Chasing Javier

by Vidette Adjorlolo (Hong Kong)

Making a local connection Cuba

Chasing Javier ---- Cuba 2018 was fantastic, in fact Cuban people are très bien. Except Javier. Javier was my Cuban lover. Tall, dark, with thick lips that made me want to kiss him from the moment we met. I met him on a night out. One that my travelling partner, Emily and I did not expect. We were galavanting the streets of Old Havana and there we bumped into a group of loud local boys, playing British tunes. We were intrigued, idle wanderers, and so we engaged them in a chat. That was when I saw Javier, it wasn’t love at first sight, but he was certainly an attractive man. Initially it was just a lot of banter and walking around with our Cubano boys, picking up new friends along the way. The Australians joined us, the Spring break Americans joined us, and the Swedish girls seemed to be in their own world, so we let them be. As we danced and sang with joy and youthful energy it became clear that Javier and I had taken a liken for each other. Within minutes he swayed me off my feet, and I was dancing salsa into dawn with him at some underground Spanish night club.I closed my eyes, and sunk into the depths of my thoughts. I couldn’t believe that I was here in Cuba, dancing with a Cuban man who could barely speak English, but all that didn’t matter because we spoke the universal language of love. His fingers lingered around my hips, swaying me from left to right. He pulled me closer and sealed my lips with a kiss. Just like that, we transformed a dance into a ceremony of young love, or so I thought. Later that night as I laid in my bed, I could not help but get excited to see my personal Cuban papito again. This proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. With the lack of internet connectivity in communist Cuba we could not contact each other. Every time I would to send him an Instagram message(in those rare moments when I successfully connected to internet at the designated WIFI park), he would miss it because he didn’t have WIFI. And when he messaged me, I would miss it because I didn’t have WIFI. How shocking. I always knew that love could be broken by fights, misunderstanding and cultural differences, but WIFI? This was new to me. For two days we kept trying to meet each other but the gods of internet connectivity made it impossible for us. I started to lose hope, 2 days of not seeing my papito, a tragedy. On my final night I made it a mission to find my man. The forces of our love were strong, and I swore by the gods that nothing will break it. Dragging my friend Emily and the American boys we had met, we run around Cuba screaming “where is Javier?”. In retrospect, it’s quite shocking that a group of heterosexual men who had known me for approximately 2 days would follow me around Cuba screaming the name of another geezer. I finally found him at Fabrica night club, taking selfies. I dashed my body into his arms as he professed how much he missed me. We spent the entire night at the Malecon, holding each other and whispering sweet nothings. The next day it was time for me to go and whilst I was almost in tears I believed in our love. I even started to make plans of visiting Cuba again. In true millennial fashion I came back to London and decided to feast on my lust by scrolling through his Instagram. And there it was, multiple pictures of him and another lady, laughing and enjoying their romance. Some people say men are trash, I’m not sure if I can confirm that hypothesis, but i can confirm that Javier was trash, and I a gullible dustbin.