Cuban reciprocity: immersing culture on the Caribbean island

by eduardo da silva leitão (Brazil)

Making a local connection Cuba

On January 1, 2013, he embarked in Rio de Janeiro for Havana, started overbooking and some passengers were invited to relocate on another aircraft and stay one day in Bogotá and arriving in Havana only on January 2, plus a compensation of US $ 350 voucher for airline tickets. I agreed to be relocated just like Kátia whom I met on my way to Bogotá. She is an architect and would go to Havana to visit her historian friend who was doing a doctorate in cinema in Havana. I was traveling to Cuba due to another overbooking that occurred on a trip in 2011, from San José to Rio de Janeiro. I volunteered for one day in Lima and won a $ 800 voucher on airline tickets and it was with this compensation that I bought a ticket to Cuba and had a positive expectation of knowing Cuba. I became friends with Kátia in Bogotá and when we arrived in Havana we went through the migration and Ramón was waiting for Kátia. Me, Kátia and Ramón got in his car, a 1951 Plymouth Oldsmobile totally original and worn out, he was ecstatic, because he had a 1968 VW sedan in Brazil and I'm an admirer of old cars. We went to his home in Vírgen del Camino, had lunch and met Zoyla his wife, Ramónzito his son, plus Kátia's friend who was doing her doctorate. After lunch Kátia and her friend left for Cayo Largo and I stayed at Ramón's house for more than a week getting to know Cuba from the Cubans. Ramón was a photographer for the Cuban army, I saw photos, he told stories, missions in Africa and the Americas, currently he worked with his car transporting people and his wife as a baker in a bakery. Ramón took me in his car to his cousin's house and there we had dinner and talked about Cuba and Brazil, Cubans are very fond of the Brazilian soap opera that is on Cuban television programming. So, they were in love with Brazil and I was in love with Cuba, every night we sat and watched the Brazilian soap opera subtitled in Spanish. The other day I went out with Ramónzito, who was 17 and I was 25, together with a neighbor we went to Havana Vieja and covered the entire historic circuit and then had lunch with a Cuban palate. The cuisine in Cuba with the abundance of seafood, its spicy spices, its variety of preparations from sophisticated restaurants to street stalls is always a pleasant experience with a strong Caribbean, Creole, African and Spanish presence. I was watching a baseball game with Ramónzito at the stadium and playing ball on abandoned ground the other day, Cubans as well as Brazilians love football and in the evenings we drank rum at Ramón's door. A friend of Ramónzito's took me to Playas del Este and we left early by bus and talked extensively about life in Cuba and as for that population, they have the vitality to face their problems always with great care and disposition. I had the opportunity to visit Varadero and Trinidad alone and stayed in both cities in private Cuban homes. I returned to Ramón's house in Vírgen del Camino, I thanked him for the stay, for the affection and what I consider my family in Cuba, as I got to know better about the daily lives of the Cuban population and their perspectives. When Ramón dropped me off at the airport, he made a parallel path so as not to go through police blitz avoiding embarrassment for being with a foreigner. I said goodbye to him and he left in his 1951 Plymouth Oldsmobile, when i was walking to the boarding pass i was taken to a room with three policemen and i was asked if i knew the owner of the car that had dropped me off at the airport, only on the way Ramón told me to say i didn't know him, so i performed the procedure to deny and that I used that car only as a taxi and was promptly released. And so my trip to Cuba ended on January 15, 2013.