Epicuriosity

Wednesday May 26th

Today is Mark’s birthday!! Let’s celebrate with rum and food! Every day we are here is a celebration. The family is all together and everyone is so happy (even before the rum).
But before we celebrate the birth of an amazing man, we are going to honor the death of another.  I never met my grandfather. He died of lukemia in Cuba when he was just 24 years old. Today we visited his grave. We also visited my great grandmother’s grave. She died 28 days before her 100th birthday! In Cuba when you die you are placed in a box (kind of like a coffin) and after several years your remains are removed from the box and put in a small box and placed in a mausoleum. They have opened my great grandmother’s grave twice to remove her remains, but she is still in tact. How weird is that?!
After the gravesite we all headed to a cousins house for lunch (after we made a stop for rum and beer).My tia (aunt) Nilda lives so far out in the country that her son has to go pick her up on a tractor! She lives without electricity or running water. She actually likes it that way. Her husband says there is no communism on his mountain so he’s not moving. I suppose seclusion wouldn’t be too bad in Cuba. You could live the way you wanted to and not have to hear the brainwashing on TV or see the soldiers in the street.
We spent the day listening to my uncle sing as we sat outside, rum in hand and watched my cousin cook in her outdoor kitchen. I got to pet a horse, and a baby chicken! I also got to knock fruit right out the tree! Yes, I really do get excited about these things…sad I know. haha

It was SO hot today. Between the heat, full stomachs and rum we decided to nap. Every house we have been to someone took a nap after we ate. Whoever is hosting even asks if you’d like to lay down for a bit after you eat. It’s kind of an odd thing to be a visitor and then take a nap in your host’s bed. It seems so odd. But after several days here it’s not so odd and actually starts sounding like a great idea. Nothing like having all the windows and doors open with a fan blowing on you as you sleep with a full belly. A hammock is the only thing that could have made it better!
We headed back to tio Arturo’s house (where we are staying) and found a GIANT cake, food and even bread waiting for us! My cousins threw Mark a suprise birthday party! My dad had been planning for weeks. Trying to get flour and all the ingredients for the cake. It meant so much to Mark. Soon all the family started pouring in and telling Mark “feliz cumpleanos”. When it was time to sing I prepared myself to sing in spanish and had been practicing in my head for the last ten minutes. Nope. About 15 people who speak absolutely NO English sang Happy Birthday to Mark….in English! It was so funny and so amazingly sweet! I’m so happy I got that on video!

The evening consisted of rum (suprise!), cigars and several old men, Mark included heehee, sitting around gossiping and talking politics. Trying to explain US politics is really hard to do when all their life they have been fed filtered and censored information about the US. My dad was the translator and we have some different political views so I don’t think he was translating exactly what I wanted him to say! We told our uncles “See, we can’t even agree within our own family, how is a whole country going to all agree on something and get anything accomplished?!”

The night endded with Mark and I dancing under the full moon. Life is good. Real good. I have no idea what’s going on in the world right now. No idea about work or the economy. There could be a major disaster and we would never know. But none of that matters. What matters is that I am happy to be alive. Living life. Experiencing the simple pleasures like eating fruit right off the tree and dancing under the moon with my love.
Cuba is absolutely wonderful! Not one day goes by that I don’t get teary eyed from being so happy that we are here.