Relating to Cuba
September 21, 2017
We all need water to survive, we need dirt to plant seeds and with the mixture of the two it creates an element that we need in order to grow. They call this little community in Cuba the mud but not for the way I see it but because it is dirty and poor. Poverty is something that exists but nobody really talks about it. Maybe it’s not addressed because people don’t want to be reminded of the things they are letting pass or maybe society just doesn’t care. In the community known as the “Mud,” people are staring at me as I walk through their neighborhood with my camera not even using it. Out of respect, I don’t even bother to look them in the eye and stare back as I would normally do if someone was making unusual eye contact.
I look like a tourist, I smell like a tourist and act like a tourist. Yes, I am a tourist, but what the Cuban people couldn’t see was that I was exactly like them. I grew up in unstable environments and poor circumstances and even though I was in a different country and community, I felt no different from the Cuban people trying to survive and accept what they cannot change.
