The Morning After the Snow Fall....Photo 5
Dinner at the Blue House . Photo 4
By 10 pm it was snowing hard. photo 3
Vida, an UmonHon, mother of my good friend MiHu. photo 2P
Pray for the first snow of the season, say the Indians. photo 1How many times already I have looked at those pictures that arrived from Havana today , I know every single spot of those photographs.. I could feel the wind on my skin, as I recalled the tender moments that I had passed in the various places depicted in the photographs..
Earlier during the day I had been feeling a sensation of profound sadness at the plight of the Indians. The community I had come to see, had no water supply and they had to survive on hauled water and bottled water because of E Coli contamination! This in 2008 and in the First World..But then again, Indians had always lived a life outside of the mainstream of this country and it is that beauty of closeness to their originality that brings me back, among other things, to the isolated communities of Indians in the USA.
The sadness took me to yet another time when my body was very tired, and emotionally drained after my repeated trips to Japan in 205. A sense of feeling perpertually an outsider, unable to understand what was happening with an intense desire to get out of there.. which I did , three years ago never to go back.
Very sympathetic conversation with Paris and ending up in a higher note of joy and comprehension and the joy of appreciation of good things in life..
I received an absolutely gorgeous email from my good friend Sandra from Melbourne..
Cuba is nostalgia for me,
the photographs brought on such nostalgia, in fact it was more than nostalgia, it is that painful sensation of longing of having had something, one feels that one is on the brink of loosing it or the sensation of feeling that you had already had lost something you never had..
I feel so high at this moment, while writing this .. as if I have taken some drug.. even though what all I have had this evening, as follows…
It had begun snowing and Indians have taught me that one must always say thanks for the first snow, it clears the earth of disease and illnesses and suffering. A patient of mine arrives to repair the electric wires in the library he is constructing in this Blue House, as a sanctuary for me when I am here. I was surprised that he would venture out knowing that it would be snowing hard tonight. But every now and then he comes and attends to the Blue House..
After he and his companion left, I was pondering over the bottle of Malbec which I had been looking at jealously, but I am not in the habit of drinking alone…
I decide to open it.. and there is a knock on the door.
It was Vida.. mother of my good friend MiHu who is in Australia at the moment. We sipped wine and talked about the Indians and their way of thinking and feeling and I could learn so much. Indians are natural teachers, and she told me so many things. Keep your ears open, Indians had told me, and you would hear a lot..
There is a radio streaming station at www.pandora.com but I think it is only in the USA and what it does that it streams the music that you like to hear.. I have requested a chanel which plays Cabo Verde music and similar music mainly from Brasil but also Cuban oriental music..right now they are playing one of my all time favourite songs..Manha de Carnival..
I am overcome with such nostalgic feeling, that it is absolutely divine.. no drug would give me this ecstasy..It began with the telephone call from Paris, my patient coming to repair the electric wires, wonderful and spiritual conversation with Vida, a telephone call to Kuala Lumpur to wish Mitexi (the other daughter of Vida0 who is coming home today.
When Vida left , the snow fall had intensified.
And once again looked at the Cuban pictures.. more intensely at some and humourously at others, like the black flags with stars in front of the american interests section in vedado.. and the photo of Hotel Nacional seen through the legs in stripped tights…
Started preparing the dinner I had begun. Vida had brought some soup which tasted good .. but I prided in the fact that even being so far away from everything, I could drink a good red wine from argentina, have homemade Indian soup, and of course the salad I had made : avocado plus the ingredients.( taught by MiHu)
My stomach is full, my mind is full and my soul is full…
What else can a man want? In the short span of an evening, in an isolated village in the middle of this vast Turtle Island they call USA, I had touched all that places that matters to me most: Paris, Havana, Melbourne and the people who add lustre to my life…
The Argentine Malbec was not bad either…
My heart is firmly tethered to Paris, my soul is with my friends in Havana and Baracoa and my spirit is with the UmonHon people among whom I am at present.
December 12th UmonHon Nation to Paris
December 15th Paris to Bombay to Cochin
December 19th Cochin to Kuala Lumpur………………Love to all of You…
