KINDNESS
IN THE TIME OF DIFFICULTIES
I
have always wondered why the Cubans who live in the island are so kind and
demonstrate a sense of solidarity that one rarely see in other Latin american
Countries.
It
is a mindset they have grown up with from an early age, it has to be. While
there is a fair share of ungrateful people in Cuba as well, whether they are
doctors training to be specialists or well worn manipulators of the social
systems. But in my experience over the many years, for every one bad person in
Cuba there are nine other good people, who are grateful and not only that but
they go out of their way to be of help. Not like the cunning retired military
man with a car who once said, if it is good money I am up to it.
It
was a hot day, as happens here in the dog days of summer, especially in the
month of August. I am spending one week to get away from the madness of life in
Miami as well as their unaccountably childish, feverishly fascist
pronouncements. It is quiet here in Havana, one does not walk around in the
middle of the day of course.
I
enjoy massage therapy in Cuba, where the medical masage therapist is usually
well qualified with years of studies of the relevant human systems to benefit
from this type of massage.
Valentin
is a friend, but he lives about 90 minutes away at the mercy of buses and
private car collectives. It can take him up to 120 minutes to get to my house,
but at time he has been lucky to get back home in one hour.
I
called him and he promised to be here mas o menos before lunch time as it is
better to have a massage in an empty stomach. Today it took only 2 hours for
him to get to my house from his house in the next province. We talked for a
while and then he got to work on the parts of the body that needed a little
anti inflammatory massage as well as some muscles that needed relaxing.
It
was one of the nicest massages I had received and felt very comfortable and
relaxed. Over lunch prepared by my landlady, we talked about his plans for the
future. Like most Cubans in the island, he is good at more than just one thing.
He is a master tailor, a hobby he took up at age 9 and he is very good at
construction, which began as necessity has turned him into a professional.
I have friends in his town, and I wanted to send a few
things including medications to my friends and a gift to the recently graduated
medical student. He got up to leave and of course accepting any form of payment
from me was out of question.He acceeded to accepting the bus fares to and fro
but refused any sort of compensation for the hour long excellent massage.
After he left I contemplated about these kinds of
actions, unselfish, no ulterior motives but a genuine desire to be a friend to
you. The occidental concept of Time is Money has not crept into the Cuban mindset,
plus the thought is,it is time to do something for the other.
Dr
Altshuler, the father of the current head of Physics at the University of
Havana and son of a founding father of Cuban Communist party, had told me when
I met him during my first days and months in Cuba. If you are interested in
only yourself, go to USA but if you are interested in the welfare of the
others, you have come to a Paradise, said talmudically this son of polish
Jewish migrants to Cuba.I am happy to say that I have taken his advice to
heart. As American Indians would say, be grateful, do something for others and
be humble.
