I got to visit Cuba for the fourth time last week; it is a beautiful country, its people so warm, friendly and hardworking, and it’s so very different from our life here in North America. I took some mental notes on the bus ride back to the airport:
Sketches of Cuba 2018
University-educated bus guide,
fluent in four languages,
entertaining with his dry sense of humour;
is he happy?
horse and buggy carrying uniformed girls to school;
boy pumping water using an ancient hand pump;
powdery sand stretching to infinity,
outlining the turquoise ocean;
bright splotches of yellow popping out of the green;
signs of Irma,
uprooted trees, missing roof tiles;
cinderblock homes,
windows shuttered up, blocking the heat – no glass?
men, the same vintage as their bicycles,
pedalling down dirt lanes – s-l-o-w-l-y,
sniffing dogs trailing along behind;
bamboo fields
and neat rows of green
meandering up hillsides toward distant mountains;
people chatting in corner cafés – not Tim Horton’s,
waiting, for what?
Time stands still.
Jan L. Coates
Jan L. Coates - "What if...?" 
You just need to illustrate this and you have a picture book!!
In my dreams, but thanks, Darlene:)
So glad you had a good trip. Hopefully we’ll get together for coffee soon.
Yup, maybe next week? We leave on the 11th …
To the suggestion that there’s a picture book there, I was thinking more like a novel for adults. i love these notes.
Thanks for reading, Mirka – there is something to be said for simpler times, but I do wonder what would happen if Cuba opened its doors, and the people were able to come and go freely.
Beautiful!!!
Thanks for stopping by, Vijaya!
I would call this list/note-to-self “free verse”. Poetic language, word choice and line arrangement create poignant images of life in Cuba. Beautifully captured, Jan.
Thanks so much, Peggy – I have written things in free verse occasionally; it’s an interesting challenge to paint those pictures and tell those stories in so few words. I like reading free verse novels, too, but always find they seem too short …
Very evocative description of your trip. There is something to be said about a simpler way of life.
Totally agree, Dave – although I do enjoy having running water:)