First Night on El Malecón

by Matthew Lind (United States of America)

Making a local connection Cuba

My friend Nic and I left the balcony restaurant after getting dinner and started toward the salt-licked air of el Malecón, the picturesque seawall that surrounds Havana. We had just arrived earlier in the day, purposefully unprepared and under researched. After finding a nice casa particular to stay in el Centro, we'd set out to find a dinner spot. The restaurant had the staples and I settled on la ropa vieja, pulled beef with vegetables. Honestly, it tasted like any other stewed beef dish but it satiated me. I also asked for a mojito, forgetting to ask for no ice. Finally, we made it to the famous seawall, but the sun had gone over the horizon by now and the ocean view was mostly a black sheet, the details hidden by the edges of the light sphere from the city. We walked on the seaside for a few blocks looking out at what might have been a cruise ship before jumping over the city-side passing decrepit buildings with generators humming inside and maybe a box TV set shining out to the street. We walked all the way to the entrance of the port, the unofficial end, before we decided on what the plans for the night were to be. I wasn’t trying to ruin the first night on the trip but my stomach was turning over and about to turn out. Was it the beef from dinner, the ice, or maybe the excessive terminal beers (termies don’t count toward the budget Nic told me) we had had in Fort Lauderdale? I kept the discomfort from my face as we wandered back towards a little cantina-on-a-patio we had passed on the short walk from dinner. A few concrete steps up and suddenly the open air patio was much louder than just a few meters away on the sidewalk. We skirted the edge of the tables, avoiding couples dancing to salsa music with a level of skill that my two left feet wouldn’t even attempt tonight. We found a towards the back, away from the yellow light of el Malecón. Nic quickly left to the bar, about to use one of his limited Spanish phrases – cerveza, por favor. By the time he came back, I was going the other way… towards the bathroom to help my stomach. After dishing some coins to the abuelita shaking down patrons for bathroom privileges, I relieved myself, washed up and headed back towards the table. To my surprise, it had moved. Nic looked up at me and mouthed “I don’t know,” clearly as confused as I was. Thankfully I spoke conversational Spanish so I sat down and got to figuring out the situation. The joined tables were full now, older men, a lady and her daughter all were laughing and talking loudly, you had to hear over the music. A man in a white shirt looked at me with a smile. “You are his friend?” “Yes.” “We saw him sitting alone so we saved him. No one sits alone tonight.” “Tonight? It’s special?” “Of course,” he guffawed at me, reaching down. “It is my birthday!” From under his chair he pulled up a bottle of rum and small clear-plastic cups. What followed that night, while the events are describable, inevitably misses the heart of the experience. With Ronaldo, as we found the man in the white shirts name to be, invited us in to his night. His wife, his daughter, his brother, and the other old men from the cigar factory fed us, gave us drinks, and taught us how to salsa (I lied earlier). We had a little photoshoot and that’s when Ronaldo took me aside. He scrolled through the scratched Canon Powershot slowly and deliberately. “Take these photos and remember this night. When you go home, show these photos to everyone. Show them that this is Cuba. El Malecón. Friends. And family. Tell them that this is how we live down here, and that we are happy. Cuba es happy” --- I’ll never see Ronaldo again, even if I wanted to I don’t know how I’d contact him. But whenever anyone asks for trip recommendations I tell them Cuba. Because Cuba es happy.