*Daily Life

When I come to Cuba, I stay with Francisco's family at their home in Centro Habana, so my perspective of daily life in Cuba is quite different than that of an American who would stay at the Habana Libre, a casa particular, or an all-inclusive resort at the beach. We are a family of five to eight people, depending on the day, sharing two beds and just about everything else. Privacy is non-existent-- we eat, sleep, laugh, argue, make love, and use the bathroom together--each doing his or her best to accommodate and respect the needs of others.

"How do you bathe?" a friend wrote me after reading about the lack of running water here. I like to think of it a bit like Little House of the Prairie (the book version), which I loved as a child. You heat up two stoup pots of water, put them in a bucket or basin, and mix in some cold water. You bathe not for leisure or pleasure but for purely utilitarian purposes, and if you can wash your socks and underwear at the same time, so much the better. If you can catch the gray water and add it to the toilet tank, better still.

Lots of details of daily life are different. When I first came to Cuba, I really tried not to go to the bathroom. I didn't like the fact that anyone could hear me, and so I would try to go to a hotel and use the public restroom. Over time, I've become much less concerned about this issue, and I laughed yesterday--both of out of humor and compassion--when my mother-in-law said that she doesn't want to visit us for more than a month because she doesn't want to have to defecate outside her own home. I thought it was pretty impressive that she thinks she can hold it for a month. Later, though, I discovered what was really on her mind when she asked me if there was medication in the United States to cause constipation.

I realized yesterday that I'm not the only one with these concerns. We all laughed and told stories about farts we've attempted to conceal without success, and we all finally agreed that in some situations, the effort of concealment isn't worth it. Just let it all hang out.

-Centro Habana,

October 1, 2007