![\"084\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/files\/2011\/03\/084-300x225.jpg\")
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My uncle and I were stuck in traffic on Vibora Street because in one bus\u2019s attempt to avoid colliding with another, it crashed into the concrete\u00a0pillar of a corner home. With the windows lowered, we overheard a few spectators chatting about the accident. We were on our way to the Banco Metropolitano to exchange money since I\u2019d run out of convertible pesos (CUC), different from the moneda nacional (Cuban pesos or CUP) by that of a 24 to 1 ratio. Sweating in the Moskovich, a thirty-year-old Russian with no mirrors and a wonky alignment that made you think it ran on Havana Club rum, Tio pointed to a building on our left. \u201cDo you know what this building is?\u201d he asked. \u201cOr rather, excuse me, what it was once?\u201d To me the place was nothing more than another slice of squalor where two, three, perhaps four generations called home, and which often put a bad taste in my mouth. I shrugged and said, \u201cWas it someplace important or something?\u201d \u201cYes, of course,\u201d he said, \u201cIt was once the Academia Donate\u2014your great grandfather\u2019s academic institution.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t say,\u201d I said. \u201cI do say,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With the traffic at a crawl and the bus emptied of its passengers, I snapped a few photos of the squat. What I know of the school, which served as what we today would regard as a post-high-school\/college preparatory, was that my great grandfather, Felipe Donate, was founder, head dean, and English instructor. My grandfather, Alfredo Donate, taught physical education and geography. My grandmother, Gladys Donate, and her four brothers, were at one time students. \u00a0In the late forties, shortly after the end of his first marriage, Felipe met his second wife, Maida, a woman nearly twenty years his junior, who now, at ninety-something, suffers from dementia and lives with her son in Virginia. My grandfather eventually resigned from his position to take up a more pressing cause during the fifties: politics and the imminent overthrow of Batista, which nearly cost him his life and racked Gladys\u2019s nerves. \u201cI remember when I was boy,\u201d Tio said, \u201cand your grandmother would bring me here with your father, and we would race up and down the stairs and through the well-lit hallways and classroom salons, and everything was\u2014it was nothing like this\u2014it was habitable and functional. And from one day to the next it was shutdown, just like that, without any discussion. It\u2019s a shame\u2014that\u2019s what it is.\u201d I would have offered him a cigarette but he isn\u2019t a smoker. Without closing my eyes I tried to imagine something stately: white stone colonnades, a golden haze of light behind gauzy window curtains, and the lively sounds of discourse spilling onto the open veranda. The car behind us honked and we puttered through the intersection where a policeman blew his whistle and dodged cars like a matador. The large front windshield of the bus lay in spider-cracked in the road. Tons of people gathered to get a glimpse of the incident. The side of the guagua was wedged against the pillar that had not buckled. \u201cI bet it\u2019ll take them ten hours, at the least, to haul that bus out of there,\u201d Tio said. We took another route on our way back from the bank.<\/p>\n
What I know of my great grandfather is that a number of years after the closing of the Academia Donate in 1961, he spent a seven year stint in a prison labor camp for \u201cideological differences\u201d with the Party doctrine. In the early eighties he reunited with his family in Miami, where he attended night classes at the local high school. He earned his GED within six months. He died in 1986. On multiple occasions during my stay, we drove past the academy. I once saw shadows moving inside the courtyard. Other times the front door was shut. \u00a0A week before leaving Cuba, a family friend handed me a photo of Felipe Donate taken in 1959. He had a full nest of chalk-white hair and wore a beige blazer, his mouth open before a standing microphone in a home in Guanabaco. In the right foreground, a small audience is listening. I\u2019d never known how he looked until then, but it felt good to finally see him after so many years. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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![\"219\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/files\/2011\/12\/219-300x225.jpg\")
\u00a0<\/p>\n
(photo taken from the porch of my aunt and uncle\u2019s home in Havana)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some years ago, after a failed burglary that left their front door splintered, Tia Maria Antoinette\u2019s sister sent money for the iron-wrought gates. Tio, or as most refer to him as Doctor, had asked a patient to install the railings, and the man did the work for practically nothing, a favor for the countless times the doctor had given consultation to his boy at late hours of the night on the porch of the house.\u00a0 Now every window of the home is fortified with the grillwork and a dense, frosted glass. Tia says she lives in a big birdcage, her life is like that of the canaries she has locked away in the backyard; before bedtime she brings them inside the kitchen, for fear that the barrio\u2019s stray cats might get to them and put an end to their tweeting.<\/p>\n
Every morning while Tio and Tia are at work, I unlocked the two deadbolts of the front door to retrieve the three daily breads (one for each member of the household) and newspaper lying on the porch. I read Granma <\/em>in the metal rocking chair, frequently looking above the page at the unpainted cement homes of Dolores Street, the palomeros on their rooftops watching their pigeons in flight, the traffic pumping black clouds of smoke to the sky, and the Cubans boxed inside buses coated in soot, staring at me with miserable faces until I return to skimming the reports on the disorder around the world. During my first week on the Island, a man stopped to ask if I wanted to buy cigars. I don\u2019t want anything, I told him, no thank you. He said he couldn\u2019t hear me, come closer, and stretched an arm through the railing to wave me over to him. I lowered the paper this time and told him again, omitting the thank you. He said he couldn\u2019t hear me. I bit off a piece of bread that had no taste whatsoever and chewed ferociously, nearly bringing myself to growl.<\/p>\n After dinner the three of us often sat on the porch for a nightcap. I\u2019d brought a bottle of Crown Royal from Miami. The doctor, who with the gratitude of his patients had amassed a small bar of his own, found the whiskey to be so good he felt it wrong to brush his teeth afterwards. Tia asked me if I thought her little home was nice. I said it sure was. She said she had done everything within her power to construct a better world for her daughter, helping to add a second floor after the girl married. I\u2019d been staying in her room, where her scent remained in the bed sheets. \u201cI didn\u2019t want my home to be destroyed by what\u2019s out there,\u201d Tia said. \u201cIt\u2019s a different Cuba inside here, and I\u2019m proud of my little home. Except for a few trusted people, we don\u2019t let anybody inside.\u201d The doctor said, \u201cNobody,\u201d and I said, \u201cBehind bars is no way to live, though,\u201d and they said that\u2019s why their hija left and have nobody except me until I leave. We drank quietly with the chirping of the birds out back, and Tia began to whistle a tune with her eyes closed. I asked if they thought they\u2019d ever get the hell out of here, and the doctor said, \u201cOh, Charlie, if only you knew that\u2019s all I desire now,\u201d and Tia, her eyes glossy, said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to leave this home to Fidel. I worked too hard to keep this family together. I\u2019ll break every tile with a hammer if I have to leave it to that man,\u201d and the doctor said, \u201cHe can keep the house, I\u2019ll leave right now if I can,\u201d and Tia said, \u201cOh, Arnaldo, but you\u2019re a doctor, they won\u2019t let you out like that,\u201d and the doctor said, \u201cI should\u2019ve never been a doctor, it\u2019s the sad truth,\u201d and Tia said, \u201cWe gave her everything we could, and I\u2019m happy she\u2019s free, I really am,\u201d and she stood and walked inside to put the canaries away.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0Wednesday, September 14, 2011<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On my arrival at Jose Marti International, I was pulled out of the security line by a stumpy woman in heels, fishnet stockings, and an olive-green uniform bursting at the seams. We\u2019d met eyes and that\u2019s all it took. I might have smiled at her. I\u2019d flown in from Miami on a delayed charter flight full of Cuban-Americans. The lady politely requested to know who I am. I told her, showing her my passport and visa and, for her viewing pleasure, a catalog of family photos that sprang like a slack tongue from my wallet.\u00a0 \u201cAnd what brings you here?\u201d she asked. I filled her in and handed her a laminated copy of my general license issued by Boston University. \u201cOnce you finish getting your luggage,\u201d she said, \u201cI\u2019d like to ask you a few questions, okay, no need to worry, I\u2019ll be over there, bring your luggage, it\u2019ll be quick, okay,\u201d and she clopped off under the arch of a metal detector, fanning herself with my documents.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I stepped back to my spot in the aisle and tried to keep cool. The man ahead of me was helping his mother out of her wheelchair.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cOye, they want to ask me a few questions,\u201d I whispered. It was one of those I-need-to-tell-somebody-to-feel-better moments.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He gave me a sympathetic look. \u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019s nothing. Just answer their questions honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll be fine. Don\u2019t be nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not,\u201d I assured him. His mother was waiting for him to guide her towards the man who frisked bodies with an instrument for scanning. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I tried thinking of other things: the high-breasted woman behind me wearing spandex and sunshades; a little girl bawling her eyes out on the floor, her mother gliding her like a mop by the arm; finally, I imagined myself in a small room, sweating under a hot and naked bulb, then on the next returning flight to Miami. My parents would have welcomed me back with open arms, saying, \u201cYou see, you see, I told you, those hijo-de-putas are nothing but hijo-de-putas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At baggage claim I spent a considerable amount of time waiting for my luggage to show up on the conveyor belt. The same belongings kept circulating. Most passengers carried between three-to-six gusanos (duffel bags resembling the length of a worm). We\u2019d departed from Miami International later than anticipated because of an issue with the weight on the plane.\u00a0 Just as I was about to throw my hands up and speculate that a Cuban worker had run off with my gear, I found it standing upright among a cluster of suitcases that had ditched the revolving train.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWill you be staying with family?\u201d We stood in a hallway behind a door with a frosted window.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d I lied. I didn\u2019t want to give up my uncle and aunt\u2019s address. For whatever reason, I felt I might compromise their wellbeing by doing so. I was thinking the worst. \u201cI have family outside waiting for me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cOkay. This won\u2019t take long. At what university will you be studying?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I didn\u2019t plan on studying anywhere, but since I\u2019d shown the general license I had to say an institution. \u201cUniversity of Havana,\u201d sounded fine to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYou have three days to change the status of your tourist visa to that of a student visa.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhere do I do that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cGo to the university, as I assume they are expecting you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI would hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She led me into a narrow office (let the slapping begin, I thought!) where two young men stood behind a chairless desk examining my general license as though it were a cryptic text. One of them was making annotations on a separate sheet of bond paper.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhat does this mean here?\u201d the one jotting information asked me, laying a finger down on a sentence. I rolled my luggage closer to the table.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt means that after I complete my studies here I have to hand in a report about my experience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhat studies will you be doing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe country\u2019s literary history is what intrigues me most. And the geography fascinates me as well. I don\u2019t know, I want to see it all, really.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI enjoy geography myself,\u201d he said and scribbled something.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNo kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAnd what exactly is this?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhat? Creative writing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYes, what is that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFiction. You know\u2014stories.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAnd why did this university in\u2014in Boston, is it?\u2014why did they give you a scholarship to come to Cuba?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s because my parents are Cuban, that\u2019s why. And I\u2019ve never seen Cuba before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The young man next to the note-taker made a slight tsk. \u201cThey give out scholarships like nothing over there. I can\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I wanted to chime in, \u201cWell, I can,\u201d but I felt bad for the kid, who seemed reasonably upset about not having his own general license to study abroad; at least that\u2019s the way I would like to interpret it. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAnd how long do you plan on staying?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cUntil mid November.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDo you have specific date?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe 14th<\/sup>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He marked that down, too. The dossier on me wrapped around the bottom of the page. I felt like such a bad boy.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBueno,\u201d he said, handing me back my documents. \u201cEnjoy your stay. Change your visa as soon as possible. And don\u2019t worry, you are free to study whatever it is you want here.\u201d He smiled. The kid didn\u2019t. As the lady in stockings led me out to the main lobby, she asked me if I had anything inside my luggage for her. I thought I\u2019d misheard and said, \u201cExcuse me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDo you have anything\u2014anything at all you don\u2019t need?\u201d She was facing the glazed window of the hallway door.\u00a0 I reached in my pocket and produced an unopened pack of Orbitz gum. I struggled with breaking the wrapper before realizing the more dignified thing to do would be to simply give her the whole pack.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I went through another level of passport security before being greeted by an impassioned mob of Cubans held back by barricades set up ten yards from the exit. I felt a weight form in my chest and sink to my stomach. As a foreigner I was a goddamn celebrity walking the red carpet. I couldn\u2019t hear myself think, there was such an uproar. Even within all the cheering, a somber feeling swept over me, locking my knees. I didn\u2019t want to enter the crowd before scanning for a familiar face\u2014one I\u2019d seen in emailed photos. I was blocking the exit and a woman shoved past me hauling a cart of duffel bags tagged with names on them. Nobody seemed to know her. She might have been a mule. Lost in the mayhem, like a hand reaching out to me, somebody called my name and, turning in that direction, I saw the faces of my uncle and aunt appearing and disappearing, dying to be noticed behind a fat man. I went out and hugged them as though I\u2019d hadn\u2019t seen them in a very long time, as if I\u2019d broken a promise.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n June 6, 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n This September I will be traveling to my parents\u2019 homeland. This will be my first voyage to the Island. Raised\u00a0within the Spanish-speaking enclave\u00a0in Miami, I have cultivated a greater understanding of myself, and the culture that\u00a0has\u00a0influenced\u00a0me to become a writer.\u00a0\u00a0At some length, the voices of my family haunt me \u2013 though in a wholeheartedly productive and meaningful way; these voices, I have come to learn, are so personal they become\u00a0inescapable, and\u00a0demand to be heard, founding the roots of my work. In Cuba, I plan to continue with a novel-in-progress, as well as polishing a collection of\u00a0stories.\u00a0I am grateful for the opportunity to visit family members I have never personally met, which brings me great joy. A front-line experience of the Island and its people will certainly prove to\u00a0be a time full of affect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 My uncle and I were stuck in traffic on Vibora Street because in one bus\u2019s attempt to avoid colliding with another, it crashed into the concrete\u00a0pillar of a corner home. With the windows lowered, we overheard a few spectators chatting about the accident. We were on our way to the Banco Metropolitano to exchange […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":320,"featured_media":0,"parent":2511,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2568"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2896,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2568\/revisions\/2896"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}