Missive #18: Generalizations (or more reasons I feel so normal living in Cuba)

Generally speaking, Cubans love to make generalizations in general--and most specifically about Cubans in general. (That might sound redundant, but it is only another typically Cuban form of expression.)

Cuban babies sleeping (seemingly on some kind of schedule).

For example, at least once a day, I hear somebody say, “Así somos los cubanos.” (“This is how we Cubans are.”) Or, “A los cubanos nos encanta…/no nos gusta…” (“[We] Cubans love…/don’t like…)” A more specific example, which I have heard repeated by several people, parents and nonparents alike, is: “Los ninos cubanos no tienen ningunas rutinas…se acuestan a la hora que les parezca.” (“Cuban children don’t follow any schedules…they go to bed whenever they feel like it.”) Even more appalling is how true these generalizations seem to be.

Cubans love to tell everyone when it is their birthday. Just today, I had one of my favorite laundry/cleaning ladies named Jenny come right up to me and say, “It was my birthday yesterday!” And when Aitana, one of the residential students, came striding in through the front seminary gates back from Christmas break, her greeting was, “It’s my birthday today!” (And I used to think I was the only one who went around telling everyone it was my birthday because it was also Valentine’s Day!)


When Cubans get drunk, they love to sing! Sing-alongs are the best, and then everyone really sings along…These are not tawdry drinking songs, nor pop music; they are lovely traditional love songs from the golden days of yore, and everyone knows every single verse.

Feeling "normal."

When Cubans watch any kind of sporting competition on television, they scream and yell, and make strange animal sounds, and jump up and down, and dance, and punch holes in the wall, just like they do at the real live games at huge, crowded outdoor stadiums. This cultural-genetic phenomenon closely resembles the way Cubans behave in front of a movie screen; they act like they are part of the actual film and have every right to make comments or talk back to the actors.

This past Sunday afternoon, for example, I was at the only movie theater in Matanzas, a huge old theater with a huge screen. The film was an American movie from 2011 titled, "The Son of Nobody."


There were about a dozen of us in the audience. A few minutes into the movie, a phone rang, and I did a double-take to check and see if it was part of the movie; it wasn’t, and a regular cell phone conversation took place about half the empty theater away from us, but still audible.

Toward the climax of the plot, someone in the audience clearly yelled out at the screen: “He’s the only other one who knew about the murders! It has to be him!” It reminded me of my father yelling, “Imbécil!” at the television screen when a Phillies umpire made a bad call, or an Eagles halfback fumbled the ball.

A few more Y-Generation names: Yolandri, Yoelixis, Yandri, Yulexis, Yoel.

Most of these are names belong to baseball players for the Matanzas Cocodrilos and for the Villa Clara Naranjas. I copied them from the television screen while watching the third of a three-game series in a kitchen filled with a dozen Cubans hysterically yelling, screaming, punching, lighting candles, dancing, and hitting. The kitchen table had to be taken outside to make room for all the chairs, which were constantly being shifted between one person or another, depending on whose team had made the last good play…oy veh.

With love from Cuba,
Elisa