Cuba

— From a letter to my brother who is doing time at Millhaven Penitentiary

 We’re in Cuba now. I forgot to tell you we were going on vacation— Aryeh will turn 2 here on Friday. We met Ellie’s mom and her husband Mark, who arrived here before us. The night we landed was clear, a balmy 28 or so. Because Cuba is in the same time zone the constellations are the same only positioned higher in the sky. There are no stores at the airport, it’s very sparse and has the feel of a prison or a military base. Outside in the bus loop (the resort is about a 100 km. oceanward) men in white collared button- downs with short sleeves peddle the local beer Cristal out of white and grey grocery bags. A fat, half drunken man named Kevin tells me to look in the bag before I buy else I get on the bus with one beer in my hand and a bag full of cans of cola. I didn’t bother to mention that I don’t drink. It seems Kevin’s been here a few times. He’s got a beige canvas outback hat on top of his sweaty head. He’s clad in cargo shorts and a palm tree print shirt. I got on the plane in shorts. Kevin tells me that there’s whores everywhere. It’s not Americanized at all. In front of the resort there’s a festival in full swing—dub step dancehall is blasting from 8 foot speaker banks. The whole mess of vendor booths and undulating bodies vibrates with sex and danger— this is a place one could lose himself. There are security men who lower the yellow rope and let us on to the resort proper. The resort is called Caracol, which means snail. Everything is open air, there are roofs but no walls. Ochre, yellow, pink, blue stucco. Our villa is comparable to a cheaper hotel. I’d rather have this way, western ideas of luxury suck, give me the real.

Cuba is a communist country. Because of its political stance America has blacklisted it since the late 50’s— Cubans are forbidden to leave Cuba. Paradise or prison? The first morning Aryeh and I are down on the white sand, it’s a trip, and the water really is postcard-blue. This roaming musician walks by, he’s got an old classical guitar with Leafs stickers all over it. I know that if he plays I’ll have to pay him a few pesos. Alex the guitar man— I ended up buying his c.d. : a homemade job, probably sounds like shit. It doesn’t matter. He sang Hotel California, think of the words and then the context. Check out anytime they you like but, never leave. 

We took a horse and buggy ride into the village of Saint Lucia. I’d guess the population at around 300. Our guide was named Allisandro, a well built man with a cowboy hat and light denim jeans and jacket— looky-looky he’d say at any land mark or point of interest: the salt lakes, the catamaran rental station, the school. Allisandro lives in one of the tenements in town. I heard some of the other people at the resort calling these humble 3 storey buildings rundown, they said that the townspeople were living in squalor. I didn’t see it like that, though. They were well kept and there was a dignity about them. Aside from being weather beaten, they were fine; something like many places I’ve lived in myself.

Later in the week we ran into Allisandro and his wife. They greeted us as amigos, shook our hands or kissed us, Quebecer style, on both cheeks. I just about cried. After the festival was folded away onto trucks and bikes and carted off the strip was empty and quiet— a string of halide lights between two darknesses: the village and the road beyond the resorts into the countryside. I felt the sadness of the people then.  

Thursday afternoon now. Palm fronds are lazing a rain-like song overhead. From here I can hear the air-conditioning hum on. I’m on our little ground level balcony— café con leche and cigars— Ellie’s reading in her beach chair and Ari’s sawing logs in the suite. I cannot see the ocean from here; the view of it is cut off by the high backdunes, which slope down into the beach.

Yesterday we went on a Safari into the mountains (something like Montreal, not the Rockies) on a tour of some caves. They are known as the Rebel caves. During the revolution the rebels hid ammunition and arms there. Long before that, when the Spanish came/invaded the island (1492ish) the indigenous people sought refuge there. There are no Indians on Cuba today: 200,000 of them were killed within the first ten years the Spaniards were here. Later, Africans brought to the island as slaves hid there after escaping. Caves are freaky, over-close and dark. There’s this feeling you get— like the dark knows you’re there and resents you for disturbing it. Vast columns of calcium (stalagmites and stalactites) rise from the ceilings to the floors. Some of the formations look like animals: pumas, elephants, snakes, faces. There are bats, real bats not calcium ones. You have on a yellow hardhat with a feeble LCD light. All I can say is, wild.

Tonight is our last night— sad somehow, like leaving. I’ve never been good with it. I’m a look back later and remember kind of guy. There’s meaning in everything, you have to take the time to parse it out.

The shortest way to anywhere’s a line.

Today I’ll walk around thinking of stars—

we haven’t got to be here all that long.

When morning comes to settle on the beach

I’ll leave a little while and stroll the shore,

my footprints, quickly swallowed by the break,

drawn out to the blue— beyond the reefs

where wind is on the wave and cresting white.

Later, evening rolls in off the ocean,

the coral moon’s swept over by a cloud 

and wind blows out the stars, in the clear sky

the curvature of time is all it takes.