weather.

Above us the roof of the ancient porch is barely held up with long treetrunks shoved here and there.  Mom offers to take a picture of me with a statue lion but I decline and instead take ones of everyone else with the lions.  An old man in long stained green pants stares us. His face is unshaven and haggard, not unkind but not familiar or safe. I tell them I’ve seen enough, and ask what we will see next.

They take me across the traffic of the Prado and back down a block to the Liceo de Cienfuegos, a building our great grandfather helped found. I have heard one hundred times over many years that if there hadn’t been a communist revolution this is where my mother would have had her quincenera.

We are met at the entrance by two women whose job it is to take our purses, put them in boxes, and give us little numbers to keep as receipts. I don’t like this one bit, I know from college bookstores that things disappear from purses, but it’s not the time to bring it up. I take my iPhone out of the purse and leave the rest in the universe’s hands.

Right after the entrance a huge square staircase opens up in two directions.  We take pictures on the stairs, each pretending to be a bride, a princess, someone worthy of descending through this architecture. I’m not sure if our giggling was too much; no one hushed us.

Then we go to the second floor. I see a man copying words from an old newspaper onto yellow lined paper. He looks serious and annoyed. I want desperately to see what newspaper he has, and if it is from before 1960 but I’m a stranger to him and let it go.  At another table two teenage girls in short skirted uniforms appear to be working on a project, surrounded by books and colored pencils.  There are about ten short low aisles of books, all nearly empty. 

Next to that is a spiral staircase to what must be a cupola upstairs. 

We walk through that room and to a room that would havce been the actual party room for mom’s quincenera.  The floor and walls screamed Caribbean Art Noveau; patterned intricacies that came together to proclaim to the world this sugar port city had a robust and cultured genteel class.

Mom shows me the balcony window and I lean out and look up and down the Prado. There is Casa de los Leones; there is TiaLourdes house; there’s the Obispado. I take pictures of us leaning into the wind, the sun on our faces, eyelashes curled and ready for action.

This is the point where I start getting hungry. It hits me like a tidal wave and now I’m realizing all I’ve had in hours is half a glass of water and now I’m so thirsty I can’t even concentrated on anything else. Everyone else seems to feel the same way, so we gather our purses from the front of the building and walk around the block and up one street back to hotel.

As we walk into the building the woman at the front desk calls to my Mom (how does she know my Mom? How does everyone here know us?) that someone is waiting for her, upstairs at the rooftop bar.

I look at her shocked. Who are you meeting Mom?

She shakes her head and says she doesn’t know but I have a feeling there’s more going on than that. 

5 Days in Cuba: Tuesday Part 2: Do You Remember This?

So my Mom and her friend lead me out of the house and to the covered sidewalk that runs parallel to the Prado.

Last time I was here the most courageous thing I could do was stick my iPad out the barred windows and record people going by.  Now, I’m ready to join them, even though I have no idea whatis going on.

We turn left out of the house (away from Marti park and the central square and the Cathedral) and walk about ten steps before I see something strange coming towards me. I think I recognize her, but it couldn’t be. It is. It’s my cousin Mayulis wearing her spiffy white doctor lab coat, walking towards TiaLourdes house. 

Kiss kiss kiss, hug hug hug. She looks shocked to see us walking, and I’m shocked to see her. She tells us she finished early so she’s READY.

This is not good. I’m so confused. Our time is broken into pieces like a cake; this much for you, this much for you. Her slice starts at 4. It’s 11:15am.

Mom doesn’t miss a step and invites her to join us where we are going, and I still don’t understand where we are going.

Down three steps and there’s a huge door.

Mom points at it and announces, The Obispado! They have it open for you Missy!

I smile and Mayulis looks at us like we are crazy. All my graduate work in colonial latin American history is paying off like crazy. In a matter of seconds I realize we are visiting the archbishop’s residence, which is only three doors down from “home.”

A bored looking curly haired woman sits at a desk and stares at us. Dora greets her, explains who I am (an American professor! A historian! A Cuban!) and she brightens up and waves us in without getting off her stool. The man who runs this is only here certain times and they kept it open for me to see. OK, I wasn’t expecting this.

I whisper to mom, why are we here?

You’ll see, she elbows me.

We cross the entry and end up expectedly in the courtyard. Of course all colonial buildings are that way – publicly plain, privately splendid, with grand fountains and gardens and hidden space away from the dirty streets. I start taking pictures of this, of that, not knowing why.

A plainly dressed man greets us, was expecting us and particularly me, and brings us up a flight of cracked marble steps (not so cracked; the Syrian revolution and the Egyptian revolution make the Cuban revolution look nonviolent – I’m still constantly shocked at how little violence really tore through this town) to the tiny Archbishops chapel, which was locked behind ornate black iron gates.

There;s the flower I keep seeing, the 4 petaled one. There, there, there. It’s in the floor, it’s in the iron, it’s on the woodwork by the communion chalice.

As we step in, I reach next to me for holy water to genuflect and cross myself before walking in. It’s dry. Weird. I let that go and walk in quietly with Mayulis shadowing me by two inches. If I stopped too fast, she would crash into me. We’re like long lost twin sisters separated at birth.

Once we are all in the chapel Mom tells me this is where Abuelo and Abuela were married in 1944, during WW2.

Oh. OH. Now I want to picture it, I want to imagine it.

I know they had a civil ceremony and she wouldn’t sleep with him and he spent the whole night outside her door, drunk, wanting to be with his wife. The next day they had their REAL marriage, the religious one, but somehow I thought it was in the cathedral.

But I should know better; cathedrals are for huge occasions and Abuelo was raised to never show his money. Better to have $100,000 hidden than flash $10,000, you know? So of course they wouldn’t have a huge flashy wedding. Of course. But also they would have been on a first name basis with the Archbishop, politically and economically and socially. It all makes sense in a way I couldn’t have imagined; he lived two doors down the street on the Prado.

So I take a million pictures; some of the floor, some of the art. We leave the chapel and Dora shows me where the Monks (brothers, hermanos, whatever) ate. I take pictures of the clean empty room filled with tables that would bring tens of thousands of dollars in the US. Then we go to the hallway and there is a huge painting that pulls me in – it’s a scene of a procession towards the cathedral – all the people in the painting are white and well dressed.

I take 10 pictures of that picture and notice there are two HUGE ornate vases below the painting.

 Mayulis is still standing next to me and I push her into one of the vases and then pull her back just before she knocks a piece of 19^th century treasure into a million pieces.

She looks at me like I’m crazy and I shake my head and say “Bad girl! You’re supposed to be a DOCTOR! You almost got us in trouble!” then the two of us laugh so hard it seems inappropriate for such sacred grounds.

Dora tells us she needs to lock the place up and we start to scamper downstairs. I take a few more pictures and mom asks me, whispers, “Do you remember any of this?” and I tell her bluntly “Not at all.”

5 Days In Cuba: Tuesday Part 1

Monday was the day we flew in, the day of the detainment, the day where our relatives ate at the hotel with us and each ordered a paella. I had spaghetti. It was awful, which was funny.

After kiss kiss kiss goodbye, Mom and I send them off. We agree to meet at 4pm on Tuesday at TiaLourdes house, then go walking around Cienfuegos.

With them gone, Mom and I go up to the rooftop bar of the hotel. The only other people there was a couple was having a private moment exactly in the spot I needed to stand in, so I walked right over there then called my mom over.

As they walk away they each give me thinly veiled dirty looks and whispered to each other in either English or German. Either way I don’t care; I’m here, this my Cuba now. 

We lean over the edge and this time I point out the buildings. OK, there’s the cathedral, there’s the school of art, there’s the theatre. My mom laughs. We walk to the other part of the roof and lean over the other street, the one that is blocked off for pedestrian tourist traffic now that cruise ships are coming to Cienfuegos.

Yes, it’s all there, just the way I left it, only now it doesn’t seem so scary.

Then Mom and I sit down and have a glass of wine and let the wind blow through our hair and lighten our spirits. What a fucking day, what a crazy fucking day, one of the scariest days of our lives.

It’s over now, we laugh. The waiter knows us. I give him a copy of my book and take a picture. He brings us a signed picture of him with Raul Castro, and another with Chavez. This is awkwardish because I know he’s truly bragging but I can’t bring myself to say a single good thing about either communist fucker, so I smile and nod and let him share what he has to share. The bill is $8. We leave $20 and go to bed.

My mom is so cute. She has to sleep with the TV on and with her glasses on in case she wants to wake up and watch TV in the middle of the night. I turn my iphone’s white noise on LOUD and take a ZQuil because last time I took an Ambien I stayed up all night and was almost certain I saw laughing dwarfs running around on the curtains and the sofa looked like it was pulsing with a heartbeat. Enough said?

So we slept with CNN (in English!) on, and woke up with enough time to get the crazy European breakfast. If people really eat this crap in Europe I’m glad I’ve never gone and I’m thankful to all my ancestors who left there. Again there is this boiled bacon crap; this crazy vomit sausage crap; pitchers of yogurt with flies all over them; stale breads and cookies with bowls of jellies and jams.  It’s exactly the same as last year, so I don’t even go near it. There’s a chef to make fresh eggs – I order 2 over medium, mom orders huevos reveultos with jamon.  We both look for pieces of bread that might be good still and go to our table.

There she is. Yamila, our waitress from last year. Did I mention she was also my Mom’s waitress two times before at this hotel, and that she’s so endearing that when we came last year we surprised her by also flying her husband Yasser to Cuba from Las Vegas? Probably not. I haven’t read my book lately but I’m pretty sure it’s not in there because it would have been rude to write about such crazy generosity.  

So anyway, we have a history. Now you know it a little better. That’s why she loves me – I helped deliver her a month of sex.

After breakfast we go back upstairs to get a little cuter and also drag our feet a little because we are expected at 11. We go through our gifts and repack them into the big gusano bag to bring to TiaLourdes house.

I packed heels this time and long dresses (ha!) but I wear a short dress and flat sandals.

 Remember that, there will be a quiz on it later. I’m not kidding. It’s very relevant to future events.

Downstairs at the hotel we are directed to take the first cab in line. Yep. It’s the same old guy who drove us the three blocks from the hotel to TiaLourdes house last time. Same car, same dark Russian looking glasses. This time he didn’t seem scary or gruff; this time he seemed to be family.  As he loads our bag he looks us over and before we can tell him we know him he proclaims “you’re back!” and laughs with delight. We only go one block up and two blocks over – easy to walk but not delicately with 100 pounds of crap slung between us – and in that short time he wants to know what I think of Cienfuegos, what I think of Obama, when I’m coming back again. It was delightful.

As we turn onto the Prado, I know where I am. There’s the Benny More statue. There’s that pizza place that looks like it would poison you. Theres… the red door. He stops and we unload.  The sidewalk is 4 feet higher than the street; I can imagine that 100 years ago the street would fill with muck and shit and the people would walk on the covered sidewalks, pretending they didn’t smell anything.

This time, I knock on the door. This time, Olgita answers and its hug hug hug and oh her knee hurts and oh forgive her sweating she was just starting lunch for us. She shoo’s us in down the long hallway which is now ridiculously familiar. Not a thing has changed, not a thing has moved.

If we hadn’t have gone down the hall we would be in the main entry reception room, the one with the chandelier made of long glass lagrimas that came with my great great grandmother from Spain when she arrived her to live with her brother, the Spanish Captain and “marry well.”

We don’t go to that room or the other room which looks like it would be a TV room but go down the hall to TiaLourdes “office” and receiving room where she spends her days meeting people and doing paperwork things surrounded by yellowing pictures of saints and Our Lady of Charity.

Kiss kiss kiss hug hug huggggggg it’s so nice to see her and I want to open the gusano and start giving out stuff, but there’s someone there. I met her last time and she knows Mom because they went to primary school together. She tells mom something while I’m talking to TiaLourdes (don’t ask me what I said but my Spanish got so much better she keeps rubbing her ears teasingly saying she can’t believe it) then mom grabs my hand and starts pulling me away.

We just got here I’m protesting in Spanish and English and no one is helping me or explaining but for some reason we have to leave NOW.

5 Days in Cuba: Chapter 3 - Big Cups and Angry Birds

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The sun sets, the mosquitos arrive. I'm going through my options mentally and then erase them because I'm not leaving this airport without my Mom.

Then Mom leaves the building.

What was it, they ask, what the &^^% was ut I want to ask but I let her explain.

I can't believe what it was;  it was not what i thought and suddenly Cuba feels like a planet stuck in an alternate universe.  I promise I'll tell you what it was, in the book, when these stories are ready to be printed. Until then please keep your seat next to me as Machete speeds us through the narrow streets around jeeps and horses and bicycles to  dinner at hotel L;union.

Last year we all went up to the hotel room and went through the gifts right away. This year is different.  Everyone is starving and maybe traumatized and Mom keeps shouting "vino!" so we drop the bags in our room and have dinner with Mila (abuela's brother's daughter), her husband, her son Joelvys , her grandson Xavier (pronounced SAPier) and now Mayulis (the doctor, my cousin with long hair and bejewled nails). 

We sit down to dinner without my mom who is upstairs because she needed to talk to my dad for a minute. 

The waitress is my friend; I met her on my last trip, as well as her husband, her daughter and her mother-in-law. We get along.

They all order Paella and beer. Mom arrives and orders a bottle of wine.

I ask point to the menu and ask the BIG question -- is there spaghetti?

Yes, yes there is spaghetti, they knew I was coming, everyone jokes.

OK, fine I point out the menu says it’s with cheese and green vegetables. 

Yes? The waitress nods. OK, I shrug, I guess that's what I'm supposed to have, after all my complaining that there's no spaghetti in Cuba.

Mom orders something steak and everyone else at the table orders paella. Once the ordering is done, the wine bottle arrives, along with several tiny shot-sized  glasses that are apparently the normal wine serving sizes on this communist island.  

After a long day of travel my Mom and I are giddy and burst out in laughter at the small glasses. 

I shake my head. I'm here to bring change to Cuba, I'm here to help, one minute at a time. And right here and now, they clearly need help with their wine glasses. 

 No, no tiny glasses, bring us normal wine glasses,  Yamila the waitress takes the tiny glasses up and exchanges them for bigger glasses. 

This is a good sign.

Mom pours wine and the tension at the table is palpable.  It’s like they’re all sitting there waiting for something, waiting for us to do or say something so bad it’s obvious in their silence, their terse answers to my questions.

I get it and excuse myself to go up to the hotel room. This time we are on the inside of a square that overlooks a courtyard and is open to the sky.

A short paunchy halfbalding man with a shirt bearing the Cubataxi logo barrels by me, beads of sweat lining his brow as I approach a blind corner and I surprise him.

He shrinks towards the wall while racing forward, shouting silently with his body language that he wished to be unseen but it’s too late. I know that regular Cubans aren’t allowed in hotels, not casually, and I’m sure he’s up to something and I shake my head when he can’t see me.

My key actually works (every time anything works I’m excited, even when my car starts) and in the room I quickly search around for the gifts I brought them tucked in pockets of my carry on luggage.

I find them  and dash back downstairs. The food wasn’t there yet (of course) so I distributed what I brought down.

Here, for you, -- I give the 15 year old boy with the spinning dollar sign belt buckle a black box and he looks confused. Open it! I command and he does. There, it’s an iphone 3 loaded up with every game possible.

One day people will wonder who brought Angry Birds to Cuba, and people will shrug and wonder, but you and I know the answer.

He stares at it and realizes it’s a camera and then fixates on that. 

I lean back into the silence and observe he does not look happy, no happier than if I had given him a helmet with moose antlers sticking out that smelled like poop.

He didn't hug me or say a big thank you, not really anything. Maybe he was tired.  I let that go.

Next I hand my cousin an iPod (my treasured favorite ipod that I gave great thought to not giving away) with a huge amount of memory. It’s filled with movies and songs and also it can be used as a massive storage device on an island that lives on sharing files via USBdrives.

 He too is quiet,  not excited or particularly thankful. He turns it over in his hand whispers something. And nods his head when I show him the connector cable. 

He nods. The silence comes back to the table. 

Fine, OK, I’m bigger than being all about someone getting excited about my presents.

So I just go on and pull out a box with rings that I refuse to wear anymore. One is white gold with diamonds; the other is a matching set with gold and diamonds and emeralds.

I show them both and let them pick which one they’d like.  They look at each other and smile and tuck the box into Mila’s purse, neither of them having even tried a ring on.

  A lesser woman would have been maybe annoyed a little but I know the pain of buying awesome presents for my kids and saying “these are from Santa." I'm prepared. I’m OK.

I finish a glass of wine and the food comes.

First everyone gets their paella then Mom gets her plate of meat and last my spaghetti arrives.

Yamila sets my plate down and then looks at me expectantly.

This is spaghetti with green vegetables, I ask in English then Spanish. 

She says yes and leaves us to eat.

I poke and prod with my fork. There are no green vegetables in my pasta, just white chunks of god-knows-what.  I take a bite. It’s OK.

Really, it’s not OK, it tastes like it was boiled in bad water. Maybe it’s the cheese, I think, then take another sip of wine and another bite. 

The little white squares are potatoes, cut up, mixed with pasta. Ew. 

Yamila comes up to ask how it is. I say it’s pretty gross, no one puts potatoes and pasta together and she nods and adds that’s what she thinks too and adds maybe it’s the cheese that’s bad. 

I have a few bites of my Mom’s steak and finish my glass of wine. 

Mom pours herself a second glass and pours me more and the bottle is empty. 

Without saying a word we both know these glasses are like hourglasses. 

They have our attention until we finish our wine and then we will get up and hug them goodbye.

Mila asks about our plans this week and I let my Mom explain.  Tuesday is Tialourdes house; Wednesday is Havana; Thursday is exploring; Friday is coming home.

Mayulis offers that she is free tomorrow and would love to see us. Mom gets a stern look on her face. Tomorrow we are visiting Tialourdes; we need to give her our full attention, she’s 91. Olgita will make us lunch, and people will be coming through to visit. Mom ends with say why don’t you come by TiaLourdes house at 330 or 4 and rescue us.

Yes, yes, it is agreed that Mila and Mayulis will come by at 330. And yes they know where Tialourdes house is; it’s on the Prado, which is like being on Jackson Square in the French quarter, right in the middle of things.

I know they want to know what we brought Tialourdes, and also they want to know what we brought them in the two unopened gusanos, but it’s not time to go there. I want to TALK. So I tell them a story and when I stumble I make my Mom translate. 

I tell them the story about what I’m going to do tomorrow, what I’m going to say to someone at TiaLourdes house. They look confused, and Mila shakes her head and says NO! no, no Missy.

I shake my head back and say yes, yes, I’m not looking for an answer because I know the answer, I’m coming here to TELL them the answer that’s in front of everyone and no one sees.

Mayulis adds, no, no Missy and looks at her Mom like “stop her!”

And then I pause and give them each of the facts lined up one, two, three, four, finally FIVE.

They wince and one of them nods despite themself.

Mila again tells me No, no you really can’t talk about that and I respond (and I’m telling you my Spanish is good when it’s good) don’t worry, don’t worry you aren’t responsible for me, and so I don’t answer to you.

I pause and look around. My mom is half laughing and half shocked. 

She can’t believe what balls I have and she knows better than to try to stop me because she also believes my one two three four FIVE stack of facts.

I know I’m right and I also wonder if little hamster wheels of though ran around in their heads, wondering what other bombs I might be coming here to drop.

A palpable awkwardness lingers at the table. I ask them each about work, about life. 

I remind them I never see my Mom, that this is the first meal we’ve had together since last time we were in Cuba, and apologize for being silly. 

The check comes and Mom pays it; we have envelopes with cash separated for each event and each thing we are planning for all of the 5 days, and this is right on the mark. 

Everyone gets up and excuse themselves despite my not very strong offer they come upstairs to the rooftop bar and watch my Mom and I catch up. 

It’s Monday and everyone has work and school (except Mila, that’s another story) so they all politely decline and we hug hug hug and make plans for Tuesday.

With them gone, Mom and I realize we aren’t tired at all, and head up to the rooftop.

5 Days in Cuba: Chapter 2: The Iran Incident

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We got off the plane almost first and through the locked customs rooms that buzz you through.  This time I had to go separately, and it was not a problem.

Mom and I rejoin each other at luggage claim. The turning belt has no bags yet, then some bags come and we hope for ours, to be first and out, but no such luck.

We wait and wait. I still have no story to write, I tell the universe and my Mom. I’m ok with this. In every book I’ve written I’ve been surprised myself by the ending, so I’m OK waiting for the story.

Then it starts. A Springer spaniel looking crazy silly dog bounces out onto the luggage turntable and bites at a bag. The worker ignores the dog and puts the bag in a pile with other bags.

I elbow my Mom. That dog’s not working. We agree. This dog isn’t really trained, it’s for show.

Over and over it shows great interest in a bag, and over and over the worker ignores the cues and tosses the bag on a pile. We decide the dog is hungry. Then another dog jumps out and does the same. Both dogs are skinny and bouncy. They’re the happiest dogs I’ve seen in Cuba ever, and I wish them well.

Where could our bags BE my Mom asks again when a man shorter than me (I’m so thankful for these heels; the difference between being 5’5 and 5’10 is substantial) gets in my face and calls my name.

Melissa Soldani come with me. He says it all in Spanish and I smile, OK,  OK and we take two steps towards a table.

He starts to ask questions but his Spanish sounds drawly and slured like Honey-Boo-boo’s rotten English, and I wish for subtitles.

My mom joins us. He wants the name of every person I plan to see, their address, and what I am bringing. Am I going to a school? To see students? Am I here on a religious mission?

I shut up and let my Mom talk. Again she says I’m a Cuban refugee coming back to see my Aunt; this is my daughter, a professor of history and I’m taking her to see her roots.

He looks at us both.

He apologizes. I thought she was an American.

We look around the room of 50 or so waist-pack and flat sandal wearing Americans and shake our heads, no, no, not that kind of American. Not a tourist. I’m here for something else.

At that, I’m clear.

 Before the man can walk away my Mom asks him his name. He points to it, “Iran” (Mom knew this, she wanted me to confirm it). Really? I shake my head. Now I can call this the Iran Incident I whisper to my mom and she giggles.

Our big huge bags arrive and we put them on these big rolling carts. Now we pass through some sort of customs that makes you pay some import fee on something. I see Boris, that guy in the white pants, from earlier. They are going through his baggage and he’s running his fingers through his non-existant hair.

Mom and I get in one lane. It doesn’t move. We get in another. They move me through, then a dark man looks at the tag on one of the bags. There is a huge Z written across the barcode.

Whose bag is this?

We both shrug. Both bags are ours my Mom says, knowing full well this is not how things are supposed to be done.

It has Mom’s name, so he calls her to the line where Boris is. I try to follow her but a guard makes this hsshhh noise at me like I’m cattle (what the F*&^?) and tells me to go through THAT door. 

I can’t leave my Mom, I tell him, and he makes that ffsshhhh noise again and opens the door for me, waving me.

 I don’t give him the stink eye; in his world he is king of that doorway. Whatever.

So now I’m outside the airport and the crowd makes a hushed rumble. 

The first person I see is Machete, my driver, and I hug him fast and then am admonished by Mila, my mom’s cousin, who I’m sure was expecting a public regal royal hug in front of the gathered crowd. I fucked that up for her.

No one speaks English, so I'm on my own. This is what I was warned about and prepared for my entire life. One day you will NEED to know Spanish, said Abuelo, Abuela, Tiafifi, and every Spanish teacher I ever had. 

They must have been psychic. Today I NEED Spanish.

 I’m on the ramp, and the airport attendants say something to Machete about move me along get me off the ramp so I walk down with them a few steps but they need to know, where’s your Mom?

At first I told them she didn’t come, and my Spanish must have been pretty good because they believed me but then I said she was in there, in a different line, and she’d be right out.

Why were they holding her? I don’t know I said.

Then I hugged the cousins and (Mila, her husband, her son Joelvys, and NOT her daughter Mayulis but Mayulis’s 16 year old son, the one with the spinning dollar sign belt) we stood there waiting for my Mom.

There went the young Mom with a happy toddler who left a humongously obese husband in the US. I remember watching them. 

There go the Americans, the tourist Americans, right onto their tourbus. The bus left.

Still no sign of Mom.

The man in the pink shirt from the documents line earlier exits the airport and is greeted by what look like his daughters. 

The crowd of people waiting thins out. The sun starts to set. I have no way to call my Mom, no way to even know she’s still in the airport.

The dogs come bouncing out of the airport accompanying a pack of workers heading home.  The lights in the airport turn off.

My Mom still hasn’t exited and there is no way to know why, just to wait.

I sit down on the grass. My cousin scowls and yanks me up.  The sun sets lower. A man with a lot of keys locks a gate, then a door and hops on a funny looking motorcycle.

The airport looks dead and closed and I don’t know what to do.

5 Days in Cuba: Chapter 1 - Pink Polka Dotted Bags

So we get to the airport and in the craziness of actually flying directly from the US to Cuba find two lines – one for documents, one for baggage. We split up and take places in each line.  I’m dressed like myself this time, not like a nun wannabe, like I dressed last time, last year, on my first trip to Cuba. Everyone else is dressed up in their nice clothes to fly to Cuba – why wouldn’t they be? This time, I fit in.

A man behind me asks me a question in fast easy Spanish.

I can’t answer him, my tongue is stuck.

Instead I answer in English. This is the line for documents, go here first; they won’t take your baggage without your documents.

 He nods his head and whispers something to a friend. They are both sunburnt and wearing polos. One has pink pants on, the other has a pink shirt and they are close close like they had just been tangled up in each other.

He says thank you and then apologizes for thinking I spoke Spanish. I answer in Spanish now that I’m sorry I answered in English, give me a day or two. Or at least that’s what I think I said, because its my turn and I move to the front with my Mom who’s joined me because Dad is now stationed with our bags to move our place along in the long slow luggage line.

The document check takes two minutes. That’s it. We go to the luggage line and make our way to the front. I’m the only blonde in line. I’m the only blonde I see. I think that’s funny. I’m a blonde with set of 3 pink polka dotted luggage pieces surrounded by older, darker, shorter people toting old battered gym bags and such.

 I feel like Barbie and Lucille Ball mixed together, dressed up and ready for trouble. I’m ready for whatever comes next. I decide all this while standing in line because my parents are all snuggly and whatever and Mom keeps saying “can’t I stay? Are you really taking me from your father?” and I just roll my eyes and look back into my phone to get away from them without moving.

We get to the front, present stamped documents and they weigh the luggage. Mom and I each have 2 pieces of normal luggage and a huge black gusano bag. One weighs 52 pounds, the other weighs 58. We packed them together, it doesn’t matter whose name goes on which tag.

Mom is sent to the cashier lane. I stand with the bags. The man takes our passports and sends us to another line.

From where we stood against a cold wall near the bathroom we could see a long line of Americans (what else can I call them?) in the documents line. All of them had just a piece or two of rugged luggage and a backpack like that guy on PBS travel shows recommends. We wonder if there will be 50 Americans on the flight with us. If so, that means some big changes are happening between Cuban and the US, fissures in the  invisible Cold War wall.

The cashier finally calls out our names, waves passports and takes money. OK, now I understand why they have my passport. They work through the stack of passports and call me up.

My mom comes with me.

Mom asks for us to be seated together and the lady tap tap taps something out on her computer then squints her eyes.

She writes something down and goes over to another stand and whispers something to the man there.

He tap tap taps and looks too. They whisper back.

She comes back and asks for our documents again, and has us stand off to the side.

At this point Dad wonders if we will have time to get to Versailles. I’m really not hungry but the two of them want to spend every second together and he’s not leaving her until he has to. Whatever, right?

The lady comes back and tells us she’s sorry but she only has one of us booked on this flight. Just me, not my Mom.

Mom shrugs happily. It’s a sign, I’m staying.

Fine, stay, I tell her, shocking everyone who was leaning in to hear our response.

Suddenly her weakness dissipates and strong Mom takes over in her delicious Spanish about how she’s a Cuban refugee going to see her aunt and taking her history professor daughter to see the city her family’s roots and so on and in a minute, maybe two, we were handed a set of first class tickets. 

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The airport is very busy this Sunday afternoon and lines for security are crazy long and I convince my parents to let go of their idea of having some sort of sit down lunch. Finally they kiss kiss kiss and I get a hug and Dad watches us all the way until he can’t see. I know this because Mom keeps turning around to look.

We pass through security in nothing and go find our gate. Now Mom is hungry. Now we do a mental count – it’s 3pm. We should be eating in Cienfuegos by 7. Let’s not have too much.   

We split a Cuban sandwich and a diet coke. I find a few seats and we sit together and eat. It’s good enough, it’s fine, and she asks me if I’d mind if she goes to the charging station to use her blackberry while she can. Fine, go.

I stay with the diet coke and pull out the tablet to read one of the dirty books I downloaded on my tablet.

Mom stays on her blackberry for 45 minutes while I read and watch this Russian looking 30 something bald guy who couldn’t sit still. He’d try to sit still, then he’d be up, then down, then calling someone and talking in a deep whispering voice.  On top of all of that, he had on awful white pants. Who wears white pants?

Mom came back. She was still hungry. Was I hungry? We got up, took all of our stuff away from the guy I named Boris in my head and went to the Wendy’s. Mom said this is the best appetite she’s had in months and already she feels better and I tell her I have that effect on people. She nods and eats her chicken nuggets like a hungry 5 year old.

Soon after they called to board our flight. They said loudly in Spanish and English that they’d board zones and all that stuff. A mass of people crowd where a line should be.

They call to board our zone first and we can’t get past all the people crowding ready to get on that plane and get to Cuba and wonder whether people try harder to get out of Cuba or get to Cuba.  I guess it matters who (or what) is waiting on the other side.

 I step up and excuse myself and ask for permission in two languages with my Mom close behind me explaining we have been called to board.  People whisper and step aside.

 Mom and I go through, get our stuff tucked away and settle into the huge leather seats. I grab her head and whisper about how great this already is, and how great it’s going to be.

Streams of people pass by us on their way to the back. A man in a tight pack of people whistles and says loudly, in Spanish, “hey blonde, they certainly got YOU on board first!” which caused a bunch of people to laugh.

I smiled and went back ready my dirty book on my tablet.

Did you fill out your customs form, Mom asks. Yes, I look at it.

No firearms, no satellite equipment, no pornographic material. 

Of course I sign that I have none when I specifically know that I do. But I decide it doesn’t count as porn and then think (maybe a little too loud, I decide later, when things get bad) “ha, come and find it.”

 In retrospect, I should watch my thoughts more carefully.

Good One, Mom

Zack and I are at Target waiting for Zoe to pick up her Starbucks. The baristas who work there know her by name, and laugh at how she orders off the "secret menu" she found online.

He asks me when the world will end and I tell him I don't know.

That doesn't settle well with him, he is a logical mathematical engineering kid.

He expects solid, fact-based answers.

Maybe 10 years? he asks.

Probably more, I answer then add there are no guarantees in life.

Maybe the world will end in 100 years, or maybe next year? he asks.

Could be, I answer, then I tell him to live everyday like there might not be a tomorrow.

He sighs heavy, then asks, If the earth is destroyed will heaven be destroyed too?

No, I tell him, they aren't actually connected.  Heaven is indestructible.

He likes that answer then looks up at me and asks very seriously, how will he find me in heaven? Do we need a code or a meeting place?

I shake my head.

You'll find me in heaven just as easily as you found me here.

He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. then says "Good one, Mom"