A great article on Cuba by somebody who knows what things are like there. There is a single thing in it I disagree with. If you go to Cuba, only stay in casas particulares (regular people’s houses) if you are a smug, superior creature similar to the poetic I in Mary Oliver’s poem analyzed in the previous post. If, on the other hand, you can’t be around people without trying to engage with them on a human level, don’t stay there. You’ll be hurt and traumatized. It’s better to go to a glitzy resort and spare oneself the aggravation.
3 responses to “A Good Article on Cuba”
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You keep referring to the impossibility of engaging with Cubans on a human basis. What do you mean by that?
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In my visits to Cuba, I didn’t manage to speak to a single person who didn’t try to prostitute themselves to me or treat me like an inanimate object.
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I’ve only been there once but did not have this experience. Is it because I had a friend / is it because I went to a kind of conference, where people were supposed to talk / is it because I am such an extrovert?
I stayed in 2 Intourist-type hotels but they were not resorts / glitzy, the friend’s house, and a worker’s beach cottage that it was her turn to have. I liked the beach cottage.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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