Exiles, Wanderers, and Travelers; or, Boy 1 Escapes Guantánamo Bay

Oh, happy days! 

Oldest boy got to Spain without a hitch. The planes were on time, he was able to get through customs with his visa that (thank god) barely made it on time, and he has settled in with his host family. After a couple of days of orientation, he will officially be a college freshman this week! 

Friends keeps asking me if I am worried about him. Well, of course. I'm sure my parents worried about me going to college, and I was only about 25 miles from home my first year. 

There is, honestly, a lot about Madrid that is very appealing to me as a parent. Things you don't want to talk about but I'm just throwing it out there: the homicide rate in Madrid last year was 1 (yes, ONE) per 100,000 people. In San Antonio, Texas, his #2 choice for college, it was 104 per 100,000. And less scary: he can use public transportation that is reliable, cheap, and safe. There aren't many places he could live in the U.S. for four years of college and survive without a car. Madrid is a great location for travel, and he can be on a plane and back in the southern part of the U.S. in about 11 hours, with probably one layover thrown in there, for about $600. Getting to GTMO is a whole other story; it took us almost that long just to get from the airport in GTMO to our hotel in Jacksonville. But that's another blog for another time, and honestly, I'm sick of talking about the ridiculousness that is travel on and off of this place.

So travel is done. I wasn't obsessing or anything, but I did manage to stay awake for most of his trip to Europe. 

He was able to enjoy the Reina Sofía Museum today (it's free certain hours of certain days) and saw one of my very favorite pieces of art, Picasso's "Guernica." It was painted for the World's Fair as a war protest painting. It protests the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica that was destroyed by carpet bombers during Franco's regime. Picasso was already living in exile in Paris (he never returned to his home country of Spain in his lifetime). 

image source and more info found here: http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

So here's my connection to Book Challenge #2: G. Cabrera Infante's Three Trapped Tigers 

Again, if you are only here for my snark about life in GTMO, year five, or occasional stories about my kids and other diversions and don't want to read about books, adiós, muchacho. Otherwise, read on, reader: 

It's weird my first choice for the book challenge I chose for this year, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, was about someone feeling trapped in his body ("locked-in syndrome"), and my second book is named Three Trapped Tigers. Is there a subliminal theme going on here? Feeling a little trapped on La Isla Bonita, maybe? I swear it was completely coincidental. 

This selection is "a book that's been on your To Be Read list for way too long"---before there was a husband and children, and Cuba wasn't even on my radar, I was taking a ton of undergraduate and grad level Spanish courses  and this book came up over and over again in class discussions. G. Cabrera Infante, like Picasso, lived in exile. He moved from Cuba to London after Castro took over.  Although this story takes place before the revolution and he wrote it while exiled in Europe, there is interestingly no mention of an uprising on any page. 

This novel is often called  "the Spanish Ulysses." Well damn, now I have to finally read that book (it's on this year's list) to see if it's true. It's divided into several sections, with much being stream of consciousness----think Benjy, the "idiot" in The Sound and the Fury. (As Macbeth says, "A tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.")  Much later in the book, a character explains Cuba as "an island of double or triple entendres, told by a drunk idiot signifying everything" (128). 

There are 3 main characters telling stories of the nightclub scene in Havana at the height of the tourist boom and pre-Castro. They are all artists of some sort---an actor, a writer, and a photographer. Are they the Three Trapped Tigers? 

I don't think so. . . it's just the weird translation from the original title, Tres Tristes Tigres, which if you've ever taken a Spanish class, you probably had to learn the trabalengua to help you roll your Rs: "Tres tristes tigres tragan trigo en un trigal." (Three sad tigers swallow wheat in a wheat field). The entire books is a tongue twister---Infante loves to play with words----one character calls an annoying guy who is always trying to hang out with his friends as they travel from nightclub to nightclub "peripathetic." And that's just one of 100s of examples and in a translation from Spanish---it's probably much funnier in the original language.

The book is split into several sections, and sometimes the characters are not directly connected to each other. There are nightclub singers, underaged heiresses, and lots of people scheming to get by. There are people of all classes, races, and sexual orientation. The backdrop is the cabaret/Jazz scene and most of the book takes place at night. You get the feeling that Havana was a never-ending party and wonder what it could have been, had the revolution not occurred. 

There's a travelogue from a husband, who is corrected by his wife, who then re corrects hers, and so forth and so on. In that section, the humor reminded me much of David Sedaris. There is a section called "Some Revelations" that are just blank pages. There are characters who make puns in literally every single sentence. It's smart and sarcastic, snarky and sometimes somnambulant (like that alliteration??)---there's a sleep-walking, half awake quality of the wanderings of the main characters from nightclub to nightclub all night long. 

Chapter title: "Some Revelations"

 

One of his narrators says this:  "Cuba. . . was not a fit hangout for man or beast. Nobody should live here except plants, insects and fungi or any other lower forms of life. The squalid fauna that Christopher Columbus found when he landed proved the point. All that remained now were birds and fish and tourists. All of these could leave the island when they wanted" (96). 

However, you know better. They love the nightlife, the sketchy characters involved, and even all these things they complain about. They also love the music, the dancing, the food, the many, many beautiful and complicated women, and even the tourist traps. It makes me sad for a place I never got to experience, and for what could have been for Cuba. If we ever visit, I seriously doubt it will be from this base. Instead, we will see a version of Cuba that's much different than what's explained in the book. But then again, are NYC or Miami or Paris the same cities 60 years later, either?

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to most people just because of all the references to Cuban writers (there is one section where Infante parodies famous Cuban writers telling the story of Trotsky's assassination in Mexico---random, I know, but hilarious at the same time).  It can be tedious and it almost needs footnotes for anyone who isn't familiar with Latin American literature and history. Parts of the book are in Spanglish. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it 25 years (!!!) after my last Spanish class, and I'm happy that somewhere in my brain is a part that gets many of the cultural references and understands the language. Book 2 is down, only 30 or so to go. 

Next up: Nigeria and the amazingly titled book, Blackass.

Brave New World; or, Techno-slothing

Technology has hit GTMO.

So instead of using the pay phone to call home, I can whip out my cell phone---the same cell phone that can call US numbers---and talk any time I want. I no longer have to wait to find a (free) public phone to call my house or my husband at work, which depending on where I was on base, once meant I could possibly stand in line. Yes, just like in the 1970s. Also I don't have to spend about $20 for a single decent phone conversation with a friend or family member in the U.S. anymore. 

a ball gown, a garden gnome, a diet Coke, and an honest-to-God functional phone booth

Okay, mom, now that I figured out how to close the phone booth,
how do I get out of this thing? 

You can't miss it, either. With little grace or effort to hide our oblivion to our surroundings, we have become an island of people who walk with our heads hanging towards the ground (or sitting and staring at our crotches). Welcome to the 21st century, GTMO---it ain't pretty. 

I'm just waiting for someone to walk into the Windjammer Pool or step on a not-so-friendly iguana or into the Bay because they aren't paying attention. And I'm sure someone else will be there with a cell phone, filming it all and posting it on Youtube, which we can all now watch without waiting hours to buffer.

I used to consider myself a tech-saavy kinda gal, but four long years of technology draught has made me feel like a doofus.  I am still not used to carrying a cell phone. I leave it at home. I leave it at work. I have people texting me, where are you? Do you ever answer your texts?  And the answer: only if I remember my phone. 

After 4 years of not using a cell phone, I forget to turn off the ringer at the most embarrassing moments. I don't ever check my voice mail. Even before trying to cut off my finger, I was awful at texting. And talking on it? I've always hated talking on the phone, so I'm bad about using it.

I was in my house last weekend and I heard a weird buzzing. It REALLY freaked me out. 

I've had hummingbirds fly into my classroom more than once (the last time, a student calmly and patiently opened her hand, and when finally rewarded with a tiny hummingbird gently landing on her palm, she released it unharmed outside---true story). We have other insects and animals that make vibrating, buzzing noises, too. So I'm thinking, it's a bird. It's a weird beetle or huge moth. It's a snake. It's a weird tropical creature that probably carries an incurable tropical disease, and it's in my bedroom.

It was none of the above. It was my cell phone making that unusual ring tone/buzzing noise to indicate that someone is trying to do facebook chat. 

And just like that, I'm talking to a friend in South Korea. It's awesome! But it's so strange, because I feel like I have been in a vortex of 1980s technology and missed out on 10 years instead of four. 

Oh, what I've missed out on.

There's the world of Youtube.
Of course we had Youtube before higher speed internet, but between buffering and the internet just stopping (or never even working), I never, ever watched those videos everyone seems to post on socal media:

Cats scared of cucumbers.
Cats riding on Roombas.
Music videos. I didn't realize bands still make music videos.
Vine compilations. 
Inspirational quotes set to music that are really, really, corny, but some days are exactly what I want to see.
Videos of people playing video games. And they get paid (a lot, evidently) for it. Seriously, W.T.H? 

And there is THIS viral video that just happens to feature my GTMO buddy's granddaughter, Aurora.

And right on time for the election---the nasty, vile, sometimes erroneous (okay, many times erroneous) information out there, many times in the form of fake-but-real looking news reports--- I sort of decided to quit watching Youtube so much and don't really click on people's videos on facebook anymore. A few weeks was enough. I'm totally over it now. 

Like my cell phone, I like to take my Youtube in moderation.

But then there is Netflix and Apple TV.

I had Netflix before moving here in 2012, but I find myself gobsmacked at what's out there and what I've missed in four years. 

I really *really* feel like I'm getting nothing productive done because I have access to television on demand. I am really overdoing it.

Like watching an entire season of Nurse Jackie with a friend in one sitting. Or watching all seasons of Scandal (don't judge) or trying to catch all of Gilmore Girls (again, no judging) so I can catch the special over Thanksgiving weekend. 

I had a friend who won't be named (and sometimes reads this) who grew up without a television in her home. When she bought her first house, she went out and bought a t.v. In a few days, she took it back. The store wanted to know what was wrong with it. Nothing, she said. I just watch it too much.

So this Brave New World, the one with cell phone calls (and facetime!) and television on demand (and youtube!) and viral videos, video chats, instagram, and facebook----I am a little overwhelmed. And I am underwhelmed. I do sort of miss working my way through a novel or a magazine in attempts to get to sleep. I miss stopping everything in my life so I didn't miss the one and only showing of Game of Thrones on HBO Sunday night (no on-demand here). It gave me a place to be and something to do consistently. 

Instead, now I can become even more of a hermit and choose to spend all evening on the back porch, my bedroom, or most bizarrely, in the den, watching something with headphones, while my kids and husband are sitting a few feet away, doing the same thing. 

I love being able to connect with more people in more places---it is SO hard to maintain friendships via messenger, because so much is missed in a text conversation---but I also feel like a true techno-sloth. In connecting with people outside the home, I feel cut off from what's around me. 

So with that, forgive me if I don't return your texts or call back if you leave a voice mail. I probably have left my cell in the car or at work, or the sound is turned completely off. If you message me on facebook and it seems like I'm online but ignoring you, it's only because I can't figure out how to make it look like I'm not on 24 hours a day. If I don't answer your calls, it may be because I am not fast enough to slide that stupid bar on the phone. Or I had the sound turned off and now it's dead, so calling it doesn't do any good in trying to find it. Or it's locked and I can't unlock it fast enough, because my fingers are TOO DAMN SLOW. 

And if I text you about my thong, it's actually supposed to be thing. 

Trust me on this.  

Crabby Days; or, Let's Pretend This is Normal

And now the latest addition of Let's Pretend This is Normal.

Exhibit A: I've got crabs. Lots of crabs.

They like to do things like tip my tacky yard art over. See my "gazing ball?" I don't even know what the point of these things is. I have a nice metal planter and I can't manage to keep a plant alive inside of it, so it's now home to this blue bowling ball-sized glass ball. It's quite heavy. And thanks to a blue land crab, it's always on my front door step (next to piles of banana rat poo).

I have to fight crabs sometimes to get in my classroom. They are small and feisty---they put up their little crabby claws and run towards me, like they are going to take me down. I pick them up, move them off the sidewalk (so nobody steps on them and squishes them---sadly, it does happen), and an hour or so later, do it again. And again. All day long, they keep sideways walking into the wall by my door, and I'm always moving them to the grass. It's like a crazy game, where a crab is getting the last laugh.

(Or maybe, just maybe, Island Fever has officially made me crazy).

Either way, this is the new normal.

Exhibit B:
We also have a major food crisis. McDonald's, one of our eight fine eating establishments (we also have Windjammer/Pizza Hut, O'Kelly's, Bayview, Jerk House, Taco Bell, Triple B, Subway), will be closed for six weeks. The high school kids can no longer eat at the Galley, our mess hall (and best eating establishment here, in my opinion) for a discount price. The buses no longer take kids to the Galley or anywhere else off campus for lunch. So we now have even less options.

Am I sad? Not really. It is unhealthy junk food, after all (as are about half of our food choices here). But their chicken wings and sticky rice are my FAVORITE go-to meal/comfort food. We are small and isolated, but our McDonald's secret menu item is the BEST I've had anywhere else we've lived.

Of course, I've eaten at McDonald's here more in 3 years than in the 40+ years of my life combined pre-GTMO, so who knows what super-secret items are really out there. All I know is we have even less places to go for a quick meal. The fact that I would even consider fast food a "meal" is a new normal, too. 

Also Exhibit C: I recently berated a childhood friend on facebook for killing a huge tarantula he encountered while working in Equatorial Guinea. Did I mention it was huge? I wouldn't have blinked an eye if this had happened 3 years ago, but my new normal is loving tarantulas and making sure they aren't unnecessarily killed.

There's D: 

I feed iguanas hibiscus flowers for fun. Just letting that sentence percolate in my head blows my mind.

I call her "Mama" because she has baby iguanas running all over school. I'm afraid a boa has eaten some of them; let's hope that the remaining ones can outrun it and grow up to be other cute iguanas. I am glad that a female has taken up at school instead of a male, since they are SO much friendlier. 

So feeding wildlife hibiscus blooms is my normal. I am not kidding when I say that even on the roughest, toughest, most exhausting of days, I feel 100 times better by just watching her walk around our school atrium. 

And finally, E: 

The Map of Lost Map has THREE new pins, thanks to our ever-exciting mail service. Sometimes we get it three times a week; sometimes, three times a month. It's always like Christmas up in here. I am still waiting for a package I mailed in July to get to GTMO (and it's September). It's been stuck in Customs in Chicago forever now. 

I still can't understand how 09588, the USS Truxtun; 09009, Ramstein, Germany; and 09357, Kuwait City, Kuwait, look anything like 09593, but whatever. My mail is well traveled and my map contains lots of pins of places I have never been (but would like to visit one day). 

Yo Viviré; or, Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday, the 19th, was my one year GTMOversary!

Time has flown.

Enjoy the video, and crank up your speakers for the Queen of Salsa.

(If you can't get the embedded video to open, click on the link underneath the video box).

Yo Viviré from LuLu Lock on Vimeo.