The first encounter

I spent most of the evening walking randomly, visiting only the Museo Granma, and skipping all other monuments pretty much throughout my trip. "It will be about people", I had decided. I eventually tired out, went home, and at the recommendation of my hostess, went to Hotel Florida to catch some live music and watch some salsa.

On the way there, already, I had my pre-encounter, when a meaty woman – Amelie - approached me, as usual asking my name, where I was from etc. I said I was up for a bite, and she showed me a plastic bag she was carrying – this is rice, come to my home, I will make you chicken with tomato. There was clearly a hint of more as well, and I was to realize much later on that it did not really matter much if she were actually living with her mom as she claimed.

Anyway she delivered me to the doorman at Hotel Florida, and I was ensconced on a bar stool after a 5 CUC cover, sipping my first mojito of the night and sizing up the 5 girls also at the bar. One of them was an absolute – ABSOLUTE – stunner, pure Afro-Cuban, tall, the flesh yet to even say hello to gravity, beautiful eyes, teeth, nose – she was a goddess. After a few minutes, she sidled up to me introducing herself and her coterie, and they all left her with me and retired to a table at the far corner, to the right of where the band would play.  She asked for a, and we did the usual round of introductions.

As I was finishing up my abysmally bad tuna sandwich – chunks of tuna with some mayonnaise (I think) on top – she approached again, asking for a light. The mojito was working, and this time I let on that I actually spoke Spanish. She didn't seem to mind that I had feigned ignorance the first time. Then it started: Are you here alone? Do you have a woman in Cuba? Do you want a massage? I give a really good massage. I wish she had just asked if I'd marry her, I probably would have.

She was nearing the end of her patience. She asked me why I would not, and I liberally lied and said I had someone in my heart, was in love. She said she too was in love, with life, and laughed hard, throwing her head back and exposing teeth, each one of which could be a poem.  She eventually found her calling with two white tourist dudes on the other end (i.e. to the left of the band) and was seen leaving the bar with one of them much later, a little feather boa magically draped around her neck. She didn't say bye.

PS: There were several things to note. First, all the bar staff were white, or at least fair. The chief dude, a baldie, was not only white but was quite surely the pimp. He was bossing all and sundry and with a slight cock of his finger would have one of the working girls gallop up to him to take some instructions. What a strange world we live in.