Waiting for Godot in a closed box - memories from Havana

After I got back from this trip, many friends asked me if I “liked” it. Me, I have a long history of being unable to answer simple questions, but this one is one of the hardest so far.
For me, Havana was both a semi-traumatic and a great experience, the mix I found on Havana streets has no comparison to anything I’ve experienced anywhere else in the world.
I guess it’s the stack of my childhood memories, growing up in socialist Romania, that was all of the sudden brought back to life. I was staying in a “casa particular”, renting a room with a cuban family in the Vedado area. From there I would go exploring the neighborhood, stroll down via Calle Neptuno down to Central Habana and spend the evenings on Malecon, looking at the sea and listening to Rhumba rhythms in the distance.
Like one of my dear friends used to say, “living the good life”. If you’re a tourist, a visitor, a white man, asian, have double citizenship, have political connections, basically life is good if you’re anything other than a Cuban.
When I was growing up, people coming visiting from the West were commonly referred to as coming from “the outside”. This expression is still used today. I remember my reactions to anything coming from the “outside” – toys, books, candy, cartoons. And people. I would look at them as if they were coming from another planet, aliens coming from a world where anything was possible, magical beings coming and going as they pleased, superheroes.
Now I was one of them. More than the food and travel restrictions that hinder the cuban life (special permit required to travel inside Cuba, that was a new one for me), more than the economic struggle, poverty, censorship, one can sense the feeling of isolation and the eternal wait for change, crossing the finish line. I know that feeling all too well.
But underneath all this, there is actually pure joy, creativity, dancing. I’m not talking about the fake carnival acts that happen in the tourist areas of Old Havana. A Rhumba celebration show at the Writer’s House in Vedado brings all participants to life, moving to the hypnotic rhythm for hours, while rain is falling.
Music has something magical here, it’s pure, true, raw. Like dancing, it brings memories from a very long past, it cries, it paints the air in wild colours, it’s savage, unchained.
Don’t know if I liked Havana. But I’ll go back.