“There is only one way to escape the alienation of today’s society: to leave” (Roland Barthes)
… and so I did! I took a week off, bought a backpack, packed it with summer clothes in the middle of February and jumped on a plane to Cuba! That’s how my adventure to escape alienation started, without even consciously knowing it.
Eleven hours after, but still on the same day I left, another day started on this sunny island where everything soon seemed so chaotic. On the spot I met a wonderful Cuban-Italian couple that willing to share the taxi to Cienfuegos, where she surprised her mother who hadn’t seen her for two years! After warm hugs and kisses and an incredible manifestation of surprise, happiness and love even towards myself, a stranger, I continued my trip to Santa Clara to join a friend who was left without cash!
The music was everywhere in that little town square where everyone had gathered on an ordinary and yet so special Saturday night.
Santa Clara started to slowly wake up after the cockcrow at around 4:30 a.m., I could suddenly hear all the sounds of this town on that early Sunday morning from my bed in the Casa particulares. I had to wake up, it was a must! A beautiful dawn was right before my eyes, I got dressed and went for a walk in the streets were people were starting their ordinary day. Simplicity was the keyword.
On the way to Havana I stopped for two nights in the white beaches of Varadero, where the water was cristal clear and peace imposed itself on the lively attractions of the resorts. Looking at the horizon on that beach I was pervaded by hot shivers and it was like the rest of the world did not exist for an instant.
Shocked once more when I finally got to Havana, I was back into a lively town but without technology, wifi, internet and where the human contact is preserved. Transported by it’s jolly spirit i spend my days walking around meeting people and surfing a wave of exciting nightlife on the most improbable and impressive decadent rooftop in town, full of Cubans dancing and drinking rum.
I was disconnected but not at all alienated. The present was lived to it’s very instant and the warmth of the human contact was all over.
Praise of Folly 