“You’re twenty-five cents short, sir,” the cashier at Havana’s Villa Panamericana store said to me, noticing I had given her less money than I had to by mistake. I searched my wallet and pockets thoroughly and only found regular peso notes, what we refer to as “Cuban pesos” here.
We hadn’t seen one another in several years. I ran into him on Obispo street in Old Havana as I was coming out of work. We started talking after the initial surprise wore off. We talked for two hours. Among other things, he told me he’d been giving piano lessons to young people in Boyeros for ten years.
“You son of a bitch!” the young man yells, lunging at the other fellow at the crowded bus stop. “You’re the one who’s been peeping at my wife through the bathroom window for days now!” He raises a fist, ready to pound the other man’s face with all his pent-up fury.
“I have a secret I can’t tell anyone.” Saying this, Katy looks at my niece – her friend – knowingly. They are both 10. What is it?” asks Carla, trying to clear up the mystery. “No, I can’t. He made swear I wouldn’t say anything.”
When I was a teenager, I used to hear people repeat that there was no racism in Cuba. At school, teachers would insist we all had the rights, duties and opportunities. This is what I believed when I studied at the tourism entertainment school, graduated and started working.
In the distance, I make out the shadow of someone holding a sack over his shoulder, walking slowly between the sea and river. Is it a tired man? From time to time, he places the load on the ground and crouches. He seems to be looking for something, but what?
“Leandro, I want you to iron-out my hair and give me a haircut like yours. And don’t worry, I have money.” The person addressed, on hearing the word “money”, began taking out the gear. My neighbor then asked: “Can you do it?”
“Look mom, a big ram!” yelled a kid at the top of his lungs, thrilled at seeing the animal through the bus window. He was going to Pinar del Rio’s Viñales valley for a daytrip with his family. His comment made some passengers laugh.
Gregorio has no money, not even enough to put food on his table. This is reflected in his mood. That’s why he never goes out; so that people won’t notice the dire financial straits he is in. This is one of the many sad situations we see today of people who worked their whole lives.
Many people in Cuba dislike the popular frase echar un palo (“to throw someone a stick”). In their view, this idiom – which all of us understand – is a rather vulgar way of referring to the sexual act. Recently, I had a chat with Paula, a cultural journalist, and we tried to get to the bottom of the said phrase.