Book Excerpts

From Day One, Giordano — one of my dance teachers — kept forgetting that this was a class and started seducing me for real. This is normal for Cubans; he couldn’t help himself.

In Cuba, this is not considered unprofessional. Boundaries are flexible and loose, and almost everything is possible and permitted. It’s the most promiscuous place I’ve ever been to.

One evening while in Havana, I went with a friend to see a live show. At the next table, a man was shoving his hands inside his woman’s dress and touching her breasts in front of everyone… no big deal. No big deal? Huge deal! I couldn’t help but be shocked. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been to Cuba; nothing ceases to amaze me.

Havana, to me, is Sin City. A friend of mine jokes that this is the one place God never visits. But while people think of a Sin City as a dark place full of criminals — the sort of metropolis Batman needs to save — Havana is different. It’s a place where anything can happen because the boundaries are loose, yet it’s a colourful city full of rhythm, interesting people, passion and seduction.

Cuban cuisine is rich with African, Caribbean, Spanish and indigenous influences.

A typical Cuban dish, moros y cristianos (Moors and Christians), consists of white rice and black beans. The beans are called frijoles, and the rice is a legacy of Spain’s colonizers and the African slaves. Haiti gave the Cubans the rice-and-red-beans dish called congrí. Both the Spaniards and Africans influenced cooking and introduced fried food such as pollo frito a la criolla (Creole-style fried chicken) and various sauces. Cubans love covering their rice with a delicious sauce to keep it from being dry. Typical African foods include yam, banana, malanga, plantain, okra and tostones, which are green plantains squashed and fried twice. Cuba’s national dish, ajiaco, is really a typical native dish that originated with the Taínos who were living in Cuba when Columbus landed in 1492.

Fresh lobsters and other tasty seafood dishes are offered in many restaurants, while pork is the most common meat in a Cuban home or restaurant. Chicken is also common, though beef is not — and can only be sold with special permission, since there isn’t enough cattle in Cuba. One can actually go to jail for years for slaughtering a cow without permission.

At one point the possessed guy turned to a man and asked him if he had any money. The guy checked his wallet and said no, prompting the possessed man to scream that he was lying.

Sure enough, the man had a big banknote but was afraid he’d never see his money again, so he preferred to lie.

While the possessed guy was setting him straight, the unfortunate man was scrambling to borrow a smaller bill from someone else. The possessed guy, looking as if he were some African god delivering the ultimate truth, chattered on in Yoruba. It had to do with the money, but I had no idea what. I noticed that by now, six hours of singing, dancing, cigars, rum, sweat and heat had gone by — and I was thirsty.