lundi 11 janvier 2016

SWOON OVER MIAMI MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH TROPICAL LANGUOR

SWOON OVER MIAMI: LOVE AFFAIR WITH TROPICAL TORPOR CONTINUES. 2016
Just a few days ago, I said a symbolic good bye to Europe. It is symbolic rather than pedantic, as I have said good-byes to Europe previously, Sweden, France, and England. I still long for London but to others I have no attachment.
American Airlines Flight 39 took me from London to Miami. On arrival, Global Entry machines demand your fingerprints and then cautiously questions, in print, were you on flight 39? I answer yes and that is it, you are welcome to the USA and within minutes I am waiting for my café cortado ..On the other side.. The Cuban Miami.
Miami was love at first sight when I arrived here as a Graduate Student and then again as a full-fledged doctor to study Endocrinology.
More importantly this is where my love for Cuba was born! To be able to live on “ambos lados del rayo” on both sides of the line has been a privilege.
Coming to Miami before going off to other destinations has the advantage of integrating yourself into American Culture and environment. My sister lives here and I am always relaxed at her house, the fact that she can make the best Baba Ganoush, Taboule and Hummus is an added incentive of course . Years ago while enjoying this common Mediterranean foods, I was able to formulate the concept of Genetic Food, that you must eat your ancestors food, which in my case , resembles what my sister cooks for me.

My younger brother who would travel a hundred miles for a good foul madames, must be green with envy as I feasted on foul, hummus and other delights of our ancestors.

The languorous  days were broken only by visits to Carlito’s Café where the seasoned Cuban waitresses extended their effusive welcome, and I realized that in Cuba, Starbucks would only be popular among the tourists. We already have the champagne of coffees there...
Harvard scientists following the original class of 1938, had made the startling but fresh discovery that in the end relationships is all what that matters. Not being a member of Facebook, and knowing the significance of Dunbar number which caps our capacities for good friendships at far below 15, visits to Miami on top of the tattooed in your heart friendships in Cuba, I have my 15 already!!
In Europe it seems that relationships are measured in terms of blood ties on which is based what one can do for another or give and take. In Miami and Cuba, my aim in my relationships have always been to appreciate the other to such a degree that it would bring them closer to their dreams
                 (Brickell Bay and memories of student days in Miami)
This visit was especially good. A good friend was visiting from Cayman Islands. My dear friends M and G were as usual the gracious hosts with whom I had the luck of sharing a very nice meal at Prima Pasta.


This emotionally satisfying visit, congruous with what I believe happiness derives from, was capped by an invitation received from TED MED to be a Research Scholar for 2016 with a possibility to attend the meeting in November 2016. It is truly an honour.
Now in the days to come, I play the medical anthropologist to the Indians of America, and return to the dear ISLA RICA south of here to give two conferences, one to a group of Family Physicians and the other to Endocrinologists of Havana

The second topic would be looking at Obesity and Diabetes from the socio cultural point of view, rather than physiologic or biomedical. The first talk is the one I am looking forward to giving: 100 different thing you can do to make you and your patients happy and healthy, which would be an amalgam of scientific studies, yogic philosophy, Buddhist thinking and the teachings of American Indians.

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