My brother’s pixelated figure shifted as he waited for my response. I glanced around Hotel Presidente’s lobby, knowing full well I wouldn’t find my answer there.
“It’s… um, you know it’s… Cuban.”
He raised his eyebrows and I shrugged, fully willing to admit to the lameness of my answer. Thankfully my mother saved me from the further embarrassment when she took the computer from my brother and began recounting to me the latest episode of our dog chasing a squirrel. (Plot twist: the dog actually almost caught it this time.) My brother wasn’t the first person to ask me the dreaded question and yet I still lacked any sense of an appropriate response. Even now I seem to stumble over myself try to squeeze anecdotes, reflections, and subjective truths together into one compact answer.
Cuba is tranquilo, you know until it makes you want to scream. It’s a lot of waiting—waiting for a bus, waiting for people to show up or for people to leave and a table to free up at a paladar—and line forming, sometimes figuring out where the line begins and where it ends is the most difficult thing to navigate seeing as lines almost never take a linear shape. And despite all this waiting, half the time you’re running late hustling from one place to another so you don’t miss that important person or thing. One thing I’m absolutely sure of is that it’s hot as hell, and to cope with the heat there’s a lot of ice cream and not so much exercise. So in a way it’s not so healthy, but on the other hand practically all fruits and vegetables grown in Cuba are organic… It’s just that most fruits and veggies here seem to lack a lot of their nutritional value. And state run farmers markets are pretty much empty of produce, though everyone knows to go to the well-stocked private farmers markets to buy goods of quality in quantity. Obviously the country is communist, but private restaurants and tiendas line the streets. Che’s New Man might still exist, but the newer and more prevalent man is the hyper macho botero driver with his styled and gelled hair, perfectly pruned eyebrows, and fanny pack strapped to his lap. If you think my answer sounds scattered and incomprehensive, well I agree with you. But if you think this is because I haven’t give it much thought, then here you would be mistaken.
I have lived in Havana for nearly three and a half months, and since my first day here I’ve wondered how to describe what I see and what I experience to people back home. I’ve reflected independently and participated in group discussions on the issue, and yet I’m still plagued by that stupid, well-intended yet dreaded question: How’s Cuba?
Well, you want the honest truth? I don’t know how to express how Cuba is, and I’m starting to think anyone who claims otherwise is full of it.