Contra-ditch

I wrote the following post after spending the day doing a guided tour of the countryside in Vinales, Cuba. I want to assure everybody that the pessimistic nature of this post does not at all reflect my entire opinion on the tourism industry in Cuba, nor does it intend to put words into anyone's mouths (especially my family that was there on the tour with me). It is instead simply a reflection on the contradictions and insincerities that tourism industries can create-- especially within a country where vast economic and political differences exist between citizens and visitors.

That one time that we spent the day walking through the Cuban countryside was. You know. What it was, in that way. In that red earth and green leaves kind of way; dry rocks and tepid skies with dry caves and no bats but plenty of wrinkles…kind of way.

 

When we went by their house—the tobacco farmers’—I became annoyed with myself. You know me- I hate faking sincerity.

 

I felt like, you know, we show up there and they’re supposed to be happy to receive us; thrilled to be performing “the ceremony of cigar making” to their affluent, camera happy audience (myself included), when really, they may feel subjected to the tourism industry’s equivalent of the Myth of Sisyphus—rolling tobacco leaves again and again and again as Sisyphus did with the boulder—with no foreseeable end or goal in sight except the chance of survival.

 

This was the way I felt two days ago—when we, as a group, reimbursed said individuals’ hospitality by exchanging money for cigars, and forcing first names and smiles.

 

It was not that I did not find these individuals charming. Indeed I did. But I felt uncomfortable at how our relation to one another felt so fabricated; you know….like the exchange that we were having was itself an elephant in the room even though that was the reason that everyone was there to begin with. (“I’ll let you appropriate my culture a little if you give me a shot at your culture’s level of consumerism”). I think I would feel much more comfortable with those sorts of interactions if everyone were ready to confront any awkwardness head-on from the beginning. You know? Like “hey, thanks for having us here. I’m North American, and yeah, I know there’s  economic tension between us, and I feel a little (a lot) awkardness having so much disposal income and knowing that my desire to smoke a Cuban cigar could greatly affect your lifestyle this month.”

 

But instead the conversations are all “oh, how long have you been living here?” and “how many cigars does your father smoke a day…” blah blah blah. So for me, it really produces the opposite effect. The whole fabrication of “a day in the life of a campesino” actually feels like to me “a day in the life of people lying to eachother.”