I know you must like to imagine me whilst I’m writing my
award-winning blog posts, so let me set the scene. I’m sitting in my
kitchen-diner, which looks like a bunker you’d build in case of atomic-attack
because it’s made of breeze blocks and metal and the glass is blacked out. It’s
so beautiful(!!!!) I’m listening to Eminem, because I’m STRESSED, due to an
enforced-fried food, ants nest and broken glass juice jug related INCIDENT
which we shall NOT dwell on. It’s been a busy couple of weeks so here’s a
little compilation of what’s been gwarning! These entries are taken from my top secret diary, please keep all the very private info to yourselves!!!
26th March
Weather in Havana has been uncharacteristically tempestuous
this week. Walking around in a skirt has become a bit bothersome because the
breezy Havana wind keeps creeping up under my hem-line, like a pervert's spindly fingers, and lifting my skirt up. I think I have probably flashed at least half
the population of Havana in the last two days alone. Walking to university was
bad enough already. I tell you, if one more person tells me I need to go to the
beach to get some more sun, I do not know what I’ll do. I’ve been here for
almost two months, I have had a LOT of sun and I feel like being constantly
referred to as “Blanca” by passers-by is really contradicting my claim that I
have tanned. NB: I’m working on a politically charged,
world-changing essay entitled Reasons I Don’t Like You Calling Me ‘Linda’ When
I’m Walking To Uni And I’m Late And I’m Sweaty And Please Don’t Touch Me When I
Ignore Your Whistling, and I’m going to send it to the Granma and the Guardian
(to kick-start my journalism career!).
29th March
Many of you will be sick
with worry about how I’ve been coping since the Scuba Dive. Well, three weeks
P.S.D. (Post Scuba Dive), and the emotional scars associated with my Trauma
Underwater have begun to fade. Nonetheless, my life has continued to be
characteristically turbulent, obstacle-filled and blood-pressure increasing.
Why!? I hear you cry. Well I shall not delay in telling you. It is due to the
one issue most beloved, important and close to my heart. The one issue that can
make or break my day, week, month or (in this case) semester abroad. The one
issue that I should have realised would make happiness in Havana
impossible…………………… [DRAMATIC PAUSE!!!!]
The issue is: FOOD!
Ana-Maria, our ever present,
ever scowling ‘ama de la casa’, cleans and cooks for us. She brings us
breakfast in the morning and dinner at night (brought in several thermal bowls
that greatly resemble dog dishes) and frequently responds to anything I say to
her by smiling at me witheringly, telling me she doesn’t understand a word I’ve
said and asking Mercedes to explain what I mean. To begin with I thought she
was very friendly but lately, our relationship has been on the rocks. Regular
fans may recall The Great Breakfast Dilemma of March 2013. You’ll be intensely
relieved to know that since telling our landlady I was constantly hungry
because I couldn’t sustain myself on one bread roll and butter, breakfasts have
been a lot better! Following this victory our attentions soon turned to the
evening meal.
Things became particularly
precarious last week. Ana-Maria enjoys frying food. She LOVES to fry, and she
especially loves to fry croquetas. Croquetas are stumps of processed potato
mixed with an unidentifiable meat (we assume it’s pork, but following the revelation
that our spanish teacher occasionally eats horse meat and sees no problem with
it, we’re not certain) and covered in breadcrumbs then (naturally) deep fat fried.
Last week we had them at least four times in the week, and the other three days
we had patties, which are basically the same concept but round and flat. We
were getting most perturbed. I don’t mean to over-accentuate the point, but two
months of rice was starting to bloat me. On the seventh day (of croquetas) we
took leave of the establishment and went out for dinner. We contemplated
sneaking, but instead walked boldly down the patio, croquetas and rice rolling
to and fro in our wake. We had prawn salad for dinner.
The following day, after
about two hours of stirring each other on with words of encouragement, we
approached Ana-Maria. Mercedes elected herself to make the appropriate comments
(due to the aforementioned fact she never has a bloody clue what I’m saying),
and told Ana-Maria the vague white lie that the fried food had been affecting
our digestive systems in a most undesired way. We were very worried she would
be offended, angry or grumpy with us. To our surprise and relief she just
started laughing, pointed at me, laughed some more, and told us she’d make us
sauteed fish.
6/04/13
Ruth has been visiting me this week so we’ve been doing all
the touristy stuff! Things got off to a slightly rocky start as, whilst doing
our second tourist activity (the ballet), I managed to lose my purse/get my
purse stolen (<<<<the differentiation between ‘lost’ and ‘stolen’
turned out later to be of vital importance). Getting my purse stolen is usurped
as “The worst and most expensive and time-consumingly complex thing to happen
to me ever” only by missing my plane to Austria. Therefore instead of enjoying
the relaxing Cuban lifestyle, we spent the next couple of hours doing the
appropriate credit-card-canceling phone calls,bag-searching and purse-searching
and teary eyed things like that. Then we went to the police stations and
embarked on The Worst Evening Of My Life (or maybe One Of the Worse Evenings…) The
police station was stressful, time consuming and very confusing and made me
feel very tired. You’ll be happy to hear, however, that they did let me go
without charging me with anything.
The rest of the week passed very nicely. We did lots of good
things like going to a baseball game, eating at the two BEST restuarants in
Havana (apparently), walking through Old Havana, seeing the Buena Vista Social
Club and drinking mojitos and we visited the Botanical Gardens.
9/04/13
The Croquetas are back, so I had biscuits for dinner. I
tried to have juice but I broke the juice jug, there was juice and glass
everywhere, and then I discovered another ant’s nest. Going to go out and drink
Pina Coladas before I self-combust.
10/04/13
Today we played our vital role of representatives of the
United Kingom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by attending the University
of Havana’s international fair. There were representatives from all sorts of
different countries, like Syria, China and Djibuti. We were the only Europeans
(except for Russia, but I choose to discount Russia), which made us feel pretty
goddam cool, and our stall was very popular. We think this was because our
blazing white bodies reflected the sun like huge beacons and drew the crowds
like magpies to silver pennies. They asked us lots of questions, many of which
we didn’t know the answer to, but thankfully years of oral examinations has
given us a great skill of bullshitting. I had to bullshit a lot about Richard
Branson, because he reatured on one of the stickers that the British Council
had given us, and Margaret Thatcher, because of recent events. After an hour or
so we began to realise a nearby table was usurping our clientele, and we were
no longer the most popular stall in the courtyard!!!! It turned out the beastly
Americans had opened up shop and, unlike us, they had no leaflets, photos, maps
or informative info cards on offer, so they had just bought twenty five bottles
of beer and were handing it out in plastic cups. It wasn’t even American beer!
(Obviously.) Nevertheless their strategy worked, and all the visitors were
grouped around and chanting things – until the beer ran out and the Chinese
representatives started doing some traditional Chinese dancing in fancy
costumes.
This is the end of the extracts from my Secret Diary. I hope you found it enlightening and interesting in equal measure.
Forever yours,
SC xxx
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