Cuban Journalist

Yesterday, a Cuban journalist drove me to my hotel.

Technically, he’s working as an Uber driver now.

I had the most enlivening 24-minutes in Rafael’s backseat that I have had in a long time. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)

He was embarrassed at his English.

My Spanish is incredibly rusty.

But some things don’t need the perfect words, they’re just transmitted. And we certainly managed that.

Actually, there are no “Cuban journalists”, he tells me. “If they’re allowed to write, they’re just publishing propaganda. I didn’t work for the government because they wouldn’t have approved of what I was saying. I was more of a blogger. They didn’t like that.”

Apparently they really didn’t like that, because whatever he wrote got him deported.

“Actually, they don’t call it ‘deported,’” He explains.

“They say, ‘You know, it’s clear that you're not happy here. And you must love your government in order to have a good life. We’re going to give you the chance to start over somewhere else so you can be happy.’”

And that was that. 26-years-old. No longer able to see his mother, his sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins…

Apparently that’s the polite, hospitable way to be deported.

The plan was always to get a visa and come to America, so he chose Ecuador because he thought it would be the easiest jump. But he found he really loved the country, so he stayed.

He taught Spanish and Spanish literature.

He fell in love.

Then his highly-tuned journalist’s senses perked up… Some changes in the Ecuadorian government reminded him of what had happened in Cuba. He was NOT in for another round of that.

So he tried, unsuccessfully, to convince his partner to move with him. “I’m gay,” he throws over his shoulder to be sure I understand what “partner” means.

Heartbroken, he could see the writing on the wall.

He sold every single thing he owned in Ecuador. Every. Single. Thing.

… For an $8,000 fake visa to get to Mexico that stated he had a job there as an English teacher. Then he borrowed money from friends to pay for the plane ticket that would take him to this fictitious job and jump him across Mexico.

"You Americans don’t understand how lucky you are,” he tells me, “just to be born here. Every Cuban dreams of coming to the USA, and many of them die trying.”

Many Cubans, he tells me, come to the USA by boat. But the stories of drownings and sharks are enough to put him off that plan.

Many other Cubans, he explains, walk. WALK. Starting in Colombia, they walk through 8 countries to get to the American southern border.

We both scrunch our faces as we try to picture the Latin American map in our minds to lay out the trek:

- Colombia

- Panama

- Costa Rica

- Nicaragua

- Honduras

- El Salvador

- Guatemala

"And then you finally get to Mexico. And Mexico is just sooooo big,” he says.

He tells me of the kidnappers in Mexico who target traveling immigrants on this trek, assuming (usually correctly), that they’re carrying their life-savings on them. Or the ones who they can kidnap and extort families back home for money. “And if they catch you and you have no money…” The universal sign of a finger across a throat needs no translation.

The ones who do get there, and haven’t died of hunger or dehydration have been walking for about 6 months. Six months.

I imagine the complaints from my youngest as we walk the mile from our back door to the lakefront beach. For fun.

I shiver as I imagine walking with them for six months. I thought I was empathetic to the families who show up on our border with their children. But a whole new well of empathy blooms in my belly.

This, he tells me, is why he hatches a plan to fly. There will be no sharks. There will be no kidnappers. He plans the perfect itinerary to jump from Mexican airport to Mexican airport, finally landing him as close to the border as he can get.

Then… he just walks across. “Wet feet, dry feet was repealed one week later,” he explains. Those journalist’s senses again - keeping him one step ahead.

He goes from Houston, to Nebraska, and eventually to Phoenix, following the best-paying jobs available to a hard-working immigrant.

We bond over stories of heartbreak (his partner did eventually leave Ecuador to follow him), and marvel at the wisdom of the body.

At poignant moments, we catch each other's eyes in the rear-view mirror. Above our masks. Between his English, my Spanish, and the dance-mix radio we turned down so we could hear each other better.

Because no matter if you're a girl from Colorado, starting over at 40, or an outspoken tattooed journalist (blogger) from Cuba setting the world on fire, heartbreak and starting a new life slices us all the same way.

The grief. The guilt. The hard-knock lessons. The beauty of knowing yourself better for it. The wrenching pain of admitting it needs to happen. The numbness at the start. Then the mounting rhythm as you start to find your footing… No one can avoid the trip there. No one needs a visa. Everyone is thrown down that same rabbit hole and forced to find their way through. And like a hazing ritual, there’s a certain understanding that passes between others who've lived to tell the tale.

I pat his shoulder and we both wipe away our tears.

We’re almost to my hotel. I urge him back to his story.

His eyes SHINE as he tells me his latest plan - he's saved enough to buy his mother a visa and fly her to the Dominican Republic this summer. He'll meet her there. It will be the first time they’ve seen each other in four years. He is positively glowing with pride.

He'll then stay in Miami and go to nursing school. And eventually move his mom to the USA with him. All he wants to do is spend the rest of his life helping people.

I have no doubt he’ll make it happen.

We get out of the car, meet by the trunk, and both say, “Is it okay if I hug you?”

We hug like old friends saying goodbye for the last time, and hold just a little longer to stay in the moment.

I think about him all night.

About his mom. About the love who followed him from Ecuador, who he eventually had to leave in Nebraska.

About how he is working so damned hard to have a life where he can speak the truth, help people, and make life a little better for the people he loves most.

About how I take for granted almost every day that I happened to be born in a country where I can write whatever I damn well please on the internet with no worry of consequences.

And certainly no worry of sharks.

About Esther Perel's definition of eroticism, “Eroticism is not sex per se, but the qualities of vitality, curiosity, and spontaneity that make us feel alive.”

About how she noticed during the pandemic that it was a lack of eroticism that was causing so many of us to feel so “blah.” A lack of these unexpected, chance meetings. A lack of surprise. A lack of true connection.

I think about how easy it is to stay behind my mask. To pull down my hat, scroll my phone, and not make eye contact.

And it is almost painful to wonder how many of these interactions I’ve missed when I let myself do that.

So I am grateful for the reminder.

And grateful for my new friend.

And hoping he gets all the rides he needs to fund nursing school.

I have never left a better tip.