Q-ba Diaries 3

This is some stuff I wrote down during my 2nd week in Cuba.

Cuba is a more expensive form of India, in the sense that nothing works here either, but it just costs you a shit lot of money. Telecommunications is terrible. Making a phone call is more expensive than probably anywhere in the world.

It is a country which has nothing, except for enmity with the USA, but their money is expensive, even more than USD. The currencies that they use vary for foreigners and the local people. The salary for the local people is apparently only about 20 CUC a month, so I am really not sure how it works for them, since everything is so expensive.

It is a country full of some of the most helpful people that I have ever met in my life. Where a random person on the street will let you call using their phone card, even if they don't know English.

Not many people here speak English, but it’s not for lack of trying. They will speak the broken English that they know and do their best to understand you and explain to you.
It is also probably the only country in the world where the guys look better than girls, in general.

Their colour sense in clothes, however, is very disturbing. They believe in wearing a lot of bright colours, and usually it’s the same for both the top and bottom. So do not be surprised when you see people walking around in bright fluorescent orange or yellow. Guys here also wear a lot of all white clothes – white shirt and white jeans. From the way that people in such attires walk around, I figure that this is their version of looking their best. I beg to differ.
The rich and poor divide is so painfully obvious in the hotel. The people who live here, and the people who work here live in the same physical paradigm, but lead entirely opposite lives. For the haves, it’s a life of sitting in the garden with a view of the ocean 10 feet away. For the have nots it’s a life of drudgery, of making enough money to survive.

There is something about the vastness of the ocean which inspires you. It makes you dig deeper into yourself, think of things that would normally not even ruffle your subconscious (subconscience?). It is similar to, yet very different from, the stillness of a forest, the sheer drop of a cliff, the fury of a thunderstorm. They all make you feel small, and yet a part of the grand theme of events. Whichever perspective you choose to take - God/nature/magic/science, the sheer magnitude of such things forces you to be awed and amazed.