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el sol has browned me, the malecón’s sea spray has spun my hair to straw, my knees crack and feet whine from days spent circling the city. i am exhausted and confused and grateful and simultaneously longing for home and more of havana. there are so many things that i cannot speak on, so i will speak on what i can. the resilience here is palpable, like the salt in the air, even for a person like me who is ignorant to most of this place’s history. pen repairmen. lighter repairmen, toaster, iron, television repairmen. broom salesmen. doorknob salesmen. everyone with a car, a taxi driver, and everyone with a kitchen, a cook. chevys and fiats ancient and bright and immaculate. what we deem hustle, cuban folks embody daily. coming from gluttony and selfish and manic consumption, culture shock sucker-punched me in the spine. no variety. no wants. nothing wasted. eating with the season. jugo de guayaba and pineapple and platano. beans and rice beans and rice beans and rice. butter and honey like heaven. and rum like hell in the best way. beautiful black brown bronze people all shiny and sweaty and smiling. rotten teeth. gold teeth. no teeth. ‘bien, chica.’ big families and little babies. relying on a subpar sense of direction and loose grip on spanish to navigate and yet never feeling unsafe. ‘a left in two blocks, then una derecha by the dumpster.’ catcalls, sure. but felt safe always. no one really ‘friendly’ but everyone willing to help. tall, tall ceilings and tiled floors like old candy. laundry light like wings in the wind. flowers. so many flowers. and trash, everywhere. mud and muck and guts. dogs, cats, horses — everywhere. hot pink and greens and blue in every shade. art on every wall, even those crumbling. especially those crumbling. and road rage, red as the flag. rain, everyday. open doors and open windows. living rooms spilling onto sidewalks. butcher shops bleeding onto concrete. coffee in the morning. coffee at night. pastries sweet and flaky and dry as summer. loud, all the time. barking, laughing, singing, crying, crowing, screaming, shattering. chandeliers and pianos and family photos asleep for decades in rusty frames. the smell of bread en la calle. glances, some scowls, some smiles, from balconies forty, fifty feet above. baskets and purses and other things on strings dangling from those same verandas. braids and locs and fros like mine. ‘me gusta su pelo.’ roosters. ‘where you from?’ in accents like marmalade. dominos and playing cards. whistles and smacks and claps and ‘oye morena!’ kids playing handball and soccer and hackeysack. cigars and cigarettes. bikes and buses bursting with bodies. i was dumb and underprepared in many ways, and unprepared in most. and still, on my last night, with an empty wallet, i was fed til fat and wined til drunk and spun til dizzy to guitars and drums and cowbells under the gray of a soft, cloudy sky. much more to say, but for now, i am warm, humbled, curious, inspired. nothing that i expected and everything that i needed. thank you, cuba.