I’ve touched Cuba. I’ve smoked Cuba. Part 3

Nothing is real but the Soul.

Yes, it has taken me four weeks to write this final piece, and for good reason. Just like my trip, I didn’t want this reflection to end. While la Habana had been constantly confusing and surprising, and my gut was suffering from a tumultuous relationship with food destined to end so badly that even Bob Dylan couldn’t write a song about it, I had fallen in love, and I wanted to stay. Through the stench of pretense and my realization that it’s the ‘same shit, different island,’ I could finally smell the back-breaking determination in the tobacco of cigars, I could taste the righteousness in the sweet veil of the mint of mojitos, and I could feel the love and pain in each note sung both by bird and man. I caught myself, once again, romanticizing Cuba, but this time justifiably.

A rich culture is exactly what I found. I met Deyanes, a talented painter who, among others, has been inspired by her experiences with foreign cultures. I learned of authors who so poetically described their home that the word romantic just wouldn’t do justice. I listened to local musicians, Tres Tazas, who called their sound Nuevo-Cubano; a musical manifestation of the inevitable cultural and social evolution taking place in the country. I was seeing, hearing, and feeling the island’s art – the definitive representation of the soul. It was only when I began to let go of my preconceived notions and let Cuba show me herself, rather than me desperately looking for her, that I could finally see. Here I was, trying to uncover an unfamiliar culture, and instead I was discovering myself; the quintessential travel cliché, and rightfully so. Cuba had slapped me straight. Cuba had smoked me.

My most intimate experience occurred after the aforementioned recognitions, and unfortunately late in my journey, when I met the Capdevila family, who invited me into their home after I met them in the park as their sons played baseball. While we smoked his cheap, ruthlessly unfiltered cigarettes, and drank smothering sweet and grainy cherimoya, Julio, the patriarch, and I were getting to know each other, in what seemed to be a déjà vu moment, and his wife began preparing supper. But rather than reliving a tired and contrived conversation, we were actually talking. I didn’t ask questions that implied an expected answer. He didn’t reply with passive paranoia or a script. Supporting a family of four, Julio was lucky in the sense that even though he was earning the same $15 per month as the rest of his peers, he had the chance to travel to other countries, giving him insight into how to prepare his sons for a future that would optimistically be brighter. But the reality of the day was that I was to be fed a sacrifice of rations normally not even enough for the family alone. Refusal was as preposterous as the situation, so I ate their love with humility and gratitude.

Cubanos are proud and patriotic, in spite of their repressive government. And although it can actually be claimed that this is certainly a product of said repressors’ propaganda, it is also a source of something much deeper – they’re proud of their history and culture. Cubanos aren’t content, nor are they complacent. Their thirst may be unquenchable, but their pride and dignity is almighty. Their system is far from exemplary, but their universal attitude is admirable, to say the least. I’ve never seen as resilient a people as the Cubanos.

I pray Havana can return to its glamorous physical state of the past, sustaining its infrastructure and people, while nurturing its most important virtue; its spirit.  I guess the latter is what every society attempts to do, or at least should. Cuba, in my opinion, is just doing it best.