Travel Writing

The clouds that hover over Cuba are as complex as the people who inhabit it. In several shades and imaginative formations, they cast their shadows below. They accumulate and heave heavy drops and create a mirror for themselves. But it doesn’t last long. Soon after the last drop falls and the clouds disperse, the ground greedily consumes the water, ensuring that mangoes will continue to drip from the trees; red, yellow, and fuchsia flowers will burst from branches; and the island will maintain a shade of green that is just a tad greener than you thought was earthly possible.

As it begins to fall, I watch the rain from a window of my casa particular. I go into the living room where I find the casa owner’s son, sitting in a rocking chair and watching a World Cup match on the family’s tiny television. I sit in an empty rocking chair and watch the game with him. He has kind eyes and we communicate about the teams and our hopes for the game with gestures, nods, and smiles.

As the storm grows, I leave the casa owner’s son to his game and join the casa owner and a few other little old women on the porch to watch the rain and rock the time away. Unlike her son, the smiles of casa owner and her friends are strained and less than genuine. I wonder if it has something to do with my dark skin. They are white women, and in Cuba, I know that people of older generations often have racial hang ups. But I continue to rock, and as the storm eases up, so do they. By the end of it, they are jovial and talking at me animatedly. I shrug and smile in response.

After the rain ends, the streets of the town immediately return to normal. People shout to nearby porches to communicate with their neighbors. A man sells mangoes up and down the streets until his wheelbarrow is empty. Guajiros, the men of the countryside, ride by in horse-drawn carts. There’s a classic car, a beat up car, a modern car. Women and girls walk by with a type of confidence that doesn’t write off traditional femininity as weak or meek. It’s a strength that allows beauty and power exist harmoniously; a strength born from a well-rounded knowledge the wonder of being female.

And there is another component to the confidence of the people, not just of the women, but of the men too. I’ve noticed the resilience and ingenuity of the Cuba people, but those are not quite the words I’m looking for. By the time I leave the town, I know what the word is: innocence. There’s a lack of awareness about the world outside of Cuba that permeates so much of the way they do things there. It is refreshing, it is heartbreaking, and it is endearing.