Not much to report today from Havana. We returned last week from our spring break trip to Baracoa and Santiago de Cuba. Classes have resumed and the schedule is back in full swing. I’ve contracted a head cold and have no medicine for, given that I had no way to expect I would get one in the hot haven of Cuba. Yesterday I returned to our house around 7. No one was home. Feeling hungry I tried to call some others on the house phone… I have no cell phone in Cuba, which has been nice but, at some times, inconvenient. After no response I decided to take to the streets and let them guide me to an eatery. I went down to Linea, the busy street close to our house, and walked away from the Ocean. I sought for a cheap meal. Maybe a sandwich, maybe some ropa vieja with rice and beans. A mi no importé.
I found myself walking in the direction of a cheap burger joint, El Vampirito. I wandered down the stretched streets of Vedado. The dusty sidewalks where illuminated by fluorescent lamp bulbs. A few cars passed as I walked in the center of the street. It was quiet and calm. There was no hustle or bustle. Not what one would expect of Havana. Hundreds of dogs barked from behind fences at me. A man biked on the street as another dog barked wildly as it chased the mechanical monster that had invaded its territory. As I walked, a security guard greeted me: “Hey, where you from?” I felt inclined to answer. “Los estatos unidos”, I explained to him that I was a student here. He was friendly enough. At the end of the conversation he asked me for a Spanish-English dictionary. I told him that I needed it for school but could give it to him before I left for the US. A constant frustration of mine in Cuba is exchange interactions. By that I mean, more often then not, when a foreign looking person is walking down the street and is approached, the intention is monetary. This is difficult because it becomes hard to go into a conversation without that expectation is quite impossible for me now. The man who asked me for the dictionary, Luis, struck me in a different way. He was earnest and didn’t want money, but a book that could help him learn english. Being that in Cuba, finding these dictionaries is difficult (I myself have tried to find one because the dictionary I have now is limited and small), I am inclined to return to where I met him at the end of the Cuba trip and gift him the book.
Anyway, I continued to the burger joint. My stomach twisted with insatiable hunger. My mouth watered as I approached the restaurant that lay below a residential building. The place next door was throwing a party. Reggaton blasted and a whole suckling pig emerged to the street, where a dancing crowd had gathered. I was tempted to join in and perhaps ask to have a small nibble of the swine that lay before the door. Instead I headed down the stairs into Vampirito. I ordered a burger with egg and two banana shakes. I consumed them hastily as the hour was growing late. Satisfied, I walked home. I felt sluggish.