On The Last Plane Out of Cuba

At least for us, as Cuba is moved to European ‘red’ travel lists.

We are leaving Cuba tomorrow, and despite all the discussions and plans we have been making, my husband and I, I am just not ready. This has been my home for nearly 10 years, and I have loved it.

Two days ago we had to scramble to buy last-minute flights as Cuba just got moved to the UK’s red travel list, effective Monday. This is because cases are the highest they have ever been, despite the rollout of Cuba’s own vaccine.

Arriving in the UK after Monday would require my daughter and I to hotel quarantine at substantial cost, and my Cuban husband would not be allowed in.

So we leave our lives, our home, our belongings and scramble out of here. Tomorrow.

I came here as a tour guide, travelled the island in every direction, met fascinating Cubans who gave my groups conferences on art, history, biopharma, gender roles, farming, urban gardening, coffee growing, marine life, race in Cuba, US-Cuban relations, dance, religious practices, sports, education, the literacy movement, Cuba’s cancer treatments, among many.

My eyes were opened. I fell in love with the country. And then I met my husband and fell in love again.

I am not ready to go.

Friends abroad wrote this week with concerned messages offering to send food packages. They heard we have no food here.

We do.

They worry we are caught up in the first mass protests to appear here since the Special Period in the 1990s.

We are not.

They assume we are leaving because we are running scared.

We are not.

So why leave? I won’t know for sure until we have gone.

FREEDOM

Firstly, to have a little freedom. My child has been kept at home since January this year. Children were not supposed to go out. By now, of course, they do, but I still can’t take her into a shop or anywhere where there is a line. That rules out most everywhere. The media are full of tales of children sick with Covid. Of course, we need to protect her, but she needs to go to a park and run. And play in a big garden, which we don’t have, and enjoy outside.

FOOD

To eat the food we choose, not just the food we find. We wanted to say goodbye to family, so we tried to buy chicken to make a big family lunch. My husband went to the local store where they have some. He was number 164 in line and told he wouldn’t get any chicken today.

Our nanny kindly saved the day and gifted us a chicken she lined up for.

LINES

The lines are Covid breeding grounds, despite the attempts made to keep distance and the fact that everyone wears masks. We have to get on a plane, with negative PCRs, and couldn’t afford to take any risks.

My sister is waiting for us in the UK and I am filling up a grocery store basket online from here.

It’s like pornography, but with food.

I’ve already done it twice this year with Walmart in Cancun, despite not having a ticket to go. A girl can dream…

INTERNET

I didn’t fill that grocery basket before because since the protests started here last Sunday we had no internet. By the time you read this, dear reader, I will have found a way.

Cubans found VPNs a way to get around the internet blockage, but then those VPNs get blocked too, and so we’ve been mainly offline since Sunday.

I wrote this on my phone where I still have patchy mobile data. So please forgive me if you find a mistake!

WORK

There is little work for me here right now, with 15 years of history working in tourism.

The tourists coming are mainly Russians and to the big all-inclusive hotels, which are also proving to be Covid breeding grounds when some tourists appear to arrive with ‘faulty’ PCR tests and end up exposing the local staff to infection. This has partly led to the disastrous situation we see in Matanzas province today, where health services struggle to cope.

Off-island, I can work online, I can write, teach, write reports. I can stay home and still earn some income. When infection rates go down, I can work outside the home.

There will be opportunities, at least more than here.

EVERYTHING IS CLOSED

The shops have lines hours long; they are open, but everything else — bars, restaurants, cafes, museums, galleries — all closed. Life is just on hold. We want to go somewhere we can have a semblance of a life.

PARKS AND SHOPS

We want our child to go to play parks, even if Covid still restricts access, some are open with safety measures in place.

I want to go to a furniture store that allows you to try out the sofas and the beds. Heck, they even invite you. I don’t want to have to keep telling her, no, don’t touch that, you can’t walk there.

I want that classic Mum experience of taking my kid around a supermarket and having to restrain her from putting everything she wants in the trolley. I want to walk in a toy shop and have her beg me for everything in sight. I want to go to a café where table mats are made of paper and she gets crayons so she can draw. And they serve hamburgers, chips and milkshakes.

I want her to know what freedom feels like.

We’ll visit safari parks, outdoor country walks, dining in cafes but outdoors. These are things the UK offers. That and more, because all restrictions are about to be removed, which is a terrifying thought, but that’s another story.

We’ll be vaccinated there soon, and at least outdoor living while there is still a summer has its appeal.

Barbeques, with real beef (!), cocktails with soft drink mixers, snacks and cereal breakfasts. Or eggs with bacon. All a dream to us right now.

The question is not whether to leave right now.

Writing this post answered that question for me. It’s whether to remain gone. I see positives here where maybe some Cubans would not. As a foreigner, I have advantages. I can work for a foreign company and earn a decent wage, I can travel off-island whenever I want a change, I can afford home help, a nanny, a cleaner and to pay them a decent wage, I can go outside without ever really worrying about bringing a jacket.

I can enjoy the huge family I have here and my daughter can, too. I can feel proud to be living in a country that has stood up to the giant, and carved out its own path, and despite the unrest happening now, can hopefully continue to do so, but in a way that brings more prosperity and freedom for its people, while maintaining sovereignty over its affairs.

I know of other mixed Cuban-foreigner relationships where the foreigner was the one who wanted to be here, enjoying the safety and pace of life it's hard to find elsewhere, and the Cuban wanted the advantages of being treated equally, and having a job and getting a decent wage. It doesn’t always work out well for the couple. I hope that for us it will.

Cuba is a challenge, a wonder, a beauty, a conundrum, a melting pot of race and ethnicity and migration history.

If you know how to interpret it, and stop trying to impose your own understanding of what how things should be, but learn from what there is here and start with that, Cuba is like nowhere else.

But now, we are tired; we are leaving, with heavy hearts, and I at least hope to return real soon.

Hasta pronto!