This Cuban’s Train Stories

This Cuban's Train Stories
June 30, 2012
Rosa Martinez

HAVANA TIMES — When I read the post by my fellow-writer Erasmo
Calzadilla, I broke out laughing. It wasn't that I was happy about what
he went through taking a trip by train here in Cuba; rather, it was
because something similar happened to me in the mid-nineties. So now,
like Erasmo, I want to share my own story with the friends of Havana Times.

Unlike Erasmo, I wasn't trying to go on a pleasure trip or anything. I
was forced to travel in that fashion due to health problems of one of my
aunts. She had suffered a heart attack and was reported in serious
condition at the provincial hospital in central Ciego de Avila.

The transportation crisis back then was worse than it is now.
Inter-provincial buses were scarce and I believe that the only flight
from my city of Guantanamo to Havana was canceled at the time. Therefore
I had no choice but to take the giant iron train to get to Ciego de Avila.

My aunt was in such poor condition that she could have died at any
moment. So though I felt overcome with sadness, fearing the worse, as
always I was optimistic about her recovery. Therefore I decided to use
the trip to not only help with her care but also to see that city, which
I had only known through what I had read and seen on TV.

As for my stay in Ciego, I don't have any complaints. I had no problems
with either the treatment given to my aunt at the provincial hospital or
the people who — though different from easterners — didn't cease to be
hospitable and attentive.

The ride on the train, however, was something utterly different. It
started out with a three-hour delay and our arrival was an additional
ten hours late. During the afternoon everything went fine, or at least
as normal, because nothing goes fine in a Cuban train. So things were
"normal" until we all began to smell a stench that only a bathroom on a
train and at a train station can produce.

But then the stink of the bathroom was intensified by another one that
was even more disgusting, though I couldn't tell where this new one was
coming from, I could only brace myself in case I passed out at any moment.

Fortunately, the attendant was well aware of the problem. She went over
to where the smell was issuing — a tall young guy — and said: "Listen,
put your shoes back on your feet, which you shouldn't have taken off in
the first place. Otherwise we're going to throw them and you out the
window – and believe me, I'm not playing." The guy smiled and gave us
some relief by putting his shoes back on.

Night came between eating, conversations, complaints, laughs and cries.
I imagine that almost all of the travelers were able to get some sleep,
everybody except the ones in my wagon. We were accompanied by this
Mexican drunk (which is to say a drunk who spent the whole night singing
mariachis) and a 7-month-old baby girl that wouldn't stop crying.

The strangest part is that if the little girl and the drunk had tried,
they wouldn't have been able to do it so perfectly. When the child
cried, the drunk was silent; and as soon as the singer started to sing,
the little girl would automatically shut up.

I prayed that the two would pool their musical repertoires and in this
way perhaps they would shut up at the same time – but no way! No God
heard my prayers, so we spent the entire night listening to that
unappreciated concert.

When the sunshine returned the next day, there was a great calm. I
couldn't believe it: I had fallen asleep, as had the little girl and the
mariachi singer. That's how it was for about an hour and a half, and we
were only about an hour or so from arriving – but then the rain that had
been threatening us all along the way began to fall.

"The rain will cool the air but leave strange smells after," I thought.
I began enjoying the scent of damp earth that I like so much, but then
drops started falling on me and on the person sitting in front of me.

I sat up quickly. "I'll have to make the rest of the trip on foot, damn
it. Just what I need," I said out loud.

But the people next to me came up with a solution; they found a piece of
cardboard that would serve as an umbrella in that Swiss-cheese piece of
a train.

We were sitting there for about 10 minutes when an unexpected motion by
the person next to me moved the cardboard, channeling all of the
accumulated water onto my head.

So, that was how my journey went: 10 hours later than what it should
have been, filled with odors (the least unpleasant of which was the
smell of the rails), and left drenched to cap it all off.

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