The waiting room grew hot with the overstuffed presence of tourists who should have been happily on their way back to Canada, but instead were stranded in Havana with nothing more than a scrap of paper and a scrawled number as their sole identity.
Other flights came and went in the night, crowding their passengers all in that single room.
The washrooms became filthy, messy, and smelly with no one to clean them. Toilet paper ran out. Someone threw up in a sink and left it there.
There was nothing to drink except strong Cuban coffee and imitation sodas. We were served breakfast with a small glass of rationed orange juice, toast and fried eggs and some kind of sweet jam that we couldn't identify.
Trash cans in the waiting room were over-flowing, the stuff on the floor being kicked aside on your way past them, making a pathway.
People slept in chairs, legs stretched out, throats snoring loudly, all men, of course, not caring.
There was nothing to read, no radio to listen to, no television to watch. Just tourists to stare at and who stared back at you.
My own wish, going to Cuba, was to see a Russian tourist there, a big woman wearing massive furs making her the size of a barn. She would have a bear of a face. I could picture her in my mind and I was determined that my wish came true. Just one such woman was all I asked.
Sure enough, a Russian tourist plane landed in the afternoon, and yes, we were still there thirteen hours later, and I watched, at the wall of windows to the tarmac, to see who disembarked.
Men, men, and more men, wearing Russian garb of all seasons, and then, there she was. In all her glory. In all that stifling heat. The Russian in the gigantic fur coat and hat, the woman as big as a barn with a face like a bear. My wish - my dream - was right here, and I almost died with delight.
She came charging into the crowded and messy waiting room like some gorgeous princess from Siberia, an amazon of a woman who fought Arctic wolves with her bare hands, skinned them, and dropped their sorry hides across her massive shoulders.
She spoke loudly in Russian to no one in particular. She was amazing. I could not stop grinning.
"You see?" I said to my friends. "I knew she would come!"
They had all scoffed at me in Toronto. No woman would wear her furs to tropical Cuba, they said. But I knew. There just had to be one vain woman, big enough and bold enough to do it. And here was living proof.
She must have been dying in that heat, but she never once shed a drop of sweat or the tail end of a wolf from her massive back.
Now that's stoic, I thought. Truly stoic.
Other flights came and went in the night, crowding their passengers all in that single room.
The washrooms became filthy, messy, and smelly with no one to clean them. Toilet paper ran out. Someone threw up in a sink and left it there.
There was nothing to drink except strong Cuban coffee and imitation sodas. We were served breakfast with a small glass of rationed orange juice, toast and fried eggs and some kind of sweet jam that we couldn't identify.
Trash cans in the waiting room were over-flowing, the stuff on the floor being kicked aside on your way past them, making a pathway.
People slept in chairs, legs stretched out, throats snoring loudly, all men, of course, not caring.
There was nothing to read, no radio to listen to, no television to watch. Just tourists to stare at and who stared back at you.
My own wish, going to Cuba, was to see a Russian tourist there, a big woman wearing massive furs making her the size of a barn. She would have a bear of a face. I could picture her in my mind and I was determined that my wish came true. Just one such woman was all I asked.
Sure enough, a Russian tourist plane landed in the afternoon, and yes, we were still there thirteen hours later, and I watched, at the wall of windows to the tarmac, to see who disembarked.
Men, men, and more men, wearing Russian garb of all seasons, and then, there she was. In all her glory. In all that stifling heat. The Russian in the gigantic fur coat and hat, the woman as big as a barn with a face like a bear. My wish - my dream - was right here, and I almost died with delight.
She came charging into the crowded and messy waiting room like some gorgeous princess from Siberia, an amazon of a woman who fought Arctic wolves with her bare hands, skinned them, and dropped their sorry hides across her massive shoulders.
She spoke loudly in Russian to no one in particular. She was amazing. I could not stop grinning.
"You see?" I said to my friends. "I knew she would come!"
They had all scoffed at me in Toronto. No woman would wear her furs to tropical Cuba, they said. But I knew. There just had to be one vain woman, big enough and bold enough to do it. And here was living proof.
She must have been dying in that heat, but she never once shed a drop of sweat or the tail end of a wolf from her massive back.
Now that's stoic, I thought. Truly stoic.
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