From Marta. With Love. (MBFCF Giveaway #6)

First, I want to thank you all for your extraordinary participation and engagement this past week as I celebrate my 6th year in the land of Blogging.

Today, I want to share some of my own memories of “Cuando Sali de Cuba.”

The times that I remember the most from my childhood, come to me in the form of grainy super-8 film and fading snapshots. They are mostly family and beloved objects; things that any five-year-old might keep in an old and slightly torn shoe box. They are old and oh-so-faded. Not much value outside of my own little life.

left to right: Miriam, Marta (me!), Alina. Varadero, 1957.

My most vivid memories of “aquel entonces,” which I've often written about in this space, are of our summers spent at the beach in Varadero, Cuba.

The summers in Havana, you see, were brutally hot. So we summered (<--is that a word?) in Varadero. The most beautiful beach in the world. According to my mom, Luza, it's where I took my very first steps in the summer of 1956.

We have home movies of those precious times. And photographs. I am guessing that because it was such a carefree era in our lives, there was plenty of time to stop and capture the everyday. My dad and uncle with their cameras following us little girls in our Catalina swimsuits as we splashed around in the azure surf eating mamoncillos.

The cousins would spend the summers with us. We all got to choose our “salvavidas,” (translation: “lifesavers”) which in retrospect is some sort of cruel joke. People, I had an inflatable duck that was supposed to be a life-saving device. What delicious innocence.

left to right: Alina, Ferdy, Maria-Elvira, Ileana, Miriam, Marta (me!). Varadero 1960.

I can still taste the warm salt water. I remember chasing the bright red crabs along the beach. I remember the agony of having to follow The 3-Hour Rule, which stated that you could not go swimming after eating until you had waited 3 hours for your digestion to be completed. (Cuban child abuse.)

The nostalgia of these sweet moments is vivid. My sisters and I disagree on the memories at times. We will argue, as only Cuban sisters can. They insist I was too young to remember anything. I describe something from that time that I can recall with great detail. They act surprised. It's a complicated and familiar dance we do, tripping through the recollections of what was once an idylic childhood.

I write down what I can remember here on this blog. I write about yesterday and today and my hopes for tomorrow. I share my stories. I share your stories. And I've been doing it in this space, with your encouragement, for 6 years now. (And today just happens to be the 6th. Coincidence? I think not.)

Speaking of 6 years...I celebrated my 6th birthday here in the U.S. - No more Varadero summers for us. The remembrances of holidays spent at the most beautiful beach in the world have all but faded, but they have never completely diminished.

Life was good. Then we lost everything. Then we found the good again. It's the circle of life.

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MBFCF Blogiversary Giveaway #6:  

A Varadero Sign (handpainted by yours truly)

That's right. A hand-painted-by-me (shut up. I know!) Varadero Sign. (It's wooden. About 18 inches long and suitable for hanging. I have a plan to open an Etsy shop very soon. Today is not that day, but that's not important right now.)

Painted in aqua with the name of The Most Beautiful Beach in the World: Varadero.

Please leave a comment on this post for a chance to win this beautiful hand-painted Varadero sign (by me, people!). Answer one or all of the following questions:  

• Is there a particular place that dominates your childhood memories?
• Do any of you have memories of Varadero?
• Were you forced to follow The 3 Hour Rule?
  

I'll choose a winner at the end of MBFCF Blogiversary Giveaway Week on Monday, October 8th, 2012 at 11 am.

When the Zombie Apocalypse Happens, Havana Will Be Ready

And now for something completely different....

I don't usually enjoy horror movies. Wait. Let me rephrase. I don't like horror movies. At all. In fact, I hate them. They're usually so... well, horrific. (But I did enjoy An American Werewolf in London back in the day, mostly because of the comedic elements, but I'll deny it if you tell anybody.)

But, when I was contacted by Focus World to get the word out about their latest film: “a zombie comedy made in Cuba,” I was intrigued. When I read the synopsis, I laughed out loud. When I saw the trailer, I knew it was something I wanted to share.

Plus it's October and I'm kind of more tolerant of gore and silliness the closer it gets to Halloween. (Don't judge me.)

I totally understand that this is a departure from my usual fare, but I think you will enjoy it (or at least your teenage kids will). It's a zombie relajo set in the land of my birth.

From the studio that brought you Shaun of the Dead, meet Juan of the Dead. (He's Havana Killer Day. <--Best tagline ever. Am I right?) In Spanish, with English subtitles.

Synopsis:

Juan is 40 years old, most of which he spent in Cuba doing absolutely nothing. It’s his way of life, and he’s prepare to defend it at any cost, along with his pal Lázaro, as lazy as Juan but twice as dumb. Juan’s only emotional tie is his daughter, Camila, a beautiful young girl that doesn’t want anything to do with her father because the only thing he’s good at is getting into trouble.

Suddenly some strange things start to happen, people are turning violent attacking one to the other. Juan was first convinced it’s just another stage of the Revolution. Official media refer to the attacks as isolated incidents provoked by Cuban dissidents paid by the US government. Little by little Juan and his friends start to realize that the attackers are not normal human beings and that killing them is quite a difficult task. They’re not vampires, they’re not possesed, but they’re definitely not dissidents; a simple bite turns the victim into other violent killing machine and the only way to beat them is destroying their brains.
Juan decides that the best way of facing the situation is making some money out of it…..

“Juan of the Dead, we kill your beloved ones” becomes his slogan. Lázaro, along with his son Vladi, and Camila (who had no other choice but joining her father after he rescued her from grandma´s killing desires) are Juan´s army, and their mission is to help people get rid of the infected ones around… at a reasonable price.

But this plague of bloodthirsty attackers is out of control. The population is helpless. There comes a moment in which the only way out people found is throwing into the sea and try to run away from an island that became a real carnage, and Juan has no choice but to do what he avoided all his life: take some responsibility assuming a hero role, to guide his beloved ones with the hope of getting them safe out of the madness in which Havana, full of flesh eating zombies has turned.

I especially loved that so much of it was true to Cuban life today. In fact, all the actors are Cuban.  And the premise that the state media blames the zombie attacks on dissidents who have been hired by the U.S. government? Classic.

It's not Shakespeare, but it's So. Very. Cuban. And I didn't love the gory parts (duh), but listening to the dialog with the hilarious deadpan (pun intended) Cuban delivery was just awesome.

The story was told creatively and in a very, very Cuban way. Juan of the Dead mocks everything that the Cuban government has sold for 50 years as “The Triumph of the Revolution,” and that's where its value lies.

For me, personally, I can barely stand the over-the-top slasher-oh-holy-hell-there's-blood-everywhere scenes even though they were way too campy to be genuinely scary. But there were a lot of moments of surprise, so I had to keep covering my eyes. Also, the zombies were really, really slow, which I totally appreciated because that gave me time to cover my eyes, but that's not important right now.

But my favorite part of the entire bloody-undead-Havana-zombie-slash-fest was that Cuba's salvation comes in the form of Capitalism. Isn't that just too delicious? 

{Disclaimer: This is not what you will usually find here on MBFCF, and I get that Cubans are already living their own horror movie, but I think there's an audience for this sort of thing out there somewhere. Also, my 16 year old, Jonathan loved it in that way that 16 year old guys do.}

MBFCF Blogiversary Giveaway #3:

Juan of the Dead (DVD)

Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win a DVD copy of Juan of the Dead and please answer one or all of the following questions:

• Do you like horror movies? (Is there someone you know who is into this stuff?)
  
• Zombie Apocalypse in Havana...your thoughts?

I'll choose the winners at the end of MBFCF Blogiversary Giveaway Week on Monday, October 8th, 2012 at 11 am.

Havana killer day. LOL!

On a clear day, you can see Havana

When I was born, my dad was 44 years old. I am the youngest of his six children. (Still today and forever, I am the baby of the family, but that's not important right now.)

On February 13th, 1961, he celebrated the first of many birthdays in the U.S. He was 50 years old.

My dad was an extremely quiet person. He was not, as I recall, particularly brave. Except for having the common, everyday-type courage that it takes to start your life over again in a new country, speaking a new language and providing for a wife and six children.

That always amazes me. And yet, he managed to, not just survive in this new land, but to thrive.

In 1962, he bought a house in Southwest Miami. 25th Terrace.

We were excited to be a part of the new adventure of moving into a new house and we explored every bedroom, every closet, every cabinet of the house, and every inch of the fabulously huge backyard.

This was back in the day when you needed a huge TV antenna to get reception for one of the 3 major channels. My dad, the engineer, got a brand new antenna that needed to be installed. This required climbing up on the roof.

He must have borrowed the ladder from a neighbor. "Come up here with me. You can see Cuba from up here."

He might just as well have said, "We're going on a magic treasure hunt."

My sister, Alina, and I eagerly climbed up onto the roof with him.

No, of course, we couldn't see Cuba. He patiently explained that obviously, the avocado tree behind us was blocking our view.

My brother snapped the polaroid and captured this moment forever.

And such was the power of my dad's ability to tell stories, that I never questioned that we could probably see Cuba from the roof of our little home in Southwest Miami (La Saguesera), but for that silly, overgrown avocado tree.

My dad would have been 100 years old today. The older I get, the more I miss him.

Felicidades, viejo. Te quiero.