Cuba - Coming Home

Travelling Cuba since 8 years and having lived in the country, makes the beautiful Caribbean island my second home.

Many People would ask me why you call the country your home, life is so hard, the food situation is very bad and there are no future perspectives. Many would also say it's nice to see it once and come back home with no desire to re-visit.

I think with Cuba the thing is you either love it or you don't.

I have many times tried to describe what I feel when I'm there.

Maybe it's exactly the uncertainty and the every-day-getting-up-and-not-knowing-whats-happening-next that makes it so electrifying and exciting.

Go where you feel the most alive

In our life everything is so well planned, prepared and we are always ready with a plan-B to show up if things don't work the way we thought they would.

We have tons of securities for all possible living situations and we always find explanations if something goes wrong. I truly appreciate what we have and even more every time I travel a country like Cuba, where basically nothing works.

But on a deeper level I'm asking what if all these things take away so much enjoyment. Everything is pretictable, no matter what we just use the well-prepared Plan-B or C or D...but where is the excitment and our creativity that can let all the steam off dealing with a new situation, otherwise just waiting in a dark room of our mind until it's the time to act, that might never come.

A fact that impressed me deepley, when I first set foot on the island in 2015, is how Cubans deal with the hard situations daily. Music and dancing are their everyday life and they just take every situation as it is, day by day, with such patience and a lot of humor. In the time when I went to live in Cuba it was very difficult for me to live like that. I came there with my european mind and I tried to plan and control everything which in the end cost me a huge deal of conflicts with Cubans, with life and all above with myself. I was holding onto my life in Switzerland and all I learnt and was told to, but it was not possible to copy this mindset onto Cuba.

I could not plan things, I could not even plan what to cook, because you never know what goods the supermarket had in one week, you never know if the old car that brings you to the beach has to stop suddenly due to motor issues, you don't know if you can eat in a restaurant tomorrow, maybe the owner closes it down exactly on that day, Perhaps you want to cook or your phone is out of charge and in that moment there will be a 5-hour power cut. You cannot even know if you can shower tonight, maybe the water tank will be empty in that moment or the pump will break.

You can always get angry and have a bad mood, but in Cuba it's not bringing you anywhere.

So with the time I let go of my european thinking. I opened my mind to the Cuban way of living and to just live and let go with the flow, to take every situation as it is or sit over it, laugh about it and get creative to make the best out of it.

It was the moment I started to Enjoy it, life felt so simple and my mind was so light and empty. Empty from all these heavy thoughts that we have everyday, empty from the pressure to have everything planned and empty from letting go of all the controlling.

I didn't have to make a grocery list, I just went to the supermarket and to the streets to see what there is and brought the stuff home. And then I let creativity do the job and figure out what to cook with it.

I didn't have to stress myself about any plans.

the car to the beach broke - ok, never mind, let's turn on some music and dance on the street.

The restaurant we wanted to go closed - Ok, never mind, let's just walk the streets and see what else is available tonight.

This page would explode if I you told you many more funny situations.

And trust me - I had not one single moment of boredome in my whole time there.

Wild hearts find a home in every place they roam

In the meantime I can easely switch between my European-me and my Cuban-me.

And everytime I come back to the island it reminds me to drop everything and you will not recognise me, you will only find the Cuban-Fabi, that came home, unwinding her mind and soul and dancing with the Cuban flow, which is la Pura Vida!