CUBAMIGOS

Cuba is. . .

Cuba is an old man, lean and weathered with a sunburned face, chomping on a fat cigar, threadbare clothes hanging off him. He’s sitting on a stone step, his bent back a sign of resignation but with a look of hope in his eyes the colour of coffee.
 
 Cuba is a Spanish mansion, piled high like a wedding cake, reminiscent of a bygone glorious age, paint peeling, the columns chipped and grey, the once proud balustrade crumbling and the wind blowing in through the open shutters, banging a distant door like a call for attention.
 
 Cuba is a 50 year old Chevy, chugging down a pot-holed street, belching black smoke, defying death of the machine and rust, holding on to a dream, staring Marylin Monroe and Benny Moré, driving along the Maleacon cheered on by millions of Cubans, all dressed in white fatigues.
 
 Cuba is an endless white beach, stretching from horizon to horizon, palms swaying in the breeze, hermit crabs scampering back and forth and over each other, click, click, click, turquoise waters lapping the fine white sand, beckoning, inviting to merge with the sea, reaching out across the expanse of endless blue where the sky meets the ocean in a vision of heaven, so close and yet so far.
 
 Cuba is red earth, the colour of rust, green tobacco fields and endless fields of sugar cane, interspersed with campesinos, thin as Don Quixote behind a team of oxen or rama bulls, tilling the earth, tending the crops; tethered horses with their white companion birds patiently waiting, the only noise the vast silence of the wind, the occasional cry of a turkey vulture sailing high above the land, empty of machinery.
 
 Cuba is a cobble stoned street, a street sweeper with a horse and cart, the early morning sun dividing the multicoloured colonial facades into light and shadow, tall windows open into living rooms behind cast iron enclosures like bird cages, ancient wooden doors leading into mysterious spaces beyond.
 
 Cuba is a cacophony of salsa disco blaring from modern pa systems in the plaza majors, blending with the roar of unmuffled 50 year old cars and soviet area tractors pulling trailers full of farm workers, Lada taxis, modern Yutong buses loaded with touristos, all weaving in and out of traffic, avoiding pot-holes, randomly crossing people and mangy stray dogs, horns blaring incessantly.
 
 Cuba is a coffee coloured young woman in skin tight clothes, graceful like a deer, sashaying down the crumbling sidewalk like it was a runway at a fashion show, turning heads as she glides by, her hips swaying to an internal Latin rhythm which inspired Cubans from Benny Moré to Gloria Estafan.
 
 
 Cuba is baseball and mambo, hot sunny days and humid nights, roosters crowing and pigs squealing, laundry that never dries, congri and white dry wonder bread, fish and shrimp, ornate facades and marble tombs, cigars and rum, school kids in uniforms, old school buses from Quebec, tourists armed with digicams, the streets and bathrooms safe and clean, palm trees and sugar cane, white sandy beaches and Russian built Club Amigo hotels, streets without shops, churches with no priests.
 
 
 Cuba is the handsome, immortal face of Ché Guevara, starring defiantly from billboards and T-shirts, postcards, money and walls of buildings, executed and resurrected, iconized to sainthood and rock stardom, spouting slogans like ‘Victoria o Muerte’ as inspirations to school children and grandma’s.
 
 Cuba is the enigma of papa Fidel, revolutionary, hero, devil, god-like, living his unwavering message of socialism or death to the end, unshaven, in army fatigues, beloved and feared, hated and revered, holding Cuba in a time-warp, against all odds, intransigent, misunderstood, out of synch, doomed to sainthood and probably still alive.
 
 Finally, Cuba is a 747 on the runway, loaded with the future of Cuba, ready to take off but without a pilot, waiting, waiting to fly  nobody knows where. . .