After traveling to Cuba for the second time in early 2008 I returned with a thirst to know more about the Caribbean's largest
island's people and culture and what it was really like to live there. As a tourist you only see the shiny, happy people, but walking through the back streets of Havana I knew there was more to this intriguing place that I had fallen in love with. Upon my return, I hunted for travel memoirs about Cuba and while there aren't many, I was delighted to find this amazing story told by
Lea Aschkenas.
Lea is able to capture the human element of this communist and misunderstood country. She tells the story not from a privileged tourist's point of view, but from a Cuban perspective while living there. She meets many eccentric and wonderful people in her time in Cuba and each has a story to tell. Some inhabitants long to leave the island while others are perfectly content to stay. Cubans are proud people. Clean people. And very passionate people.
This enchanting travel memoir sheds a new light on Cuba and showcases to the world the many different regions that are contained in this small country. There are vast differences in landscape from one end of the island to the other and Lea's descriptions make it hard to decide where to travel to first as they all sound beautiful. Her tale is full of raw emotion and insights that one could only gain from living in Cuba and getting to know the people.
'Es Cuba' means 'that's Cuba'. This phrase is often used by Cubans to explain the contradictory and often confusing 'rules' of the country. While this often doesn't seem like a good enough answer to Lea, it doesn't seem to bother the Cubans. This book really does dispel the myth that Cubans are oppressed and unhappy. It shows that while they struggle in some ways, overall they are happy people who are very patriotic.