(observations)

i have been here for six weeks and have made many an observation about how the cuban people live. some things they do that i find odd/interesting/disgusting are cultural, some religious, some things are just simply done out of necessity. i always knew they had very little here but i am finally seeing just how little. here are a few things that might help you gain a better understanding of life in this country outside of the plush resort in veradero:

• the average cuban salary is $10 a month – they make pesos (kind of like monopoly money) and if they are lucky to have family in the US or work with tourists, they have access to the CUC (the cuban dollar that foreigners use) and can buy things like…..clothes. i went into a store where they buy clothes in pesos and unless you enjoy fashions that look like they came from wardrobe sale from the film marie antoinette, you’re outta luck.

• cuban television…..the worst. i love this – they actually shamelessly steal all their programming. for example, they steal shows from discovery US and they just put a black box over the logo and put their own ‘cuban nature’ logo over top. it’s pretty hilarious. but god, if you had to watch the regular cuban tv, you would kill yourself for sure. they are so desperate for international television, they are still talking about the ‘great series from canada, ‘danger bay’. oy.

• movie theatres…..almost as bad as the television. you pay (granted, it’s 8 cents) to see a movie in the theatre (i recently went to see inglorious bastards) and you go this grand theatre and they play a pirated dvd copy with the subtitles cut off and the sound completely incoherent. and the cubans love it – they cheer, they eat (really gross) popcorn and it’s a fun night out for them. so the next time you’re at the amc and you’re a little annoyed by something, remember what my movie going experience is now.

• videogames – most cubans don’t have access to game consoles so if they do get the chance to play a game, they record it on VHS, buy a bottle of rum and have their friends over to watch it again and again. and again. this was a recent saturday night for me. it was kind of depressing actually.

• cubans can’t really afford much and thus have to be really resourceful – they make underwear out of socks, they repair plastic bags to make them last longer, they blow their noses into a towel. the latter is super gross to me and when i recently had a cold and used a whole roll of toilet paper to blow my nose with, they were horrified. when i dried my hands with a towel full of snot, i was equally as horrified.

• hygiene….hmmmmm. well, it’s a little on the dirty side here. those who know me well know that i have stocks in purell and thus this makes for a challenging time for me here. the public toilets (and in some homes) are wretched- without seats, no paper and you are often peeing on things out of a horror movie. i am shockingly adapting quickly to this completely disgusting way of living and feel quite like an open minded hippie. who knew?!

• the food: double oy. i walked by a market that sells meat and vegetables recently and in my newly acquired understanding of spanish heard someone excitedly exclaim “i have saved all month to buy that pig’s head!”. um, first of all….yuck. secondly, said pig’s head is sitting on a counter, in the blazing sun, with flies whiling away the day on it and senora mariella is about to skip home to boil it up for her family. this is something i cannot, and will never be able to wrap my head around (pardon the pun).

• the street animals….the cutest and saddest animals i’ve seen. they are filthy and starving and look at you with eyes that break your heart into a million pieces and whenever i can, i feed them. today in fact, i was eating my 12 cent cuban pizza from the street stall (totally yum) and as the litre of grease was dripping down my leg, a super dirty dog was licking it excitedly and with sheer abandon. i was very tempted to bring him home and call him ‘chico’ but alas, the cockroaches the size of my hand that i currently call my pets in my apartment are wildlife enough for me at the moment.

• sex – cubans have a lot of it. what else can they do that’s free? as i have written about before, the women here dress like whores. and the men love it. like a lot. and when i walk down the street with my boobs hiked up to my chin, i get lots of attention. and when i dress as i should (my age and not like a whore), nobody can be bothered with me. so, here, the sexual energy is rampant. and I have to say, i am pretty impressed by the dedication to safe sex. all the young people use condoms – that’s mainly due to the fact that they are told that if they don’t, they will get AIDS and die in 18 months to two years. period. when I recently asked a young person if they ever had an HIV/AIDS test he responded “what for? i don’t have a cough”. hmmmm.

• when you go to a regular house party, it turns into a salsa extravaganza. i am always clutching the wall as most north americans do when threatened by the possibility of having to dance amongst a room full of cubans who can move their bodies in ways we just weren’t bred to move – but it’s fun. like really fun and i love the fact that they take a bottle of rum, a boom box from 1994 and know how to make a serious party.

want more? well, you’ll have to wait a little longer because i’m about to hit the road on a cross country adventure for the next month to see what other communist wonders (and natural beauty) i can find. when i write next, i will be fully enlightened and with photos. adios!

(bloggin' - finally)

please excuse the different fonts, lack of photos and extreme tardiness in updating this blog. now that i have decided not to be cheap and go to a fancy hotel for my internet access (everywhere else is like using the internet from 1992), i will have easier access to update my blog with photos and everything!

kisses from cuba.

(gordita)

as promised, i am writing about asses. again. it’s not my fault though because i am in a country where they are obsessed with them. round ones, high ones, fat ones, gigantic ones. they love an ass and for a gal like me (con un culo grande), it’s perfect. i couldn’t have picked a better country to learn how to love my body. for those who know me, they know that at times my choice of clothing can be on the provocative side. well, here in havana, i often hear “hmmmm, your clothes could be a little tighter. your skirts a little shorter. your tops a little lower”. if I didn’t believe in heaven before, i have most definitely stumbled upon it now. don’t get me wrong, for every cuban man on the street who covets your fine round ass there will be a cuban woman who stares you down with the devil in her eyes. why that is, i’m still not sure but it happens to me. a lot. i am convinced that every cuban woman on the street hates me but i’m going to try and be positive and think maybe she’s just too shy to ask me where i got my sparkly headband or how can she get her hair so shiny? this notion of body image, in a country like this really fascinates me. there is every single shape and size on this island and the majority of the women, and men (especially), celebrate it heartily. the boobs are perched high and bounce delightfully when they walk the streets (something cubans do a lot of), their asses high, proud and begging to bust out of the constraints of their lycra pants, their round bellies happily free to hang around and out…..and you know what? they look beautiful. and more importantly, they FEEL beautiful. they don’t make apologies, for anything. that is what i love about the women in this country (and it’s a topic i plan on writing about a lot because they totally fascinate me), these strong women have to survive (more on their many, many struggles in future posts) and they don’t have time to obsess about their bodies like we do in north america. in fact, in this country, the fatter you are, the better. i am actually starting to get used to being called a ‘gordita’ (fat girl) on a daily basis – for people to literally gasp when they hear that i don’t really eat meat because it’s simply not possible to be as fat as me when you only eat fruits and vegetables (they don’t know about my many trips to baskin/robbins). the first thousand times i was called a fatty i turned many shades of red, pulled at my shirt, giggled nervously and started calculating how much money i had spent in therapy to prepare me for this very moment. now, 5 trips to cuba later, i excitedly say ‘gracias!’ when somebody calls me a gordita because I know it’s a compliment. a big one. if you’re fat, it means you’re healthy. and if you’re healthy it means you are eating. and if you are eating it means you’re happy and not struggling like so many of the people here do. so, i now welcome the gawks at the size of my ass, i revel in the fact that they stare at it like it’s a pig on a spit (and believe me, the cubans seriously dig a pig on a spit), and I will, without guilt and with sheer delight, eat yet another fried plantain and allow the worshipping of my voluptuous bod to continue.

fact: there is a serious food shortage in cuba right now. getting worse every day. with the new regime (more on how raul is making things so much worse to follow) comes greater struggles, especially with regard to food. i will write about the food situation in greater detail as i get a better understanding of how it works but in the meantime, i can tell you that people here are starving. the desire to work is so low (you make so little most people think ‘what’s the point?’), the production is down so much that there is virtually no food to be had. anything imported (and the relations are so bad there is very little) is so expensive that the average cuban could never afford it and anything grown that’s half decent is used for tourists. before it was more about what people could afford, could they make the food that they get on their ration card last the month (virtually impossible) but now it’s not about what people can buy, it’s what they can find. and right now, it’s very little. it now makes pretty perfect sense to me ~ that being able to feed your children is more important to obsess about than ‘does my ass look fat in these pants’?

want more? well, stay tuned and find out about……

• what the dogs in the street will do to/for you for a bone

……and even more!

(maria sanchez)

who is my new friend maria sanchez you ask?    well,  she is the woman who i unfortunately (for her) wiped my bum with.     that’s right.     you waited all these weeks for a scintillating blog entry with tales from my most incredibly amazing,  culture filled,  politically provocative cuban adventures and the first story i tell is about what they use to wipe their asses with here.    well,   if you haven’t figured it out yet…..it’s the phone book.    if you are lucky enough to be a tourist here,  you can walk into any luxury hotel and sit yourself down on a clean toilet,  with a toilet seat and wipe yourself to your hearts’ content with as much toilet paper as you’d like.    but,  if you’re a cuban,   you’re cleaning your most precious parts with paper from the phone book.    or, sometimes  a newspaper if you’re in a house where they don’t have a phone.   so, there I was,  sweating like a pig (big surprise),   enjoying my very authentically cuban experience in the home of a  cuban friend when my biggest fear occurred – i had to use the bathroom.    not like,  oh i just had my first coffee and finished the paper in the morning kind of bm…..the kind that happens when you’ve just eaten a greasy piece of meat from pedro on the corner that was baking in the sun all day.    the irony of this story is that i don’t even eat meat here (especially not on the street)- i’m sure it happened to me because i am a neurotic freak,  terrified of being anywhere not fancy when i have to use a bathroom and have many times forced a self fulfilling prophecy to occur.    but let me tell you this ~ if you eat the greasy meat from pedro,  this WILL happen to you too.    so there i was,  sitting quietly,   thinking to myself “i love spanish but I have been sitting here for 6 hours and don’t understand a word these people are saying” when all of a sudden,  my phobia comes to life.   i start to sweat.    not sweat like,  oh it’s so hot in here kind of sweat,  no,  the kind that actually makes you shiver with cold.    “hmmmm” i thought to myself.    “this doesn’t feel right at all”.     so,  I waited.    and waited.    and prayed to the many saints on the wall above me that whatever was brewing in my tum was going to disappear.    “i haven’t been that bad?”  i pleaded to the lady dangling from the wall.   “i actually paid my taxes early this year!”   but no,  the saint of torturing foreigners with inopportune toilet experiences had other plans for  me.    what could i do?   i politely asked for the bathroom  and off i went.   what I found was a dirty toilet,  no seat and not a shred of toilet paper in sight,  cursing myself that this was the one time i hadn’t put kleenex in my bra for this very occasion,   i timidly asked if they had any paper?     they pointed to a bunch of ripped up paper that seemed to be the havana phone book,  pages M-S.    knowing i had only moments to spare,   i cautiously perched myself on the edge and in a cold (and also very hot) sweat, i conquered my biggest fear.   and then i wiped  my bum with maria sanchez.    and you know?    it wasn’t that bad.   i lived to tell the tale.    so,  gracias sra. sanchez,  take comfort in knowing that you played a pivotal role in bringing this neurotic jew girl to the next level of ‘bohemian’ that she always wished she could reach.

fact:   there is  actually a toilet  paper shortage in cuba at the moment.    and more importantly,  there is a food shortage too.   and electricity.    and  pretty much everything else too.    of course if you stay in a resort or hotel,  you’ll never see the hardships the local people face because anything good,  anything clean,  anything healthy goes to foreigners.    anything left over like rotting fruits and vegetables,   medication that’s expired,   medical equipment that doesn’t work, underwear made from socks…..well,  all that good stuff goes to the cubans.    don’t get me wrong,  i run into every luxury hotel I see to use their fancy bathrooms when i can but soon i think I may not even be able to do that.   because when i am having a really amazing air conditioned,  clean bathroom experience,  my cuban friends  are waiting for me on the sidewalk because they aren’t actually allowed to wait for me in the lobby.     sigh.    communism.

what’s next?    what other crazy cuban questions will I answer?

                        

• why in this country the bigger your ass is,  the better

…….and more!!