It is 3 AM on October 2, and the trip that we have waited years to make together is over. We are in the Panataxi and are pulling away from the curb. Brayan calls out one last time and comes to the car, reaching through the window and grabbing Francisco in a silent hug that speaks hundreds of words. We drive off into the night, headed for the airport, where our flight to Mexico is leaving at 6 AM. Francisco and I are quiet... we are exhausted, not having slept, we are overwhelmed with emotion, and so it is best not to say anything. When we arrive at Jose Marti Airport, we learn that our flight has been canceled due to a lack of passengers. An indifferent and unapologetic agent from Cubana Airlines tells us that if we wait until 5:30, a bus will come pick us up and whisk us away to the Hotel Melia Cohiba, where we'll be put up for the night--or is it day?--all expenses included. We will have a hotel room, two three minute phone calls anywhere in the world, vouchers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and transportation back to the airport tomorrow morning... which is good, considering that we gave all of our money to Francisco's family and have only the $50 CUC that we need to pay for our departure tax and not a peso more. We sigh and laugh about Cubana (oh, the stories I could tell you about this airline!-- but that's another blog altogether) and stretch out on the hard airport chairs to wait for 5:30.

The bus arrives and takes us in air conditioned comfort to the Melia Cohiba, a luxury hotel on Havana's waterfront. Doormen say "Buenos dias," the automatic doors whoosh open, and we are attended to quickly by the hotel's front desk. It is almost 7 AM, time for breakfast, and we're both hungry so we decide we'll stay up until then. We ride the elevator to the seventh floor and open the door to our room, which is the size of Francisco's family's apartment. There are two king beds, a television, a mini bar, and a bathroom worthy of envy. A toilet with a toilet seat and toilet paper (which I have, in the course of my travels in the world, learned is not standard fare, nor to be taken for granted). A bidet!! I've never used a bidet and don't feel compelled to try it out. Two sinks. And a bathtub, A BATHTUB! With hot water and tremendous water pressure. Francisco and I start to speak at the same time..."If only Brayan could take a bath in this TUB!" We immediately begin devising a plan to invite him to take a bath, which will require some maneuvering and manipulation, as Cubans are not allowed to visit guests in hotel rooms, even if the guests are family members.

It's 7 AM, and we head downstairs for breakfast. Francisco is looking forward to having real milk; there is a shortage of milk in Cuba and one of the shocks of our first few days for him was the fact that you can't just walk into a store and buy milk. There isn't any. We walk into the restaurant and feel immediately that we've stepped into an altogether different sort of Cuba. A band is playing sones (at 7 AM! "Who has that kind of job?" I wonder aloud) and the breakfast buffet tables stretch across a space that I've estimated is a good quarter of a mile long. There is milk. There is also ham, chorizo, bacon, beef (!), eggs, cheeses (bleu, Fontina, Gouda, and more), fruit, at least five kinds of pastries, an omelette station, yogurt, waffles, pancakes, crepes, and juices. The linen on the table is thick and it is spotless. The silverware is heavy in the hand, a stark contrast to the spoons that Elida laughs about at the Coppelia ice cream shop--"leftovers from the Russians!" she crows, the tinny sound of the spoon echoing off the table as she plunks its light weight down next to her empty ice cream dish. The coffee comes in an American sized cup, and a server appears seemingly out of nowhere to pull my seat out and ask me if any of my culinary desires have somehow gone unmet by all of this lavishness.

We are starving, but we suddenly have no appetite and we peck at our food. A severely obese couple comes into the dining room, piles their plates high with food they probably won't finish, and proceeds to eat as if a famine was pending, not setting their forks down once during the meal. I look around the dining room at the staff, wondering how it feels to come work amidst this plenty every day while watching one's family hungry, tired of the same dish, lusting after milk or beef. I call over a waiter and ask him just that. "What do you want me to say to you?" he replies, a sardonic and bitter smile curling up one side of his mouth. I feel that I must tell him we didn't choose to be here at the Melia, that our plane was cancelled and we've been put up here, but that we've spent the past ten days in Centro Habana, eating exactly what he probably has at home. He nods and decides that with this information he can be less discreet. "This is a 'good' job, and I'm grateful, but I have to decide I won't be angry about what I see here because I couldn't live with being angry all the time. It was really hard in the beginning, though." I walk to the window in the dining room, which offers an expansive view of the city. From here, I can see the hotel pool, where sun-starved tourists are bronzing themselves already, lounging on plush towels while anticipating the arrival of a waiter dressed in a crisp white uniform delivering a cool drink on a tray. But to the left of the pool, just off the hotel grounds, I see the roof of a house that is collapsing, and I know that world, too. Last night, I stood with Brayan and his girlfriend on their balcony. Leaning on the railing, three stories above the street, Brayan pulled me back and I watched as the railing buckled back and forth, anchored only to a crumbling piece of concrete in the wall. "I've saved your life a couple of times, you know," he said, and we both laughed.

Francisco and I are reluctant tourists at the buffet bar. It's all you can eat, but we can't. Not when two miles away our family is preparing a single turkey leg for dinner, stove-top because there's no oven. Not when just beyond this pane of sparkling clean glass a family wonders if the next hurricane will be the end-all-be-all of their roof. Not when around the dining room are posted men and women with university degrees who work in hotel food service, watching a buffet of delights that they can never taste, watching tourists fill themselves unconsciously, touching forks, glasses, and plates from fine manufacturers that will never find a place in their homes. We push back from the table and decide to head back to Centro Habana.