Summary

The author, a seasoned traveler and salsa dancer, fell in love with Havana, Cuba, eventually marrying a Cuban musician, starting a business, and having a child there before leaving during the pandemic.

Abstract

The author shares a personal journey of discovering Havana, Cuba, a place that had long captivated her interest due to her passion for salsa dancing. After visiting with a friend and experiencing the vibrant culture and music, she found work leading tours and became deeply integrated into the local community. She met her husband, a musician, and they started a successful business renting rooms, capitalizing on the surge in tourism around significant events like the Rolling Stones' concert and President Obama's visit. Their life together in Havana was enriched by their marriage and the birth of their daughter. However, the challenges brought by political changes under President Trump and the global impact of Covid-19 led them to leave Cuba, taking with them cherished memories and experiences.

Opinions

The author expresses a deep emotional connection to Havana, describing it as a place where she felt compelled to live.
She values the authentic experiences and interactions with locals over tourist-centric performances.
The author initially had concerns about safety in Havana due to its appearance, but later appreciated the sense of community and low crime rate.
She found the Cuban people to be resourceful and entrepreneurial, especially in the context of the tourism industry.
The author believes that Cuba's communist system contributes to a more discreet display of wealth compared to other countries, which she sees as a positive aspect of life on the island.
Despite the idyllic aspects of raising a child in Cuba, the hardships caused by the pandemic ultimately led to the difficult decision to leave.
The author reflects on her time in Cuba with a mix of fondness and pragmatism, acknowledging the complexities of life there.

I Left My Heart In Havana

But took my Cuban husband and daughter with me when I left

A lifetime of travelling….

I’ve travelled and lived in a few different countries in my fifty or so years, and usually settled on a place because I landed there and just felt something click. That was the case with Buenos Aires, Cusco in Peru, Rio de Janeiro, and Barcelona (the latter I never actually moved to, just planned to).

I like living in cities where I find myself in moments where I have to stop my bike with joy, take in the views and revel in the good fortune I have to live there.

London, where I grew up and had my base until my 40s, did that for me too sometimes, but as I got older, it got more tiring, and by the time I left the city, I felt like a hamster on an ever-faster wheel.

Havana, Cuba had long been a dream to visit because I’ve been a salsa dancer since learning to dance in South America in 1999, so when, in 2012, a good friend from London offered me the chance to join her trip around the island with her Cuban boyfriend, I jumped at the chance.

Some countries are best seen with someone in the know. Cuba is one of them. It’s fascinating but ever so complicated.

Havana, Cuba

As a tourist…

The first night we arrived, we did the classic walk to the Malecon sea wall and sat there with a bottle of rum. Pretty soon we had new friends, and being with a Cuban man(who lived in Scotland) both opened up doors and gave us protection from unwanted attention.

We felt we had walked into a world where musicians just hang out and jam and chat with you for fun on the sea wall. Later I realised that for many Cubans, that is a job — serenading you, being your friend, offering to show you around.

In Cuba, these guys may be musicians making extra cash, or ‘jineteros’, a very Cuban word, offering fun and friendship to tourists. Sometimes they are both.

We stayed in central Havana in a bed and breakfast costing US$20 a night. The decor was kitsch and the owner super friendly and helpful. Renting out rooms is a hugely important income to Cubans with space in their homes, and a wonderful way for foreign visitors to understand this fascinating island better than if they head to a hotel.

The neighbourhood where we stayed made me nervous. The buildings were so run down it looked like a war zone, and there were people everywhere on the streets. I equated that with a poor area with high crime rates and potential violence. I am from London.

Later, I learned that this is normal scenery in much of Havana, and people are on the streets because it is hot as hell in their homes, living as many do with only fans for ventilation. Air conditioning is for those with money.

A Havana tour leader…

I got lucky and found work through a contact leading American groups around the island. For the next few years, I spent half the year in Cuba living in 5-star hotels with groups and renting rooms at the beach in between groups. It was ideal. I was living the dream. For the rest of the year, I worked in Europe, managing tours there.

I said to myself, if I met someone here, I would have all the reason I’d need never to leave.

And hey presto….

A Havana girlfriend

I met Lazaro when I took a group to the bar where he had his band. They are excellent musicians and my travellers could not believe that such authentic and vibrant music could be on display here, for the price of a mojito and a tip, when they’d been hankering after shows at yet another ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ tickets at US$30 a pop to see the same old Cuban classics churned out night after night by no one who was actually in Buena Vista Social Club.

He took me out dancing one night after work, and the rest was history.

A Havana entrepreneur

We bought property and started renting rooms. Airbnb was taking off and around the time of the Rolling Stones’ concert and then President Obama’s visit in 2016, tourists were sleeping in parks in some cities, such was the demand for rooms to rent in Cuba.

A Havana wife

Our wedding at Club Habana (author’s own)

We got married on the beach at Club Habana, the pre-Revolution country club for the elite and wealthy in Havana’s western suburbs. Now it was a housing complex for expatriates in Cuba and it offered expensive day passes for the pool and beach, and rented itself out for weddings.

The business was going well. A year or so later, pregnant with our daughter, I was dealing with Airbnb enquiries virtually daily when about to give birth, the demand was so high.

Then came President Trump. And then Covid-19.

Street art in Brixton, London (author’s own)

A Havana mother

Cuba is one of the safest places I have ever known. It’s hard to commit a crime and get away with it on an island where gossip abounds, and it’s hard to hide out from the police and the military. Jail terms are heavy too. The gap between rich and poor, so obvious in countries with high crime like Brazil, just doesn’t stand out in Cuba. It exists, but the wealthy know to be discreet. It’s communist, after all.

So raising a child on the island felt idyllic at first. Plenty of family around, cleaners or nannies available at a price I could afford, lovely weather and a sense of freedom to take Loren wherever I wanted to go. Until Covid-19.

We left Cuba when Loren was three, in the middle of the pandemic. It just all got too hard, and when our fridge was bare and it would take days of queuing from 5 am to fill it, we left.

Like I said, I left my heart in Havana but I took my babies with me when I left.

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