The Walking Monk

Sat. Sept.29/07
Havana, Cuba
Customs security asked me how I know people in Cuba. “Friends from Canada,” I replied.
My room is in a guest house on San Lazaro and is spacious enough and air conditioned. Weather outside is hot and humid. The notice on the wall of the room reads the conditions of renting in Spanish, English and French. One of them is underlined. “It’s completely forbidden to visit the apartment of persons which are less than 18 yrs. old.” This is of course, one of the signs that the government exerts a control over; controlling promiscuity isn’t a bad thing.
Upon meeting the guest house master and seeing people in their everyday carefree style releases any tiny tension I might have about communist governance in Cuba. I find people pleasant and rather warm. I had even met Simon Cridland, the Canadian consulate at the Embassy. I wanted to let him know I’m here, that I walked Canada thrice and had my eyes on Cuba for the future. He was gracious.
The early morning walk along Malecon, the wide street edged by the south shore of the Gulf of Mexico, was a chance to meet folks. Jiva Goswami, a Cuban devotee, accompanied me. A large billboard in Spanish read with a close–up statue of Liberty, surprised….. remarking, “What? You have given freedom to terrorists?” Officers along the way return my nod or salute. The robes I’m in are a fresh sight for the locals.

I see no homeless people like those in India or even in North American cities. Food is somewhat hard to come by which is a contradiction in this fertile land. Christiana Bauhman, a retired German Canadian, was my flight partner enroute to Havana and she loves Cuba but concurred that Cuba is a land of contradictions.
10kms.