Cuba

Gisleidy Lemes

Proffessor Kristin Vogel

English 1010

February 4, 2016

Island of Cuba

          In 1959 everything changed for the beautiful island of Cuba. Cuba is full of communism and is home to one of the most well known communist, Fidel Castro. This beautiful island is a very diverse place. Its people and its government make it seem like a bad place, but there is a lot more to it than that. This beautiful but destroyed island has an interesting history, a beautiful culture, a warm and pleasant weather, and religions that perhaps many other countries might not know about. When I say Cuba is destroyed is for all the suffering and misery that Cubans go thru in a country where red meat is illegal and a doctor gets paid only fifteen dollars a month. Cuba over the years has been destroyed by the Castro’s, but at the same time all Cubans always looked on the bright side. A country full of beautiful nature, good food, and hard working people with a lot of strength to succeed in life.

          I miss my country dearly and I can’t wait to go back and feel the warm weather in my skin and the breeze messing up my hair. Cuba consists of 14 provinces and 1 special municipality.; I am from Villa Clara which is in the middle of the island in a town called San Juan de los Remedios. My town has a lot of history and beautiful historical buildings and streets made out of bricks. The majority of the cars in Cuba are from the 1950s, there is newer version of cars but not everyone can afford to buy one. These antique cars are in families’ form generations and those people try to take care of them as if they were brand new, because is really hard to find car parts to fix them and buying a newer car is not an option. These cars inside don’t have an air conditioning system and what owners use is a little fan in the dash board to keep them cool from the hot summers. Also in the mornings there are horses with a beautiful antique black carriage that tourist personally rent to admire the beauty of the historical town.

          Other than the history of Cuba, there is also a beautiful culture that a lot of us” Cubans” are known for, the dancing, and the spirit we have when it comes to music. Cuban culture is a melting pot where cultural events on 3 continents merge: Europe, Africa and Asia which has given this dimension of universality of enjoying. Everyday in my town there is a Conga (parade) with a group of people with drums, maracas and home made instruments like pods and pans with a kitchen skimmer. They also use flags from Cuba and behind there is lots of people dancing thru the whole town. The style of music music most danced in Cuba is Salsa, this is a mixture of traditional Latin rhythms with jazz elements according to the example of the mambo and the cha-cha-cha. In my personal description this made with what we got to background music with a variety of percussion instruments, was reached this style is the main music played in all the clubs in Cuba.

          Most of the island, enjoys or suffers, depending how you look, warm weather seasonal rainfall (with a rainy and dry season). Cuba's flora is very rich and extremely diverse, with more than eight thousand species among trees and flowers. The Cuban Royal Palm is the national tree is the one that best characterizes the Cuban countryside, and so it is featured in the national coat of arms. The national flower is the White Ginger or Butterfly Jasmine.  Beaches in Cuba have not so cold or so hot sand but is very soft, delicate texture provides a foot massage, they can be buried also allowing other to feel texture and temperature, its color is white, that to see the distance provides a visual experience to the person who is there of wanting to walk and feel relaxed. This is what I missed the most about my country.