I roamed the streets that night with other travellers cuban style. Most young people end up at the Malecon which is a long harbour in Havana. They drink cheap rum out of cartons similar to juice cartons. Talking with young Cubans you find out the reality of Cuban life. They live on national wage of $10 a month. $20 if they are engineers and doctors. I kept hearing this same phrase word for word from many cubans. "Every cuban family has a way to get money". It turns out most cuban families have at least 1 or 2 members that escape abroad and work and send money home. 
Many cuban families have members that work in the tourist industry and that means dollars. This explains how many of them are wearing addidas trainers and shiny t-shirts: yes! gold and silver colour painted t-shirts. All cuban guys wear them. I have to get one.After a late night and sleeping late the next morning I was running late for my salsa lesson. I brushed my teeth and skipped the shower. The old lady wouldn´t mind. It was 30c and I was already sweating on the walk over to the school. Daniel, a spanish traveller from another hostel had also joined me to learn salsa. She greated me at the door. "Buenos dias! Como estas Asad!"
"Muy bien. Y tu?
"Muy bien. Ven."
I walked into this hall following her. It was an old spanish colonial house owned by an old spanish lady. From the corner of my eye I noticed a female figure outside leaning over the balcony looking at the traffic down below in the street. From what I could see she had the physique of a dancer. An attractive dancer.
"Jessica." The old lady called out.
The girl at the balcony turned away from the street and walked slowly into the hallway, gradually building up a smile to greet me. Like all men I was quickly trying to compare her in my head to all the other beautiful women I had met in my life and place her somwhere on the top 10 list. I had a number in mind.
"Jessica will be your dance partner today Asad and Daniel I will dance with you."
shit! shit! should´ve taken a shower.
Danielle and I both exchanged looks knowing exactly what the other was thinking.
Jessica walked towards me as I wiped the sweat of my bald head with my left hand and reached out with my right to shake hers forgetting completely the standard greeting between a man and a woman in Cuba. She didn´t forget. She grabbed my hand, pulled herself towards me to close the gap and kissed me on the cheek.
The old lady turned the music on as Jessica turned away to prepare. I descreetly raised my arm to smell the damage I was about to do and wiped the sweat off my head once more. Jessica had obviously noticed and turned both the pedastal fans to full power pointing them at me. For the next hour I stumbled across the dance floor stepping on her feet as often as I could, wiping the sweat off my head all the time.
As I was sweating away like somy body had turned a fire hydrant loose on my head, jessica said to me, "you have to hold my back hard and lead me like a sheep"
Easy for you to say love!
It wasn´t graceful!
I cut my 3 hour lesson short to 1 hour making all sorts of excuses. I returned the next day showered and bathed in 15ml of Georgio Armani.
Both Jessica and the young guy who ran the school were professional dancers and danced at the world famous Tropicana Club Havana. During one of the breaks the guy went into a political debate. He said most young people support the revolution and remain defiant against American imperialism. But its the control of the Castro govenment over its people that they can not stand. He said he can not run a school because the government would want control over it and that he wouldn´t be free to try out new things thus hindering progress and innovation. My salsa lessons were unofficial. If the police asked, I was to say we are just friends having a party.
Communism in Cuba is close to the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment