I left Havana as
a 6 month old fetus in November 1959 and I
was born and raised in England. In my entire life in the UK I have never met more then half a dozen Cubans
and I grew up with a very scant knowledge of the Island. At home there was
a statue of the Virgin de la Caridad del Cobre on the mantelpiece in the
living room and a statue of Santa Barbara in my parents bedroom. The
sounds of Tito Puente, Perez Prado and Celia Cruz often filled our home
but to myself and my elder sister growing up in England, it all seemed a
bit strange. To this day I can only speak a few sentences in Spanish and I
prefer Jamaican Reggae to Salsa and my accent is more like Bob Hoskins
than Andy Garcia's.
As I grew
older I began to ask more and more about the land of my conception and I
read everything I could on the Islands history and its people. To this day
I have never been able to feel fully
British despite being born here and I
have never felt really accepted even in today's multi-racial Britain. For
me there has always been something lacking in my life and it has been my
Cuban roots. No doubt it would have been different had I'd grown up in
Miami like my cousins, but I didn't and for that reason my
experience has
been very different, indeed difficult in some ways, to others of my
generation who left the Island after Castro's revolution. Most of my
family still live in Cuba in both Havana and in Nuevitas, my father's home
town, and I have only spoken to my half-sister who as far as I know still
lives in Havana. I have many friends who have visited the Island, as Cuba
is viewed in a very different light in Britain to what it is in the US and
today the British are the second or third largest number of visitors
there. But I have never strolled along the Malecon or gazed up at the
Morro castle or walked through the streets of old Havana like I would have
done had it not been for the course of history. That has been my loss as
it has for many others of my generation who were either born outside of
Cuba or who left when they were young.
In 1996 at the time of the Atlanta Olympics I was living and working in
Galway City in the Republic of Ireland and one warm balmy evening as I
strolled through the city's center I went for a drink in a wine bar at the
Spanish Arch, an old extension of Galway's city walls which was built in
1584
to protect the quays. The Spanish Arch is situated on the banks of
the River Corrib which flows out into Galway Bay and the Atlantic Ocean
and it is the nearest that I've ever been to Cuba since leaving there as a
fetus. It is also the last spot in Europe where according to legend Christopher Columbus set
foot in Europe before discovering the New World in 1492, and for some
reason that evening Cuba was very much on my mind. As I walked into the
bar I couldn't help but notice that the barman looked Latin-American and
as I ordered a drink he asked me where I was from in an accent that
sounded just like my father's. “You look like a Cubano” he said as I told
him of my origins and he shook my hand and introduced himself as Juan.
Juan was exactly the same age as myself and from Havana and he told me
that he had been a scientist in Cuba and that he had been part of a
scientific delegation to Europe and that he had defected at Shannon
airport. Half an hour later Juan finished his shift and joined me for a
couple of bottles of wine at a table outside. As we watched the swans dive
for fish in the waters of the River Corrib he told me of the hardships and
sufferings of the people of Cuba and of how much he missed his family back
in Havana. I guess it must have been a real shock for him as much as it
was for me to meet there, right at the spot where Columbus had last stood
on dry land before reaching the New World. As the night wore on we got
more than a little drunk and we sang Guantanamerato the
amusement of passers-by before shaking hands and saying goodnight.
I strolled home feeling light headed along the dark mysterious waters of
Galway Bay until I reached the house where I was living, all the time
thinking of my uncanny meeting with Juan, an exile from what should have
been my hometown. As I sat in my arm chair and poured myself a drink, I
turned on the TV to watch Ireland's RTE network's coverage of the Atlanta
Olympics, only to find that they were showing the final of the Women's
volleyball between the US and Cuba. The Cubans
won the Gold Medal that
night and amongst the team was a woman with the very Irish name of O'Farrill, another strange coincidence I thought, and just after meeting
Juan as well. It was so uncanny and I felt like walking down to the bay
and stowing away on a ship bound for the Caribbean or swimming for it.
Damn Castro, damn the embargo I thought I wanted to be in Havana, I wanted
to walk along all of those old streets like La Calle Galliano and Neptuno
and Prado that I'd heard my mother and father talk about. I wanted to
smoke a Monte Cristo and sip on a Daiquiris at the bar in El Floridita,
with the ghost of Papa Hemingway floating in the background and failing
that I would have settled for Coconut Grove in Miami's Little Havana. I
fell asleep in the chair that night and dreamed in Cuban. One day I know I
will walk through those streets and return to the place where I should
have been born and raised and live in a free and prosperous Cuba that is
neither a one party dictatorship or a playground for rich Americans to
exploit. A Cuba that is independent, tolerant and that is the paradise
that Jose Marti dreamed of.
6 month old fetus in November 1959 and I
was born and raised in England. In my entire life in the UK I have never met more then half a dozen Cubans
and I grew up with a very scant knowledge of the Island. At home there was
a statue of the Virgin de la Caridad del Cobre on the mantelpiece in the
living room and a statue of Santa Barbara in my parents bedroom. The
sounds of Tito Puente, Perez Prado and Celia Cruz often filled our home
but to myself and my elder sister growing up in England, it all seemed a
bit strange. To this day I can only speak a few sentences in Spanish and I
prefer Jamaican Reggae to Salsa and my accent is more like Bob Hoskins
than Andy Garcia's. 
British despite being born here and I
have never felt really accepted even in today's multi-racial Britain. For
me there has always been something lacking in my life and it has been my
Cuban roots. No doubt it would have been different had I'd grown up in
Miami like my cousins, but I didn't and for that reason my
experience has
been very different, indeed difficult in some ways, to others of my
generation who left the Island after Castro's revolution. Most of my
family still live in Cuba in both Havana and in Nuevitas, my father's home
town, and I have only spoken to my half-sister who as far as I know still
lives in Havana. I have many friends who have visited the Island, as Cuba
is viewed in a very different light in Britain to what it is in the US and
today the British are the second or third largest number of visitors
there. But I have never strolled along the Malecon or gazed up at the
Morro castle or walked through the streets of old Havana like I would have
done had it not been for the course of history. That has been my loss as
it has for many others of my generation who were either born outside of
Cuba or who left when they were young. 
to protect the quays. The Spanish Arch is situated on the banks of
the River Corrib which flows out into Galway Bay and the Atlantic Ocean
and it is the nearest that I've ever been to Cuba since leaving there as a
fetus. It is also the last spot in Europe where according to legend Christopher Columbus set
foot in Europe before discovering the New World in 1492, and for some
reason that evening Cuba was very much on my mind. As I walked into the
bar I couldn't help but notice that the barman looked Latin-American and
as I ordered a drink he asked me where I was from in an accent that
sounded just like my father's. “You look
like a Cubano” he said as I told
him of my origins and he shook my hand and introduced himself as Juan.
Juan was exactly the same age as myself and from Havana and he told me
that he had been a scientist in Cuba and that he had been part of a
scientific delegation to Europe and that he had defected at Shannon
airport. Half an hour later Juan finished his shift and joined me for a
couple of bottles of wine at a table outside. As we watched the swans dive
for fish in the waters of the River Corrib he told me of the hardships and
sufferings of the people of Cuba and of how much he missed his family back
in Havana. I guess it must have been a real shock for him as much as it
was for me to meet there, right at the spot where Columbus had last stood
on dry land before reaching the New World. As the night wore on we got
more than a little drunk and we sang Guantanamera
to the
amusement of passers-by before shaking hands and saying goodnight. 
on the TV to watch Ireland's RTE network's coverage of the Atlanta
Olympics, only to find that they were showing the final of the Women's
volleyball between the US and Cuba. The Cubans
won the Gold Medal that
night and amongst the team was a woman with the very Irish name of O'Farrill, another strange coincidence I thought, and just after meeting
Juan as well. It was so uncanny and I felt like walking down to the bay
and stowing away on a ship bound for the Caribbean or swimming for it.
Damn Castro, damn the embargo I thought I wanted to be in Havana, I wanted
to walk along all of those old streets like La Calle Galliano and Neptuno
and Prado that I'd heard my mother and father talk about. I wanted to
smoke a Monte Cristo and sip on a Daiquiris at the bar in El Floridita,
with the ghost of Papa Hemingway floating in the background and failing
that I would have settled for Coconut Grove in Miami's Little Havana. I
fell asleep in the chair that night and dreamed in Cuban. One day I know I
will walk through those streets and return to the place where I should
have been born and raised and live in a free and prosperous Cuba that is
neither a one party dictatorship or a playground for rich Americans to
exploit. A Cuba that is independent, tolerant and that is the paradise
that Jose Marti dreamed of.
