Me and my mother take care of the land and the trees, that is what we do day in day out, seven days a week. We know every tree by name. It’s a hard life but it is our life.’

A couple of weeks ago I returned from my journey to Cuba. It still feels like a dream because it is a completely different world. Cuba is not only a sweet dream in which all is beautiful. Although I must say that traveling through this breathtaking beautiful landscape feels like a dream because I never experienced a landscape like that before. I saw thousands and thousands of palm trees growing from the red dusty earth and reaching out to the sky. There are mountains in the shape of elephants, houses in different colors, people riding on horses, farmers ploughing the land, people dancing and making music, old houses with high ceilings and beautiful furniture where you just want to stay and become a writer. So much to take in. That feels like a dream. But there is also a downside; poverty. People begging for things like toothpaste, soap, paper to write on; just things we use in our daily life but which are to expensive to buy in Cuba. The sad thing is that almost everyone has a job but their wages are so low that they can’t afford to buy things in a regular supermarket. People have to work seven days a week to be able to take care of their families. If they are ill for instance, that is to bad but you’ll loose you job. Coming from a Western world we don’t understand how people can put up with that; imagine that we have to work seven days a week? This is not the only thing we don’t understand. There are many things in Cuba we don’t understand with our western mentality.
It is a life we just can’t imagine no matter how hard we try. But I think it is already important to see and observe what life is like somewhere else; to create a certain awareness. And at least try to imagine what some else’s life is like so you will be able to understand it a little bit better. I’ll try to put my observations and thoughts on paper. I don’t know if I’ll succeed but at least there is an awareness . That is one of the things this journey has brought me.