7:00AM: awaken to the sound of roosters clucking and pigs snorting. wonder why people in the bustling cosmopolitan (relatively speaking) city of havana have roosters on their balconies and pigs in their back yards. spend a moment contemplating how hygienic it can be to have farm animals in your home and make a mental note to stop eating things sold out of people’s windows.
7:01AM: take a second to have my daily panic about the fact that i actually have nothing to do today and seriously contemplate what the hell I am doing here and why i quit my job and sold my condo?
7:02AM: realize that i have nothing to do today and roll over in sheer delight at the fact that i have nothing to do today. what should I do? drink another mojito? go to the beach? read a book under a tree? work on my tan? who cares, i can do whatever the hell I want! fall in love with myself all over again for quitting my job, selling my condo, moving to a communist country and being so totally cool.
9:15AM: stir from the beating sun broiling my tender creamy skin and wonder why i am not only dripping in sweat but covered in itchy bumps? is it bed bugs? it IS 475 degrees with the humidity in here, after all, and surely that can’t do anything good for the 50 year old mattress i am sleeping on? or is it some crazy tropical disease carried by the filthy animals i am constantly caressing on the street? either way, another mental note is made to put calamine lotion on the next care package list and roll over again.
11AM: get up. it’s enough of being completely slovenly and indulgent. wander to the kitchen of the cuban family’s house that i am now living in and see none other than a spam sandwich on the counter waiting for me. now, if I make fun of the fact that there is a spam sandwich waiting for me then i sound like a total bitch and completely unappreciative of the fact that someone who has very little has taken the time to leave something for me, made with genuine affection before leaving at 6AM to work a 14 hour day and make 12 cents, so i won’t make any jokes about spam. and you know, to tell you the truth, when you’re hungry and you close your eyes, it doesn’t actually taste all that bad. chuckle to myself that i still call myself a vegetarian.
11:10AM: wonder why i am still hungry? realize that i am now starving in solidarity. cubans are obsessed with food, mainly because they actually don’t have enough and although i spend on groceries in a week what most people make in 6 months, i am still always starving. take a moment to yearn for a spicy tuna roll, look in the fridge, see nothing that resembles a spicy tuna roll and shuffle away in disappointment.
11:30AM: take my clothes off to get ready for my shower. look in the mirror and realize that my starving in solidarity is really getting me a hot bod. seriously consider extending my time here for no other reason than the malnourishment that will get me into a size 6.
11:45AM: take a shower. wash myself from a bucket in a bathroom without running water and holes in walls. marvel at the fact that, even though i have now done this 75 times, i am a super bohemian and remind myself never to let anyone call me neurotic again. however, have a brief moment of ‘former elana’ and feel disgust when i realize i boiled the shower water in a cooking pot and have to spend 20 minutes picking rice out of my bum.
1:00PM: what a surprise, i am hungry again. decide i am going to treat myself to a pizza and in a fit of laziness, decide to take the bus. stand at the bus stop with 950 other people and wonder how we’re all going to fit? feel the beads of sweat start to form on my upper lip. obsessively admire myself for giving everything up and taking the bus (and secretly and obsessively yearn for my honda civic with a/c). watch the bus pull up and in what doesn’t look safe at all, stuff 949 of those people on top of each other. decide that for safety, hair (it is VERY hot!) and personal space reasons, i shall take a pass. also note that the bus is from 1945, has german street names on the front and windows that don’t open. curious if it was used during the war? the sweaty, despondent faces pressed up against the glass look as some might have during that time. feel happy with my decision to walk.
2:00PM: realize it has taken me an hour to walk three blocks. perhaps my sedentary lifestyle at home, inability to acclimatize to the heat and the enormous and very dangerous potholes on every corner is affecting my efficiency on the roads. alas, skip in excitement around the corner to the pizza place but screech to a halt when i realize that this ain’t no normal pizza joint. one has to scream up (en espanol, i might add) what kind of pizza you want (hmmm, i better pick one that looks familiar from the list of unidentifiable pizza toppings – ‘hawaiana’ – again, there goes my vegetarianism) and then pray the guy 12 floors up heard and understood you amongst the starving, screaming cubans. wait and wait and wait and then panic when he starts to yell down in spanish and point at me. with trepidation and confusion, approach the bucket that is flying down overhead and realize, there’s a hawaian pizza inside! put 50 cents in the bucket and hope that i can always live in a place where your food is delivered to you in a flying pail.
4:00PM: walk by a book store and decide to browse. seriously contemplate buying the “O” magazine from 1998 out of sheer desperation for something in english. realize that my voracious appetite for pop culture has waned since living in an impoverished, communist country and feel excited that i am now ‘worldly’ and not shallow. try to remember to cancel my people magazine subscription when i get home out of my newfound ‘worldli-ness’ (and if i don’t remember, well, i should read it anyway, don’t you think? because my time here has taught me not to let things go to waste…you know. it’s not like i’d enjoy it. really.)
5:00PM: notice across the street that ‘inglorious bastards’ (‘bastardos sin gloria’ – hee) is playing. decide it would be good to experience seeing an american blockbuster film in a communist, anti-US country. pay my 4 cents to get in, sit down and appreciate the minus 20 degree air conditioning. feel confused by the fact that on the screen i see someone press ‘play’ and ‘subtitles…spanish’. realize that they only play dvd’s in the theatres here. hmmmm, i did only pay 4 cents, i’ll give it a shot. reel in shock when i see a pirated version of the film being screened and giggle in disbelief when i realize that said pirater left the video camera on his seat for 20 minutes when he went to the bathroom and decide that it’s time to leave. sigh. socialist cinema isn’t as fun as i thought.
6:00PM: walk by 12 grocery stores looking for peanut butter. nope. remember that one can’t get used to buying anything here because even though you bought it once, you may never get that opportunity again. in fact, some products you may fall in love with and then when the foreign manufacturer realizes they are being paid in cuban monopoly money, they just pull it all off the shelves and split, leaving all of us here with a big whole in our hearts where 90 cent tetra packs of pina colada flavoured rum once lived. if i had known i would have to visit 12 grocery stores, multiple times a week looking for peanut butter again for the next 3 months, i would have certainly made love to each delicious spoonful when i had the chance. shuffle out in disappointment and prepare myself for spreading spam on my bread again tomorrow morning. mmmmm.
7:30PM: uh, why can’t i see anything? surely mr. ‘c’ can afford to keep the street lights on for foreign gals like myself who CANNOT navigate these insane crumbly streets during the day?? no. they need to save energy. so instead of turning the lights off at night in gigantic government office buildings, it’s much better to just turn off all the street lamps and watch everyone plummet to the bottom of the pot holes. at the very least, the cubans on the corners watching me fall on my ass every 12 seconds are amused. i take a moment to feel happy that i am contributing to boosting the morale here.
7:35PM: flutter my eyes at swarthy cuban on dark street corner while his eyes, as dark as the streets i have to navigate, slowly make their way over me. feel ever so slightly creeped out by him but very happy that my starvation hasn’t completely depleted my ample supply of tits and ass for the cuban admirer.
9:00PM: feel super excited that i actually have a friend and stop by his house to attend a party. happen upon the one group of cubans who don’t dig salsa and find a bunch of brown guys dancing around a bottle of hooch to bon jovi’s ‘wanted: dead or alive”. have a very hearty chuckle (internally) at how they are spanglish-ing the lyrics (“i am war-ned, deaf and arrive”) and partake in said hooch. a few swigs later, remember why i treat myself to the real stuff and say a silent prayer that i don’t barf on the way home.
2:00AM: drunkenly fall into the home of my new bed bug pets. desperately feel the urge to pee and trepidatiously make my way to the very scary bathroom. ahhhh, perch myself on the edge of the ‘toilet’ and relieve myself. feel relaxed from my day of being a lady of leisure when….huh? what’s that? did something just run over my foot? mid-stream, panicked, frantically look around the bathroom to see what it was. then, staring up at me, the size of my hand (literally):
la cucaracha, la cucaracha….ya no puede caminar
la cucaracha, la cucaracha….porque le falta la patica principal
2:01AM: completely lose my shit, pee all over my feet and race back into my bed. realize that i not only have giant cockroaches running around but my den of salvation has bugs in it. contemplate new bohemian status and tell myself it’s okay to be a little freaked out. i’m a jew from leaside living in squalor, it’s gotta take more than a few months to completely free yourself of all neuroses, no?
3:00AM: finally return heartbeat to normal. lulled to sleep by the sounds of chickens clucking, ancient car engines choking, whores counting their pennies. come to the realization that i am one of the luckiest gals around that i have been afforded the opportunity to stay in the home of such a generous and gracious family, have insightful, kind new friends and can live in a place where although there is no peanut butter, having a belly that hangs over your pants is a pre-requisite for being invited to a party.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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
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?)
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?
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!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
(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!
• 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!
Monday, February 1, 2010
(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.
kisses from cuba.
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