Does Travel Broaden the Mind? A review of Vultures Overhead by Cally Phillips
I have ‘travelled’ with Jo Carroll on all her previous
trips, to places I’ve never been and will never see. This time, I have been
there before her. So there was a personal investment and interest in how she ‘saw’
Cuba, a place which I have visited twice and which I find almost impossible to
write about , even in fiction.
Cuba is the place where Western expectation comes crashing
against Third World reality. It is a
country with near total literacy, offering
free education to tertiary level, and yet people beg in the streets for soap
and shampoo.
For the Western ‘tourist’ this is a true culture shock. But
might I point out a couple of things. Firstly, all over the world beggars seek
out tourists. Secondly, have you ever been to London? There they don’t beg for soap but for money. My point, it’s all a matter of
perspective. Tourists are generally oblivious
to the reality of the place they visit. This
is even more the case if English is not widely spoken.
In Cuba (certainly outwith Havana) English is not widely
spoken, sometimes not spoken at all. The indigenous people have no need of
English. How shocking is that to our delicate English sensibilities? The people who do have a need of English in
Cuba reside at two ends of a spectrum. They are either the ‘professional’
classes whom you are not that likely to come across in tourist world (though
more so perhaps in Cuba than other countries given that it’s easier to make
money as a tourist guide than an academic) or the ‘jinteros’ who hussle you for money. And to the unsuspecting tourist, perhaps they
are too easily confused with those who want ‘soap.’ It’s part of the confusion of Cuba . Without
Spanish it becomes impossible to understand the social structure. Whether you
put Cuba’s problems down to a communist dictatorship or a 50 year capitalist
trade embargo, the reality is, without Spanish your engagement is going to be
that of ‘tourist.’
Jo’s Western prejudices were challenged from the off. She is
almost floored by the difficulty of internet access. Bad for tourists, but
almost impossible for ‘locals.’ She nearly
strays into suggesting this is part of a ‘regime’ of preventing people from
accessing open democracy, but pulls back.
She takes stock and opens her eyes. Her journey has begun.
She learns, soon enough, that there are all kinds of
shortages in Cuba from fresh vegetables, to food of all kinds, to water, to electricity. In Cuba, shortages are common. To misappropriate
L.P.Hartley’s ‘The Go-Between,’ Cuba
is a different country. They do things differently there. Everyone may not have
access to the internet, but everyone has a home to live in and everyone has
basic services provided for free. As Jo notes repeatedly, Cuba throws up a
confusion to the Western mind.
Determined to preserve as open a mind as possible, Jo starts to ‘go with the flow.’ She discovers
that trust is a two way street, and that
sometimes our Western prejudices can mislead us. She does a good job of showing that without a
good working knowledge of Spanish you are really not in a position to make any
kind of ‘judgement’ on this country, summing it up when she says ‘I can’t
help wondering if we are so stuck with Western constructs that we are unable to
frame the questions that might help us bring our disparate experiences
together.’
You can travel to Cuba and come back with your prejudices
firmly in tact (whatever they are) and one of the things I enjoy most about Jo’s
writing is that she tries to travel without prejudice. She tries to remain open
to experience and thus her writing,
while personal, is not opinionated in the sort of way that challenges anybody’s
prejudice.
And for me, the strength in Vultures Overhead is exactly that. Jo’s personal experience. She gives
us glimpses, moments, feelings about a place which are both personal and
intimate. And yet, I recognise so many
of them from my own time in Cuba.
She does not dwell on Che. She does not dwell on Fidel. She
understands that Cuba’s politics and society are not something that we can
begin to unpick as tourists and even as ‘travellers.’ In any regime how many
people would talk freely about their politics to tourists with a loose grasp of
their language? Would it be your first topic of dinner conversation with a
tourist you met here? If they asked you what you think of Cameron’s European
policy (or even of the Scottish Independence Referendum) how deep do you think
the conversation would go if your table companion was Japanese with a very
limited grasp of English? So Jo is right
to steer clear of these thorny topics. She
gives us ‘her’ Cuba. A personal, unique insight. And she appreciates that the
fellow Westerners she meets also travel with their own agenda.
Jo also observes that Cuba is in a period of prolonged change. Certainly a lot has changed since my last
visit in 2006 and much more since my first visit in 1999. The ‘special’ period
has given way to a sort of development of a two tier economy.
But the shortages still continue. Water. Electricity. Food. Happily,
it also still seems to be the case that Cuban ‘hosts’ are generally happy to have
you eat while they watch; to give up their share of food, water, electricity and
privacy (and these are very scarce resources in Cuba) to make sure you are
happy.
The dual currency in Cuba is perhaps a reflection of the
whole dual economy. My country, Scotland,
considers itself to have something of a ‘duality’ embedded culturally, but Cuba
takes this to extremes. Currently it
seems there are two distinct Cuba’s – tourist Cuba and ‘real’ Cuba. And the
twain are not designed to meet. Only
when you become a ‘traveller’ rather than a tourist and step away from the
tourist beaches and air conditioned buses, are you likely to encounter ‘real’
Cuba.
But even as a traveller, in Cuba, it’s still impossible to
truly break out of the ‘tourist’ trap unless you speak the language. And culture
shock is inevitable to those of us who have been brought up with western
constructions.
Yet even as the vultures fly overhead in Cuba – a beautiful
and very apposite analogy which can of course be read without offending anyone’s
political or personal prejudices – so it is possible to share a birthday cake.
To laugh till you cry. And to meet a man in overalls and dance with him in the
street. For it is when Jo steps outside
of the constraints of language, into worlds of music and dance, she ‘finds’ her
Cuba.
Vultures Overhead allowed
me an hour of reminiscing, gave me an update on some obvious social changes, and
offered another glimpse into a place that I both love and which haunts me. A
place it’s hard to talk about. Would I like it to have been three times the
length? Of course, but equally I respect and understand why it is a relatively
short offering. What more can she say
without straying into politics or prejudice?
Confusion wrecks communication and one remains confused
about Cuba when forced to view it as an outsider. I’m just happy that Jo shared her personal experience with readers. I hope
it will encourage more people to go to
Cuba with open minds and a desire to get out of the ‘package.’
Does travel broaden the mind? It depends how open your mind
is to start with. It is the openness of Jo’s mind and her ability to
personalise her experience which I so enjoy about her writing.
You can buy Vultures Overhead in UK via Amazon here (also USand Smashwords - what does that say about embargoing?)
And to piggy back on Jo's Review, I noticed that it’s interesting that it shares nearly the same colour cover as my (part) Cuban novella ' Another World is Possible' I took my blue from the sky above Santa Clara! Should this
colour become known as ‘Cuban Blue.’?!
You can buy this as ebook or paperback via Amazon here
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