2/18, 2/19

Viernes 2/19/16

“There is no such thing as awkward in Cuba” was the most important insight I received about this wonderful country tonight, from our professor, program director, and “closest thing we have to family”, the one and only Humberto Miranda. Even before tonight’s talk (which was accompanied by Cuba Libres all around), I have been realizing that not having the internet at your fingertips (or even within at least 2 miles of our neighborhood) has slowly chiseled away this concept of ‘awkward’ that we have brought over with us from the United States. Everyone is American here—meaning of the Americas, whether North, Central, or South. If you’re from the United States of America, you are a Yuma. And if you’re part of Humberto’s pack of American students studying here, you are his Yumitas. I know it originates from an old western film, and if I had access to internet here I’d probably look up the details. The beauty of Cuba though, is the inability to just Google things. There are so many things I would like to just Google—take Rachel and I trying to figure out how to use the pressure cooker. But here there is no looking up instructions or recipes, no Facebook telling you when your friends birthdays are, no looking down at your phone, ever. And while it sucks to have to face the embarrassment of failing at the simple task of cleaning and soaking beans, we learned that you absolutely do not need Google in Cuba—you just need to ask.

 

Jueves 2/18/16

My last phone call before getting on our plane to Cuba was to my father. Like myself, he has never been out of the U.S. (unless we count the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, pre-passport days), and gets his perspective from history documentaries and war movies. So I was a little disappointed by the lack of military-policemen sporting old school military fatigues and dawning assault rifles he had psyched me up to see at the airport I entered the country at (Aeropuerto Internacional de Jose Marti). Whether this belief was outdated or simply never true, Cuban airport security was nothing like what I had been falsely expecting. It was lax, and I learned that fishnet stockings are in fashion, sported by every female official and security guard in the building. Thus begins my list of things I should’ve-could’ve-would’ve brought here.

The plane ride, which took off 45 minutes behind schedule, was my first introduction to “Cuban time”—a unique phenomenon in which you first feel like you’re rushing around and running late, and when you finally make it to where you need to be, you must wait anywhere from 15 minutes to two more additional hours, no matter how ahead or behind the set schedule you are. We got on the plane, but sat there waiting to take off for 30 minutes. We landed at the airport, but due to runway traffic we slowly coasted along the runway for about 20 minutes. We made it through the entrance office and security with our carry-ons, only to stand around the checked baggage area, where we spent an hour and a half watching dozens of boxed and wrapped flat screen TVs go by before the first of our flight’s luggage came through. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m complaining though, because I really don’t mind. In fact, I’ve stopped wearing my watch most of the time, because the days feel so much fuller when you aren’t looking down and dictating how you live your life based on where the hands on the clock face are pointing.