Wednesday, March 31, 2010

(dear john)

my dearest darling,

ahhhh, we’ve had some good times, no? you lured me into your embrace with your supple sand, your luscious ladies, your minty mouth watering mojitos, your curvy cobblestone streets, your sweet sound of salsa on every corner. you let me get cozy in your fancy hotels, spend my tourist dollars in your premium cigar shops, drink your high end rum. you gave me no choice but to fall in love with you. my sun drenched skin, gazed upon by some of the finest latinos, my aquamarine eyes fixed upon with every glance, my laughter coming out of many an establishment where the $8 daiquiri’s flow freely. sigh, what a time we had.

now, many months and numerous visits later, i am sorry to say mi amor, our love affair is starting to wane. my lust for your sultry socialism just ain’t cuttin’ it anymore.

now, i certainly can’t deny that you have helped me grow, that’s the truth. i can now drink havana club rum with gusto directly from the bottle and pee on a tree. i have learned how to take a shower from a bucket, eat rice and beans at every meal, use an empty tuna can as part of the interior design and look over my shoulder whenever i want to express an opinion. i have most definitely developed my skills as a keen negotiator (i was an agent after all) to not pay $2 for a few tomatoes when it should only cost me 12 cents. i have learned how to walk on the street and not fall into each pot hole on every corner and to dodge the crumbling buildings falling on my head as i go on my merry way. i have trained myself not to pick up and bring home every single baby animal that’s crying, starving, furless and diseased. i am now an expert at eating from the street without utensils and am likely the foreigner with the best ability to rip off a piece of greasy cardboard box and use it like a spoon. you have afforded me the opportunity to train my digestive system to be able to ingest anything i want, including the skin of animals fried into fancy shapes. when once before i may have said “hmmm, that might make me barf” now i say enthusiastically, “si, por favor!”. i have gained a better appreciation for how amazing my tits and ass can look in clothes that have Playboy logos on them and now fetishize lycra. i have acclimatized to the fact that most people here know very little of the outside world and don’t look at them in shock & disbelief anymore when they say things like “what’s a big mac?”. i am completely aware as i walk down the street, that i will very likely be hit in the head with a baseball made of string, hit by an excited kid with a bat made of bark or that someone will pour a bucket of their ‘bathroom water’ from their balcony on me because they have no running water. i don’t feel frightened anymore when my stomach churns because i treated myself to a $10 box of raisin bran so old that the 100s of bugs inside have buried themselves into my intestines. i just think, ‘shit, i’m super lucky to have been able to afford that box of cereal that’s so old because i’m likely the only one who can afford it and that’s why it’s been sitting on the shelf for the last 6 years’. no longer do i cringe when the plumes of black smoke from the 65 year old cars fill my lungs, i have just accepted the fact that i will feel horrific for as long as i remain in this city.

all that said, i also can’t deny that i have gained a newfound understanding for how lucky i am to simply hold the passport that i hold. i have a deep appreciation for everything in my life that i had and continue to have. not just the fancy job, leaside condo or comfortable leased car i so enthusiastically tossed aside but something more profound than that…..my freedom. the fact that i have the freedom of speech, to express my opinions about whatever i want and wherever i want without the fear of someone arresting me when i am sitting having a drink with my friends. the freedom to have a job that allows me to make a salary, no matter how meager, that will pay my rent and feed me. the freedom to move into a new apartment, travel out of the country, rent a DVD. i have gained the most amazing insight into how empathetic i can feel when there are people around me who have so little, who struggle so much, who would literally do anything to have what i have. and at this very moment, i really don’t have much - i have no home, no job, no car and here, no friends. but what I have is my freedom and my ability to have those things again, very easily. i, like so many others around me at home, spent most of my time trying to fill a void with a better job, more clothes, a nicer apartment – looking to some higher power in a yoga studio, a meditation retreat, a self help book, a shrink’s office to try to help me find much needed clarity. now, and with the most admiration, all i have to do for clarity is look around me. look at people trying to survive, not just in poverty but in the most extreme oppression. intelligent, creative, resourceful people who have no opportunity to grow in the way north americans are so desperate to (and with anything they need at their fingertips) because they simply have no means to do so. although i feel no need to run home and live in squalor out of solidarity, i certainly feel the need to embrace my newfound perspective on survival, my new understanding of the difference between what I ‘want’ and what i ‘need’ and my ability to seriously appreciate the opportunities available to me that so many others have no access to.

so, my darling, i do love and appreciate you but soon, i will have to take said opportunity to get the hell out and you know….get the hell out. and as my parting gift, i shall leave to you my lyra so you will always remember me. as much as i love it, i can’t deny that it really doesn’t breathe nicely in 45 degree heat.

yours, most sincerely,
elanita

Sunday, March 28, 2010

(omitted)

here lay an entry that i thought held some value and importance in really expressing my feelings about how things work in this country (and, in my humble opinion, was quite amusing), however, i have decided to remove it. it has been suggested to me (in not so hushed tones, as most things here are suggested), by a number of those really in the know, that perhaps, for my own security, i keep my opinions (on higher powers) to myself. or at least until i am nestled safely in the bosom of my homeland. so, while i am a guest on socialist soil, i shall respect the way things are done and censor myself before i am told to do so. cuz, by the time they knock on your door to tell you to shut the hell up, you’re pretty much fucked.

musings and such to resume momentarily.

ps: the post was about my friend getting arrested on the beach for doing nothing. and that really sucks. (that’s not offensive, right?)

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

(all the single ladies, all the single ladies)

so, i am back from a whirlwind, month long trip across the country and i have seen a lot of things. a lot. and traveling with cuban friends helps you see things that the average traveler just doesn’t see. things that are right in front of you. i suppose that’s the case when you spend time with a local person anywhere but for me, uncovering some of the mysteries of navigating life in a communist country is seemingly a little more complicated than where to find the best juice or hottest salsa club. and for me, far more important. having said all of that, i really pondered on where to start my tale of fidel’s fine land and i think i will start with the unwavering desperation of people to get the hell out of here. and what they will do to get the hell out of here. it’s a lot. i recently spent a saturday night with a group of young-ish cuban men and was dismayed at how very desperate they were to be free of what they feel are the shackles of communist life. one young man ran his elevator eyes over me and exclaimed, “hmmmmm, i usually like skinny blondes but you’re canadian, right? you’ll do”. well, muchas gracias.

here is how i might imagine an ad on lavalife-cuba looking:

gender: male
age: 28
occupation: bio chemist (by day), raging, homicidal dissident (by night)
salary: $11 per month

hobbies: repairing my bike with picture wire that came from the portrait of my grandmother in 1932, drawing stick figures of government officials and setting them on fire, pondering another creative way to make rice and beans super delectable, fixing my 8 year old flip flops with duct tape and lying in my bedroom that i share with my six siblings and dreaming of a land that allows a bio chemist to afford to have a bedroom without six siblings in it.

profile: ladies, i am the man for you! i am looking for a (preferably desperate), attractive (but you don’t have to be that attractive) woman to share my life with. i will take you out (well, you’ll pay for everything) and show you a good time and tell you all about how completely miserable my life is and how insanely fraught with anxiety i am about getting the hell out of this country. i will tell you anything you want to hear and promise you that i will stay with you for life if you just marry me and bring me to your country that i hear is “the most beautiful country in the world”. i will make you feel like a princess and even though i will likely split as soon as you get me to your native land, the sex will be hot and we’ll salsa dance into the night. so, pick me, pick me! don’t be swayed by the thousands of other tight pant wearing sweet talkers on the street, i’m for real!


fact: if you walk down the streets of havana, on most street corners (especially in the tourists areas) you will see jineteros/jineteras (hustlers) doing what they do best, hustling. some will manhandle you in the most obvious of ways and you’ll keep walking and others….well, they are no chumps in the art of persuasion. you’ll have your pants and your bank card in their hands in a matter of moments and you won’t see it coming from a mile away. as you wander this fine city, you’ll see young taye diggs looking black men running their hands through the hair of older heavy-set white women, young (i am talking as young as 14 sometimes), beautiful, cuban woman with their tits high, asses on display like a candy store, hair in a fancy giant flower and smellin’ real good, laughing and canoodling with wrinkly ooooooold men who can only create a bulge down below by the size of their wallets. they will not only canoodle with them, they will have sexual intercourse with them. like, again and again and again! why? because life for them here is so full of misery and discontentment that they would rather sacrifice themselves to these shamefully desperate men than spend another day in what feels like a prison to most people here. it’s said that only 5% of cuban/foreign relationships are based on real affection and emotional connection. 50% of the population is said to be hustling foreigners and of the other 50% actually going to work everyday, any of them can easily be lured into these types of relationships if they see the opportunity. what saddens me the most is that of the cubans i have met, are some of the kindest, most generous and loving people around. but, this life, the desperation here really messes with the ability for some of them to form meaningful, genuine relationships because the lure of the dollar is just too great. and too necessary. i met a really lovely, loving couple recently who although very much in love, supported one of them forming a relationship with a foreigner in the hopes that one day, down the road, it will help them all get out. so, ladies, if you’re spinning wildly out of control in love with a cuban man, make sure his really sweet sister that you met isn’t actually his wife. kids start to hustle as young as 14-15 but the majority of people hit the streets around 20, when they have finished their education and realize that being a biochemist lands you a salary of 11 bucks a month.

you know, i am pretty sure that if i was a cuban bio chemist working 12 hours a day for a tenner, i’d be puttin’ on my best push up bra and lip gloss, saddling up to a drunk old tourist and closing my eyes. tight.

want more wacky cuban adventures? well, hold on for more….

• why being too hot on the beach gets you arrested. literally.


PS: This is totally unrelated but I have to tell you – the other night I went to buy a drink and was waiting patiently for my change of 75 cents. I waited and waited and when she finally returned she said in Spanish “sorry, we don’t have any change but here, take this instead” and dumped a pile of pina colada flavoured hard candies on the counter. Need I say more?

Thursday, March 11, 2010

(the eagle has landed)

i am finally back from my whirlwind, cross country adventure and believe me, after what i've seen, i have lots to say. stay tuned, i will update soon!