From “Beauty and el Bloqueo”

Photo courtesy of Juana Rodriguez.

…in Cuba, especially Havana, the streets ring with a kind of choral appreciation of beauty: one man’s reaction becomes an entire block weighing in. Men leaning against cars or doorframes, men walking behind you, beside you, men on bikes and in cars, stop pedestrian and street traffic to tell you you’re beautiful. On my pre-Covid trip with Ami, he’d clocked a guy who’d been following us too assiduously. But before you swing your hair, thinking you’re the hottest thing to hit these balmy streets, an amalgamation of the world’s market of desire with (as they’ll tell you) a Spanish face and a Colombian ass, let me tell you: many of these men are just trying to make their rent. When it was too much, I’d duck into a dusty bookshop where the owner was blind and called me “la chica de Lachateñeré,” Rómulo Lachateñere’s girl…