Missive #2 - Matanzas, Cuba - Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

Matanzas, Cuba: Wednesday, September 7^th, 2011:

Julia’s new sandals broke the moment she put them on.  Today, she was able to return and exchange the (cheaply made and kind of ugly) pair she’d originally chosen for a much nicer pair of white leather flip-flops made in Cuba. 

Those of you who know me well know that my favorite form of exercise in any weather is to jump into the nearest body of water.  Matanzas is known as not only the Athens of Cuba, for its bohemian literary circles, as well as its artists and theaters, but also as the Venice of Cuba, for its many bridges and rivers flowing into the ocean.  So I figured that I could easily find someplace to swim.  Wrong. It took me three whole days.


I finally jumped into the Gulf of Mexico today, with all my clothes on.  (In this very hot and humid weather, it wasn’t much.)  Every time I’d asked about a good place to swim, I was told that the water was contaminated and that I had to travel to Varadero, but I refused to believe it.  So this morning, as part of a real-life, walking-and-talking Spanish lesson I devised for the two young Germans and their teacher, we headed down the hill from the seminary once again, armed with all sorts of interesting missions and assignments.  


First, the students had to stop people on the street and ask directions to the post office.  Once there, they had to ask who the last person in line was and then get behind that person. I found out that Spaniards use estampillas, but Cubans say sellos for stamps. I had had my first encounter yesterday with the use of both Cuban pesos and CUCs, two totally different sets of bills and coins used in Cuba, both bearing the same signature from the same minister of the Banco Central de Cuba.   The post office sold stamps to nacionales in one currency and postcards to foreigners in another. The first 16 of you to send me your full snail mail address will receive one, complete with lovely Cuban stamps.

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[It is 6:30 p.m., dinnertime at the seminary comedor (dining room), so I must stop, for now.]


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Once our first mission in the post office was accomplished, we proceeded further on the shady side of the street sidewalk, dodging every imaginable vehicle in all colors and shapes, literally and figuratively, toward the bridges and the ocean.  All around us, people kept asking stuff in Cuban tourist speak to determine our level of naiveté--and our potential for scamming or following or robbing or simply for proselytizing.    I took lots of photos, which I intend to upload and attach to this e-mail. 

We came to a bridge made entirely of metal, and we could see through its walkways on either side, right down to the water below.  Alina, the seminary teacher of Spanish for the two Germans, broke into hysterics as we were crossing the bridge.  Right before she did, she explained to me that she had always been deathly afraid of crossing this particular bridge and that it made her so nervous that she would start to laugh hysterically.  I was trying hard to think of what to do to keep that from happening.  It didn’t work.

Luckily, the bridge wasn’t very large.  There was lots of dog shit on the concrete staircase descending from the other side.  Come to think of it, my entire experience so far in these first few days in Cuba can be summed up in three words:  smells, colors, and music.  The unpleasant odors are somewhat balanced by the sights and sounds, and if we add the remaining two senses, touching and tasting, they are nearly obliterated.

When we finally arrived at what could be called a beach, Alina suggested that I should do as we’d assigned our German students to do:  go ask the nearest Cubans whatever we needed to know.  In this case, the question had to do with the safety of swimming in the water.  

There were two men with bikes under the shade of a palm tree, so I approached them to ask my usual 50 questions.  A few minutes later, the young Germans and their Spanish teacher joined us, and I briefly explained to the men who they were and got them to agree to act dumb so that Julia and Julian could practice their Spanish by asking the same questions.  

The men explained to us all, once again and much more slowly, at my bidding, that literally thousands of people, both locals and tourists, swam in these waters every day all this past summer, but that since school had just begun this week, that was the only reason nobody was there today besides us.

Alina later told me that the men under the palm tree had said: “The two young Germans are like cats; they are only going into the water up to their knees.  But that older woman is a fish!  She just dove in with her dress on!”