Our Last Trip to Cuba #12: You Look So Much Better

I first met Daniel, TiaLourdes’ physician, on my first trip to Cuba and I wrote all about it for you in “Four Days in Cienfuegos.” His wife has been visiting with us for a while this afternoon, and his daughter came and went while I was off walking the streets with Olguita (and as I write this a year and a few days later I want to be clear that I still don’t know where we were going that day or why).  

 He greets me warmly and I’m happy to see him and all of his English-speaking awesomeness. 

We hug because that’s what everyone does in Cuba (with variations like “hug kiss kiss” or “kiss kiss hug”), and then instead of releasing me he holds tight to my shoulders, takes me in up and down and proclaims, “You look SO MUCH BETTER!”

He couldn’t have known that those were trigger words.

He couldn’t have known that every single semester when I teach the 1980 election I ask my classes whether the statement “You look SO MUCH BETTER!” was a compliment or not.

Most students wince. They get it. Behind those words are a thinly veiled “you used to look horrible, thank goodness you don’t hurt my eyes anymore.”

I case you’re wondering, I’m thinking the most polite and kind thing to do in mainstream America to say “you look great” or even better, just don’t comment on someone’s appearance unless they bring it up. I digress.

 I use “You look SO MUCH BETTER” as a lead-in to the discussion of Reagan’s 1980 slogan “Make America Great Again” which implied that post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, unable to rescue hostages from Iran US sucked.   This all makes sense in class, in the USA, where I am the professor and they are the students and the story makes sense in context. I never imagined anyone telling me that I look SO MUCH BETTER, and when it happened I almost didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing and he continued to behold me in all my jeggings and FSU t-shirt awesomeness.

I didn’t take mental notes but for the next few minutes he very boldly wanted to know what I’d done to myself because it was a damned miracle how much better I looked.

In all truth, I wanted to ask him if he got new glasses but I didn’t. Bless his heart. Bless mine. Bless world peace.  I said that I ran hills and didn’t eat anymore and that satisfied him.

A group of 5 of us say goodbye and goodnight to Olguita and TiaLourdes and walk towards Hotel L’Union.  

 

I took this picture for you while we were walking to dinner.  The sky was dark. 

I love the architecture on La Correspondencia. And the numbers 1898, on there twice. That can't be their address, it has to be because they opened when Cuba became independent from Spain.  I wonder what's been going on in that building  since 1960?

Suddenly the sky was heavy with inky clouds but I wasn’t afraid. I took this picture for you, then when we arrived at the hotel bar on the top floor I took another picture – this time with a rainbow.

Then things got much more interesting.

Taken from the roof of L'Union. See the rainbow? 

Tale of the Albino Roach

I make it a habit to wake up in the morning almost two hours before dawn specifically so I can have a little time by myself before I have to be nice to anyone.

Sometimes Zack is up all night and is still up when I wake up and the best I can do is roll with things.

On this particular night-morning  he's been up all night waiting for me.

"Mom, I'm starving, but I couldn't go in the kitchen all night."

"Fine.  Eat. OK." (That's me, uncaffeinated, just a fountain of compassion, right?)

"No Mom, I saw a ROACH and I'm never going in the kitchen alone at night again."

"Fine. OK." (Me, staring at coffee maker, praying for it to go faster.)

"Mom!! Seriously!!! I am never going in the kitchen at night alone again because I saw a ROACH."

I try to find the best, most compassionate, most parentliscious answer, but it's early and also I pay plenty of money to the bug man and so I doubt the roach sighting. All I can manage is "A roach? seriously? did you kill it?"

"No, Mom, because it was too gross. It was an albino roach and it's gross and I'm starving."

"An albino roach? Do those exist?"

"Yes, it was gross and bumpy, and I'm never going in the kitchen at night again and can you PLEASE go get Chickfila before you take Zoe to school?"

"No Chickfila. Where did you see this albino roach?"  He points at a corner of kitchen.

I think to google "do albino roaches even exist" but at this point I know it doesn't matter because they are real to my son.

I look at the ground where he points and there it is.

A peanut shell masquerading as an albino roach.

I pick it up and announce, "Oh my, a scary albino peanut shell."

Zack comes closer and agrees with me a peanut shell caused him to spend the night unnecessarily hungry.

He shakes his head and admits the whole situation was "pretty nutty."

I agree, then before he can ask I tell him yes that was funny but it doesn't mean I'm racing out of here to buy you Chickfila.

We laugh and he makes himself something to eat while I drink my first cup of the day.

Good News. Only Two Students Thought the US Won Our Independence from Russia.

Rest easy. More than half of my college students demonstrated that they knew US won our independence from Britain and mentioned a date between 1776-1783.

Here is a list of the rest of the answers:

• Europe, 1797
• The French, 1760
• Britain, 1976
• Spain, 1910
• Some Country, July 4
• China, 1800s
• Mexico, 1804-1820
• Britain, 1920s
• France, 1700s maybe
• Colonies, 1600s
• Britland, 1803
• England, 1677
• Russia, 1856
• France 1889
• China, 1889
• Spain, 16something
• Europe, 1800
• England, 1537
• England? 1930?
• Germany, 1824
• England, We left when the boat left the harbor.
• Germany, 1600s
• Spain, 1800
• Russia, 1904
• Spain, 1808
• Great Britain, January 1, 1869
• Europe, 1730?
• Mexico, 1800s
• England, 1497

Our Last Trip to Cuba #11 Swimming to America

A chain of interior rooms link into each other separated by brittle doors. I don’t think there has been any new furniture bought for this place since before WW2, so even though I’m trying desperately to find a hiding spot I can’t help but stare at the woodwork on a fat antique armoire. 

Barbie calls my name again and again as I race shamelessly past groups of adults who seem quite pleased to not have to struggle through another conversation with my pained Spanish.  My real problem isn’t language, it’s culture; we are trying to get to know each other, trying to build bridges of family and friendship across a Cold War frontier, and it’s hard work. The topics are so narrow and broad and personal and specific and generic they exhaust me.  

 After giving up and then starting again and then giving up and then starting again, Barbie finds me in my prime hiding behind the bathroom door. She’d walked by me five times and never looked, and only ONE of those time did I think to shriek and stomp and scare her but then I thought I might be representing “Americans” so maybe I should take it down a notch.

Follow me, I whispered, but she didn’t follow me so I repeated it in Spanish, tiptoeing away from some invisible predator.

 Barbie tiptoed with me past TiaLourdes and the circle of woman surrounding her, past the old black and white TV, all the way to  the living room.

Once we got there she looked at me like “now what?” and the best I could think of was to sit on the floor and look for things to play with.

 

I found a tiny boat and little tiny rabbits and a pair of wooden deer neatly living on the bottom of a side table. 

Its hard to tell if they are new or old, but they are perfect and delightful and I pick a tiny animal up and put it on a boat and motion for Barbie to swim with me across the floor. 

 

See the side tables??? With little thing on them, down low??

See the tiny figurines?

We swam and we swam until we delivered all the animals to safety in America. Just kidding. We moved them to another table and when we arrived at THAT table I found something.

On our first trip to Cuba (2012) everything was treasure, every moment was story worthy, and at the end it came together to make a fun book to write. The highlight of our second trip was being handed treasure straight from heaven, a gift from an angel. I didn’t know what the point of this trip was going to be yet, but I knew when I saw that sparkly something that it was waiting for me and I knew there would be a story.

I think that tiny doll in the middle is from one of those Russian dolls that have dolls inside of dolls, but she lost the rest of the Russian dolls, or maybe they went home in 1991 and left her here? 

 I pretended to feed the sparkly rock to the tiny hungry deer and rabbit. Barbie did the same, then I returned the treasure and we swam swam swam all the way back to safety.

Minutes later Barbie’s mother was calling her to put her shoes on and come say goodbye.

 Soon after all the hugs and that stuff they were gone and moments later Daniel arrived.  

My Last Trip To Cuba #10: Our Lady of Ten Thousand Sorrows

A tall Beyonce-looking teenager dressed in a white shirt plaid (short) skirt uniform was walking towards me on the sidewalk, a long sharp umbrella tucked under her arm, pointy side facing me. 

She looked me right in the eye while eating her hotdog (which was sadly plain, and I wondered if this was by choice or because of communism)  and continued to walk towards me as though we were umbrella jousting. 

I stepped aside and decided to let her have the  crumbly sidewalk in front of the Liceo. 

She can also have the Prado and Cienfuegos and Cuba.  

Olguita and I cross the street and I catch a glimpse of the House of the Lions, the house where my great-great uncle The Spanish Captain lived, and where my great-great grandmother Maria Emilia whose middle name was something like "Our Lady of Ten Thousand Sorrows who Crossed the Sea and Shines in the Stars" lived when she came to Colonial Cuba from Spain.  

One day I’d like to peek inside of that collapsing mansion, but not yet. 

 I’m suddenly very aware of being thirsty, of wearing long sleeves and jeans in the tropical sun. 

Three more steps and we are in front of TiaLourdes' huge Pope-decorated door. I guestimate TiaLourdes' house was built in the 1880s for many reasons: it resides on a street that was clearly built during the late Spanish colonial era in between the House of Lions and the Obispado/ Bishop’s residence and it has the hallmark plain exterior architecture and maze of interior rooms set around a courtyard. Sometime before the 1930s someone split a majestic home into two, laying a wall in the interior courtyard and creating two C-chaped homes instead of one classical square, more space for a blooming middle class during the Republic of Cuba. But I digress.

We return empty handed (I still don’t know what Olguita went out to buy, but the Buddhas were all too big, and I’m not in the market for statues of Italian guys) and new people are waiting for us.  

A white jacketed lady with a big smile greets me warmly – I remember her and ask about her daughter, the one studying to become a history professor.  

A circle forms again, more talk and small talk and then it gets better because Barbarita arrived.  

I could tell you that she liked the gifts we brought her, but of course she did, she’s 5 and they were shiny and fashionable and foreign. I could tell you lots of things about the next 20 minutes but anyone who’s sat in a circle of people in an unairconditioned long hallway watching any child play with toys knows exactly how it went. 

Tita talking to Barbarita, about to open presents from the USA

Tita and Barbarita at TiaLourdes house*

It was interesting until it wasn’t, until this person went to the kitchen, and then another person too, and these two people here were having a serious conversation, and then the other person went to the window to look for someone who might be coming by to pick them up. 

That left me and Barbarita, and since she only sees me once a year – or less – it was time to play. 

With all the adults abandoning us, Barbarita, who, excuse me, now wants to be called Barbie, looks at me for entertainment.  My apple watch beeps that it’s time to move, so I get us moving. 

My Spanish isn’t good enough to ask her to play hide and seek so I basically tell her to sit and count and she immediately knows what’s up. 

She counts loudly to 20 while I sneak around the house with impunity at last, hoping to find some hidden treasure.

(continued)