Homesickness

I miss Mindy Sue, my miniature poodle, and I even think I miss Gemma, my mom’s hyperactive and sometimes annoying wiener dog. I miss not thinking twice about petting a dog I see. I miss cereal. Oh how I miss Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, the only two cereals I care to stock my apartment pantry with. I miss having something other than hard-boiled and scrambled eggs for breakfast. I miss readily available toilet paper in every bathroom. Charmin Ultra Soft and Bath & Body Works Warm Vanilla hand soap, I miss you. I miss not having to carry a wad of toilet paper in my purse and I miss not having to worry about forgetting to bring that extremely important wad with me to every bathroom I enter. I miss my closet, which beautifully houses my favorite clothes and collection of shoes. It might sound silly but I miss having a wide variety of options when I’m getting dressed in the morning. I miss not having to live out of a suitcase. I really miss living by myself and not having to share my living space with 16 other people. I miss knowing where everything is and knowing what there is to do and at what time I can do it.

Mami y Papi, los extraño tanto. I miss seeing your faces, the most familiar faces I know. I miss the comfort and security that it gives me to know that when I’m in Ann Arbor you are only a one and a half hour drive away. Alma, I miss you more than I can say. So I’ll just leave it at that. My sorority sisters, I miss the crazy, stupid amounts of love that we shower each other with every day. You ladies are my home away from home, but here I don’t have a home away from home away from home. Tia, my protégé, I miss being there to guide you and see you grow. You are never far from my thoughts. Jeff, mi mejor amigo through thick and thin. I miss our silly fights and all the joy that just being in the same room with you brings me.

Yes, I am absolutely blessed and incredibly grateful to have had this opportunity to experience living in Havana for three months. Yes, it is the opportunity of a lifetime; one that very few undergraduate American students have the chance to experience. Yes, I am truly enjoying my time here and yes, I have learned more than my mind can even begin to process right now. However, I would be lying to myself if I said that during my time here I missed none of the people, comforts, and material possessions from my life back in the states. Obviously, I do. Yet, when I catch myself thinking about it too much or for too long, I quickly try to snap myself out of it. What’s the point of crowding my head and thoughts with the people and things I miss if my days in Havana are numbered? I want to make sure that I take advantage of as much as I can while I’m here, knowing that when I leave on April 2nd I’m instantly going to miss a million and one things about being here. But I can’t help it. I do miss home.

A neon sunset

I’m never expecting it or waiting to see it, but it’s always a breathtaking surprise when I do. It usually happens at 1ra y C at around 6:30pm, once I’ve turned the corner and passed the “Playa Girón” block letter sign. I’m usually completely lost in my thoughts, or making sure I don’t get run over by a speeding car while absent-mindedly crossing the street, or focused on the waves crashing fiercely on the Malecón wall and spilling over on the street forcing cars to slow down for once. However, my thoughts come to a screeching halt when I see the neon pink and orange rays of dim sunlight amidst a grayish blue sky. The sun is setting over the Malecón. The clouds are stretched out into long, uneven wisps and I’m not even sure if they are the neon or the grayish blue.

Only three more cuadras until I reach the residencia. I purposefully slow down. These three blocks are familiar to me now and I like walking them on my own. I am used to the sound of engines constantly roaring past me, away from the fluorescent spectacle, not amused by the sun’s final performance of the day. Couples sit intimately on the Malecón, sweetly kissing each other, and for once I am not annoyed at their public display of affection because I know that I would be doing the exact same thing with that special someone. But I don’t feel lonely. If anything, it’s comforting to see and feel these strangers’ affection from across the street. From across the street, on days when the sea is rough, I also feel the mist of the sea carried by the wind. It hits my face ever so lightly and I lick the salitre from my lips. And before I know it I’ve reached the residencia. I linger for a little longer admiring the organic beauty of the sun’s departure for a few more seconds and finally turn my back on it and pray that it comes out tomorrow.

La mejor noche en Varadero

Lights are down. I have just been escorted to my front row, stage right seat. Although I know that what awaits will be infiltrated with extremely problematic racial dynamics, and blatant exoticization of women of color, I try to justify me being here by telling myself that I’ve never been to a cabaret. I am seated for no more than one minute, when the music starts and the lights come on. The dancers quickly emerge from both sides of a blood red velvet curtain. My initial excitement quickly sizzles away as I think damn, these women do not want to be here at all right now. In fact, I think they would rather be anywhere else but here right now. The sign behind me reads, “La mejor noche en Varadero.” I’m only at the Hotel Internacional for one night, but if I were here for more I doubt this would be the best night in Varadero. Why is the sign behind me? It’s almost as if this sign was purposefully placed there as motivation for these cabaret dancers, knowing that they would need it. The show just started and over half of them have absolutely no expression on their faces, like they have done this a million times before, like they are performing a monotonous chore that has become routine. Twirl twice on beat this, stick chest out on beat that. It has become so mechanical and repetitive that they don’t even bother to stay on beat. It’s hard to watch. The syncopated rhythm of their steps makes them look so messy. If I were able to hear it through the music, it would sound like wild popping popcorn. Ironically, their worn costumes are different shades of blue, a color that has come to be associated with sadness.

But their form tells me that they are in fact good dancers. However, the best of dancers would probably not feel that way if they had to wear costumes that looked like hand-me-down-down-downs, if they had to perform with several holes in their fishnet stockings, if their leotard had a gaping hole right under their titty tassle adorned left breast, if their shoes were so worn that it felt as though they had no soles to dance on, while making sure not to trip over the exposed wires on the stage. I keep watching and become fixated on one particular dancer. Out of all the others who have at least flashed a smile once or twice, her face has not changed. Her expression is blank except for her right eyebrow, which is arched ever so slightly. Where is she from? Where does she live? Does she have any children? What is she missing right now, because she has to be here tonight dancing for me?

Now that I am trying to remember her, the elderly lady who must be below five feet tall because I look down at her in my memory, I only recall her in shades of yellow. It is possible that she has a very wrinkled face, eyes pouched so tightly in bags of skin that I cannot surmise their color, a shock of white hair cut at geometric angles. Her clothes might be plain, or I am just bad at recalling outfits. Either way, she appears in sepia.

She stands in front of the peeling white and blue wall tagged with the black inscriptions: “El Choco 411” and “Yaris 413.” I want to document my time waiting for and riding the guagua: Number 27 from Palatino in Cerro to Avenida de los Presidentes in Vedado. I like the guagua culture. How people cooperate, don’t get irritable over lack of space, and operate on an honor system. How I have never seen a bus map or schedule, and sometimes I don’t see signs, but somehow everyone knows where to catch the bus, when it will come, and where it will go.

She waits, just to the left of these tags, under the shadow cast by the awning of the parada. An aesthetically pleasing photograph forms in my imagination. Gathering my nerves, I approach this very serious looking woman. I try to explain in Spanish, “I’m a student from the United States. I’m doing a project for school about the guagua. Can I take a picture of you?” Not a very convincing argument. She squints at me, than quarter smiles and shrugs. “You don’t want me to?” I ask. She shrugs again. Shakes her head. I stammer, “I’m sorry,” then wander away from her line of sight to the other side of the bus stop.

Discouraged, I contemplate not asking other people for their photographs. I feel slightly criminal as I snap shots of the bus stop from afar, of people’s backs, justifying my actions by reminding myself that I would never take a picture close-up or of someone’s face without their permission.

“¿Que es el último?” call out three different people as they arrive in succession over the course of a few minutes. “¿Veinte-siete?” responds the chorus. When each arrival nods, someone raises his or her hand. They acknowledge each other, then lean, or settle into conversation, or lower slowly to a bench. I move to sit across from a group of three: Two men and a woman. I try again to ask for a photograph. This time I add the disclaimer that I know it’s strange but I think the bus is interesting and they have a bus stop sign behind them. They translate my muddled Spanish to each other, then look at me blankly. The woman with the straightened hair and smooth brown cheeks confirms that I want a picture of her. She breaks out into laughter, shakes her head at me. No. I apologize, banish myself to another bench. Procure myself a place in line after the last woman who asked. Raise my hand when the next person asks. Clutch my 5 centavos CUC (the closest equivalent to 40 centavos moneda nacional, but still worth more than one entire peso cubano. Even my pennies are privileged). Try to listen in on the snippets of conversation around me, but the Spanish is too quiet, or too far, or too fast.

The 27 arrives, and because it’s Sunday, there is not a huge crowd scrambling to climb onto the bus or squeezing into an already limited space. I stand behind the woman with the headscarf and wait my turn to press my coin into the driver’s firm hand.

I plan to take pictures on the guagua. I sit in the back, thinking I will continue to photograph from afar. I hope to capture the interactions of friendly strangers talking about baseball, or the way a couple doesn’t mind being forced up against each other, or a child sitting on her mother’s lap, or the raucous laughter of uniformed students on their way back from school. But another old lady sits next to me, and I feel ashamed. I can’t take secret pictures with her watching.

If we were in the front of the bus, she might be sitting and I might be standing, arms outstretched to grab hold of the bar overhead. She might offer to hold my bag in her lap for me, like other old women do for the younger ones who give up their seats. Then maybe we could talk, and maybe I could take her picture. Instead, I am afraid to bother her, and I take a few blurry photos of views out the window before the vibrations of the motor rock me to sleep. Remember, it’s Sunday, and there’s not much going on anyway. When I wake up, another woman is sitting next to me and I have to squeeze past her, allowing her to hold my elbow and help me along, “Con permiso,” past a few men laughing and shouting, “¡Permiso!” until I am stumbling out onto the curb, taking a parting shot at the guagua with my camera as it roars away, turning and heading the twenty five blocks back to the Residencia.