Tag: Hotel Inglaterra

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Why Cuba?

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

A few people have asked me why I went to Cuba. In case you’re one of them, here’s why.

To me, Cuba is like the neighbor behind a wall that you hear but you can’t see.

In Western Jamaica, where I grew up, from very early on, I could hear Cuba from my house through the sometimes faint, sometimes clear sounds of music and voices in a language I didn’t then understand. Over the years, I created my own narrative of the place adults talked about in sometimes panicked, sometimes hushed tones.

I wondered about the people, who it was explained to me, could not leave. I tried to imagine what it would be like not being able to leave or do whatever pleased me.

The image I had, even at that age, was of being trapped, being imprisoned. No, no one wanted that.

Cuba was the Caribbean’s bogeyman – there was always the fear that what happened there could also happen in Jamaica. And many Jamaicans were, understandably, concerned.

Then as I grew older, stories began to come out. Stories told by my mother of two aunts – sisters of her father’s, my grandfather – who went to Cuba, married and never returned.

l also found out that another grand-aunt, this time on my father’s side never returned either.

Between 1916 and 1940, it is estimated that approximately 300,000 Jamaicans went to Cuba in search of work. No one knows how many returned despite being allowed to following the revolution.

My paternal grandfather did. As did my godfather and a family friend – all spicing their Jamaican English with Spanish words and speaking Spanish among themselves – clear signs to everyone else that they had been “a foreign.”

Some of those words became so commonplace, they became part of the lexicon. I didn’t realize until I started learning Spanish in high school that these words were.

My fascination with Cuba never waned – blame that privacy fence, the closedoffness of it. And with family connections, it isn’t a place I could put out of my mind easily, despite all that I learned from my Cuban friends.

When I decided to visit, I told each of them in turn. Not one objected.

My family wanted me to look up the ones who never returned.

But, in the end, I went for me.

Fifty years of repression have not dampened the spirit of the Cuban people. The country hasn’t lost its grandeur, its style or its flare. And I’d go back tomorrow. Because now I have my own images to match the narrative of my childhood.

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Busted – in Havana!

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

More than anything else, meeting local people who are warm and friendly is what I remember most when I travel. To increase my chances of interacting with locals, I prefer to stay in smaller hotels, guesthouses, Bed & Breakfasts, and when possible, with families.

So when my friend, Lett and I decided to visit Havana, there was no question where we’d stay – we chose a B&B or casa particular.

The casa particular we ended up staying at was not the one we booked initially but we wouldn’t have met the wonderful family who embraced us and with whom we now stay in touch.

And if we didn’t walk almost everywhere, we wouldn’t meet the Cubans we encountered while out and about. Some left quite an impression.

People like Reina.

Reina greeted me as if I were a long lost friend. And from what she said, I realized she thought I was someone she had worked with years before. I started to tell her she was mistaken but she kept on talking. She realized her mistake only when I switched to English and told her I was Jamaican.

Jamaica!, she repeated and without missing a beat, invited Lett and me to a reception that was being given in honor of the visiting Barbadian Prime Minister at the Caribbean Center that evening. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend. But I’ve not forgotten her generosity.

Alex and Lett

Alex is a member of one of the bands that plays at the Hotel Inglaterra where we spent a few afternoons listening to music and drinking Cuba Libres. We chatted with the musicians after one of their sets and Alex offered to show us around. It was our last day in Havana and a slight drizzle fell quietly on the morning. But Alex arrived exactly at the time he promised he would. We took the bus to Old Havana (Habana Vieja) and he showed us several places we had missed, then accompanied us back to the casa particular.

Minia

Then there was Minia.

Lett and I had gone to the Hotel Nacional to use one of their computers. As we were leaving, an employee approached and asked, in halting English, if we were Jamaicans. A smile of relief spread across her face when I responded that I was. So were both her grandparents, she gushed.

I should not have been surprised to meet someone of Jamaican heritage but I was. Long before migration north became the dream of most Jamaicans and other Caribbean people, Cuba was the place to go. It is estimated that between 1916 and 1940, nearly 300,000 Jamaicans migrated there in search of work in the sugar industry. Relatives of mine on both sides, including my paternal grandfather, went as well. However, only my grandfather returned.

Before I left for Cuba, one of my father’s sisters urged me to try to find an aunt who had never returned. But with only an old address and just a week in Havana, I knew the odds of finding her were slim – I didn’t even try.

I didn’t count on finding Minia or on being busted as a Jamaican — not that I was hiding. I have a pretty normal face, with African features, that equal numbers of Ghanian and Nigerian friends have claimed could be from their respective ethnic groups. But I wonder if there were some characteristics typical of Jamaicans that telegraphed to Minia our real identity.

I have to admit, she could well be a distant relative – her grandparents are from the same area in Jamaica as my maternal grandparents – I’ve yet to trace our genealogy. But for someone whom I met only briefly, I feel an inexplicably strong connection. So I’m glad that she busted me in Havana.