Open your Heart to Cuba

**This is not a true story**

After many weeks of wallowing in my sorrow, I realized that the only way to improve my experience in Cuba was through me. Days filled with hunger, because I refused to eat. Restless nights of insomnia because I refused to sleep. Maria, our house mother at La Residencia, advised me to let go and just enjoy Cuba. The internal complexities my emotions combated had reached their breaking point and could no longer resist the temptation to adhere to the advice of Maria and let free and enjoy Cuba as she is. For I cannot change her, what I need to do is open my heart to her.

Thus the journey begun, and I set my goals upon opening my heart to her and locking her inside so she would never leave, so that I would never have a dull moment with her. So I opened my heart towards the sea. The waves crashed against El Malecón as I threw my key over it. But the unsettling waves of the sea spewed it right back to me. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "maybe I need to try again, or try slightly harder."

And I did. On the class went to one excursion after another. First to Matanzas, we entered La Farmacia a room filled with an array of colorful multi-sized jars with healing powers enclosed within. I opened my heart wide, locked Cuba inside and found a glass bottle jar to drop my key inside. I let out a sight a relief for I felt content. "That should do it," or so I thought. Later on that day, in an attempt to relieve a throbbing headache I opened my bottle of ibuprofen only to find my key inside. Confused and perplexed I removed the key, put it in my pocket, took the medication, and pondered to myself: "why and how?"
The excursions continued. On our second trip we departed from Havana to the cities of Santa Clara, Trinidad, Caibarién and Sancti Spíritus. We stopped to view the sugar mills of Trinidad, the picturesque mountains and landscape into the distance. I opened my heart once more, locked it and threw my key as far as I could into the sugar mills of Trinidad. Later on during the excursion we stopped at a resort in Caibarién. At dinner my eyes filled with excitement as I gazed at the buffet, viewing all the various pastries delicately sprinkled with sugary goodness. "Yum," I thought to myself and placed one onto my plate. I hurried back to the table and bit into the pastry only to encounter a-"crunch!"-I spat out what tasted like metal into my plate. It was my key. Once again, I felt confused and didn't understand why every time I tried to lock my heart and dispose of the key it returned to me.

On and on this happened.
In Sancti Spíritus, I left my key in a pew of the Iglesia Parroquial Mayor, later to open my Bible and find my key there.
Again in Santa Clara, I buried it near El Monument de Ché, only to rencounter my key in at the librería (bookstore) of Casa de las Américas, while skimming through The Diary of Ché Guevara.

"What is going on?" I pondered frustratingly. Upset at my continued failed attempts, I paced back to La Residencia and saw Maria on my way to my room.

"Hola Maria," I grumbled, "Que tal mi amor," she inquired, her face expressed concern in my unpleasant mood. I proceeded to explain to Maria my strategy of keeping Cuba in my heart by unlocking it to her, placing a part of her inside and throwing away the key-along with each unsuccessful attempt I had experienced. She looked at me slightly mistified by my response, but said nothing. I hurried along to my room, plopped my things down on my bed, placed my key on the night stand and headed toward the shower. After showering, I returned to my room, only to discover that my key was missing! After endless searching and asking all of my housemates if they had seen my key, I raced desperately to Maria's room. There she sat silently, her eyes smiling for she was watching her favorite telenovela.

I proceeded to asked her if she had seen my key. Maria sighed, clasped her hand in mine, and I felt the warmth from the metal in my palm of my hand. My heart tingled, it was my key. She sat me down, we faced one another eye-to-eye. Ay mi vida, she smiled at me with her eyes fixed upon mine, "if you lock your heart and throw away the key, how will you re-open it again, and where will you put the things you love?"