The beats of Cuban alleys

annewhere — Fri, 22 May 2015 09:01:33 GMT

I knew I should have not had this one last, very cold Mojito. I knew it.

Now here I am. Sitting in a taxi listening to Latino pop with beats bumping simultaneously to the rhythm of my headache.

I stare at the Cuban flag hanging down the mirror of the car and moving slightly to the left and to the right.

I'm leaving a world behind that I dislike, where fake authenticity rolls over the real beauty of the country. Good bye, you all-inclusive resort.

Hello, Cuba.

It's my first time in a country, where Spanish is much more helpful than German, English or my rusty French skills.

My taxi driver is taking me to Ciego de Avila. A city with houses as colourful as Europe's trees in spring.

I wander through the small alleys of the city and sneak through the open windows. Kids in front of their TV and parents preparing food. Average daily life, I think, when Salsa rhythms drag me into a different direction.

The sound becomes louder and I quickly find myself in what I always imagined Cuba to sound and look like.

Ambitious dancers are shaking their hips to the sound of live Salsa music, right in the middle of the streets.

All of them are in their early 70s, maybe older. They dance and laugh. One after the other enthusiastic Cuban man walks over to the timid ladies around the square and asks them for a dance.

With a shy smile on their faces but with prompt attitude, the high-heeled ladies in their knee-long skirts enter the dance floor.

Showing off with Salsa moves? Something, I always wanted to learn but never was able to do. I secure myself a seat and watch the event, as, suddenly, I get an offer as well.

Obviously, a freckled girl with a camera does not remain unseen.

An old man stops in front of me.

George, probably 70, resembles the Cuban I always imagined. He wears a white suit and Salsa shoes, his face is covered in wrinkles from the sunlight and he has a cigar in his mouth.

“Hola chica, que tal?”, he asks. “Muy bien, y tu?”, and this is also the only thing I can potentially say in Spanish. George does talk bits of French too, but it is not enough to have a proper conversation.

With Salsa skills resembling a robot dancing to The Prodigy, I let George hit the dance floor on his own.

George.

I look at him, as he drags his dancing partner to the dancefloor and shakes his hips enthusiastically. When I am 70, I want to dance in the streets of Ciego de Avila.

Just like George.

I grab a Mojito to go and leave the alleys of Ciego de Avila.

Excuse me, where is home?

annewhere — Fri, 22 May 2015 07:04:00 GMT

I am 25-year-old and lived in seven countries thus far, moved five times within the last four years and will certainly live for more than 5 months in two different countries this year. With all these impressions and souvenirs, which I carry around in my bag or in my mind there is one thing, which is left along the way: the feeling of being home. There are millions of songs covering this one unique feeling of having a home (and I am not only speaking about ‘Driving home for Christmas’). However, I do start having a little problem with this feeling. Where is my home actually?

My tattoo of the Berlin skyline is probably the only thing, which constantly reminds me of my home. Internally, however, I feel like a nomad searching for the one and only place to be. Weird, or normal?

Especially the last two days have been some extreme ones. After having lived in Southeast Asia for almost 7 months I was thrown back into cold and grey Germany and could only think about one thing: I certainly do not belong here. This thought lasted for approximately 2 days, right until university started again and I was back in the daily routine. Within seconds I mutated back to this German girl, organised and stressed of daily life, far away from the one living in Asia wearing flip flips and boardshorts.

Hence, it is clear that although we probably all promise ourselves to keep some of our holiday serenity, we quickly jump back into the daily horror. However, something stays after each travel: the nonstop feeling of going away again. Or is it another call for home?

Many of my friends ask me whether I dislike Berlin or whether I will ever come back to Germany. My answer? No, never. But right now I am sitting in a car to Denmark, leaving Berlin behind me and rather think: Well, why not? Millions of tourists travel to this city year by year and every time I visit Berlin that magical place touches me again. So how does this all fit together?

With all that travelling I have done and far more with the time I did not spend in Berlin, the wish to go back to Berlin grew. Every time I am back in Berlin I feel like I have to visit all my friends and see all things I want to see. And then, there it is again: "Tschö Berlin" (Bye Berlin!). Weird. At the same time I am sitting in the car thinking about going back to Denmark, ready for new adventures and new travels. This is how I satisfy my wish to go away again, but this will never lead to any sense of home sickness. What is wrong with me?!

I do not know exactly what it is.

Am I homeless just because I travel too much or because I keep moving from place to place? Or is this little happiness of coming home and visiting all friends a feeling of being home? I think I am and will certainly remain a German girl (at least internally), but from the outside I will always be that little nomad soaking in impressions like a vacuum machine and letting them out in form of a blog.

The home, for me, thus, is Berlin since I know every corner in that city (at least most of them), but the real place, my own home, is still somewhere out there. Maybe it is currently Aarhus, since this is where my bed is, but I cannot tell exactly. What is home and what is heimat?

And from which exact point of time can we say: this is home?

Where journeys & stories meet

The beats of Cuban alleys

Excuse me, where is home?