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