Cuba Flashbacks

Back Flashes to Cuba by Wayne Dixon We’ve been back from Cuba now for three whole days, but we’re still on Cuban time and temperatures. We fall asleep in front of the TV by 8 pm (but that has happened before more than occasionally) and we’re up by 4 am (usually 5 or later). Jet lag has taken its toll in other ways as well in various forms of disorientation and confusion. We had arrived back at San Francisco April 12 Friday morning after midnight. After getting our luggage and going through customs we called the hotel and waited in a shelter for the van to arrive. It was cold and raining and we were joined by a few other unhappy customers for what seemed like an hour. We were not in our rooms until 1:30 in the morning, and went straight to bed. You’d think we’d sleep in, but Cuban time kicked in and we were awake before our time. The breakfast room did not open, we thought, until seven, so we waited. Later, inside, I saw a clock in a mirror and it seemed time was going backwards. “Is it five till eight, or five after eight?” I asked Jean at my side, who was more awake than I. “Five after,” she informed me. We were on the road to Fresno by 8:45 am, missing most of the early work traffic. Although it was raining we had a good drive home. It was actually pretty through Gilroy and beyond, reminding me of the beautiful Cuban countryside we had seen the week before. I was surprised then how much of Cuba was rural in nature, and I am now surprised how much open space there remains here in California on the way to and from Los Banos, although commuters are finding new tract homes along the way. I was tempted to stop at a thrift store I spied in Los Banos, wondering what treasures might be found from this community. In Cuba, I remembered, nothing goes to waste, but is recycled over and over. I had left a shirt behind I could no longer fit into after all those rich Cuban meals and a ten pound weight gain, which led us to Home Buffet in Clovis for lunch upon our return home. We were hungry right on Cuban schedule. Jean frowned at the suggestion, but I assuaged her with the idea that we must go through gradual withdrawal. However, there was nothing gradual about our appetites for the foods of home. I noticed a preference for our Cuban diet of cucumbers and tomatoes, pineapples, chicken and beef, skipping the rice. It was the desserts that I had missed as I rediscovered peanut butter pie with white chocolate cappuccino. I don’t know what has happened to my English spelling as I type these words at 5:30 am on Sunday. My brain is still on Spanish, and there are other bewilderments as I want to put dates in Cuban form with the day before the month. I won’t even tell you the confusions of my early morning nature calls when I head for the wrong directions and cannot find the mandatory waste container to save on Cuban plumbing. When Jean and I cross paths in the dark startling each other, I mutter something about the ghosts of Cuban pasts.