When was the last time you played dominos with strangers?

by Nava Roup (South Africa)

Making a local connection Cuba

Maria smiled at me as she held my hand on the doorstep of the apartment building. It was surrounded by dried brown bushes and a few surviving flowers. Even in the dead of night the concrete was giving off an unbearable heat. We walked towards the street with the dim street light shone on the hard gravel road. We strolled hand in hand in a comfortable silence between us. We didn’t talk, not only because I couldn’t speak a lick of Spanish but because she couldn’t speak English either. We listened to the horse and carts that passed by with an occasional whiny. A few times my feet had slipped out of my flip flops, they were no match for the gravel road. Only a few meters of walking my shoes were pierced with sharp shards of rock which peeked through toe side. We followed the path of street lights to the most famous ice-cream store in that area of Las Tunas, Cuba. Along the way we had seen her grandfather known as “Abuelo”. He was sitting outside with a few of his friends on pastel lawn chairs playing dominos on a rickety wooden table which was definitely on its last leg. Seeing us passing by he shouted for Maria. A burning cigar in his mouth, he slowly got up from his chair and gave Maria a hug. He looked at her and mumbled something in Spanish. She glanced at me with a smile and turned back to her Abuelo and replied. I looked on awkwardly as they spoke to each other and his friends amongst one another. Her Abuelo attempted to engage with me by speaking broken English asking how I was. All I could say was “sí” in the most drawn-out way. He gave a small laugh, only responding with a sweet smile. He continued conversing with Maria and afterwards gave her some money to which I guessed it was for buying something from the store. He said a very friendly goodbye to us and gave Maria and me a sweaty hug. We began walking in our silence once more, sometimes pointing at the constellations of the stars marking the lines with out fingers. We eventually reached the store. Letting go of my hand we entered the store with the cool air giving some refuge to the humidity outside. She walked straight to the freezer and as I followed I noticed the shopkeeper reading a magazine, flipping through the pages with the wire of his earphones tangled down to the phone which rested on the counter. I saw her at the end of the aisle holding two tubs. I walked towards her and peeked into the freezer to examine the flavours. I went based on images and of course chose chocolate. I stuck my hand in the freezer to grab my cold saviour. We made our way to the counter and set our creamy goodness down. The shopkeeper pulled out his earphones and immediately began chatting away with Maria and me, although he spoke little English I could understand. He spoke about how his family had lived in the area for generations and at the end of our chat, he invited me and my family to lunch. Once we paid we began our journey back and had reached her Abuelo and his friends where two extra seats were placed. She sat down in one of the empty chairs, as did I. Her Abuelo greeted us both with the term”nietas” which means granddaughters. We sat next to each other and her Abuelo had dealt us in the next round. I’d never played before. He spent about ten minutes trying to teach me how to play. Once I had gotten the hang of the game we played for hours, with his wife coming out and giving us an early morning snack. Our laughter echoed through the neighbourhood with us all going to bed around four a.m. It was the night and morning that playing dominos with strangers turned into a night of playing with a new family, a few dirty dishes and tubs of ice-cream.