Cuba, the End

In a totally out of order way, this post will be about leaving Cuba. Eventually I will find the energy to write about the middle of Cuba itself, but I would like the present to be dealt with first.

As I began to mentally prepare to leave Cuba, there was a complication. Swine flu! It’s funny when a news item like that starts to actually affect your life. My first thought was that this was the explanation for my sniffle. As the story developed, it became possible that I wouldn’t be able to get out of Cuba. I liked Cuba a lot, but I wanted my clothes and my computer, and to be able to walk down the street without being harassed. To stop feeling like an outsider. In fact, that last day in Havana was one of those less good ones. I got hassled by men more than normal, and I got rained on. I was looking forward to just getting back, and was playing Spider Solitaire in the apartment when my aunt burst in with the news that I wouldn't be able to leave because they were closing the airports. We walked down to ask Cubana Airlines what was up, and on the way we passed a man leaning over a dog and doing something to its neck with a knife. Just on the pavement. I still don't know if the thing he was doing was beneficial veterinary medicine with rudimentary tools, or some kind of voodoo magic. It could have been either, but I looked at him and decided that I couldn't handle this kind of thing anymore. I wanted out. Luckily, my flight the next day was still going to go! I think the last one to leave Cuba before they closed themselves down.

Cancun airport didn’t seem to realize it was at the epicenter of a news storm. A few people, mainly tourists, were wearing masks and there was a questionairre to fill out on your way through security (if you have all the above symptoms, you should contact a doctor. Oh. Really?). After another night in Cancun airport I was finally on the plane back (it’s those last few agonizing minutes when you’ve landed and everyone is standing waiting for the doors to open… out of the last thirty hours of waiting and delays, they’re the longest). Anyone who has to sleep in Cancun airport should know that there is two seats with three armrests missing, on the entrance side next to the restaurant. This means you can actually lie down on them and go to sleep. I had dreams about lions, where I protested that they didn't have lions in Central America.

So the doors open, and we go down the steps into the little Terminal Two at Austin airport (the one that the other terminals didn’t want to talk to, it’s seriously miles from the rest of the airport and bright green). I’d been through some pre-arrival culture shock in the airport at Cancun, what with the accents and the exuburance and the general Americaness. So I was a little worried about my ability to deal with Texas, but the immigration official was very nice and friendly, the customs man made a joke. The people in reception let me use their phone and chat to me about swine flu. Everybody smiles, and everybody speaks English. How relaxing you are, United States. This is why I like you.

And so now I am happily inhabiting Ania's house in Austin, where there is an astonishing excess of food including chocolate. It still feels weird to drink the water from the tap, and I keep looking for the wastepaper basket for the toilet paper (plumbing not being so great down there). Letters from my friends in New Zealand greeted my arrival, and my computer full of my music, and a thumb piano which I am learning to play. Oh music, I have missed you. And dairy products. And the Daily Show, and all the trappings of life which may be excessive and unnecessary but which belong to me, and my culture, which I can criticise but which still feels so good. And now I can chat to the people that serve me in the supermarket, and laugh with people, and be accepted in the street. I'm happy. Reverse culture shock can come later.