It is the fifth day to come to Havana, Cuba, a very rare trip to Cuba, every day is wonderful, every day can meet different people, different stories, every experience makes me unforgettable. Being in a foreign country, to have such a wonderful experience, I already feel worthy of this industry. Cubans are poor, but happy, and life is bitter, but very ritualistic. A word from my friend Halima caught my attention and rekindled my enthusiasm for Cubans.
The seafood experience ended on the fourth day, allowing me to experience the freedom of eating lobster. Cuban lobster is really too cheap, 100 yuan, you can eat several fatty lobsters. The food here is simple, yet delicious. The people here are poor, but enthusiastic.
I like ordinary people in Cuba and everyone has been impressed by my experience. Returning from the street, Halima asked me when I was leaving Cuba?
In fact, I don't know that the local loading and unloading speed is too slow. We were supposed to unload here for 8 days, but the current unloading speed is estimated to be 8 days is enough.
Knowing that I still needed to stay there, Halima warmly invited me to his sister's party. I was a little confused, such a poor country, such a poor family, and a party to say so? Shouldn't parties be the life of the rich?
I thought about it and was curious about their party, so I nodded and promised Halima that I would come again tomorrow.
The good day finally ended in the sunset, and I felt quite tired at night, and I had been playing in Cuba for several days. Lying on the boat quickly fell asleep, accidentally sleeping until eight o'clock the next day, Halima had already arrived on the ship.
Maybe it's because I woke up too late and was very anxious when I saw me. I thought he wanted to come to the boat for breakfast, but later I learned that he was going to help his sister buy something.
Knowing that Halima himself was still in trouble made me feel a little embarrassed and delayed him.
In order not to delay Halima's errands, I ate a little breakfast casually, and then followed Halima to the street with my backpack.
On the street, I asked Halima twice about what exactly was the party he mentioned his sister last night? Halima never said anything, and when he led me to an alley, which was very quiet and led me to an old aunt's house.
The old aunt in front of us, who looked very bloated, welcomed us with a veneer after seeing us. That's probably how Cubans meet, and I'm a little uncomfortable.
The enthusiastic old aunt led us through two alleys to one of her bedrooms, which was particularly dimly lit and had no electricity.
Cubans are really helpless, with limited access to water, limited access to electricity, and frequent power outages for no apparent reason.
This made the old aunt very helpless, and the dim room in front of her seriously affected her rummaging through the closet.
In order to help my aunt find something, I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight mode, and finally turned over a wrinkled skirt. The dress in front of me was worn by my aunt and granddaughter. Now in order to live, she plans to sell this dress for money to buy food.
The old aunt seemed very reluctant, and Halima came here to find the old aunt before seeing her in the alley and telling others that she had dresses for sale at home.
Halima was somewhat disappointed when she saw the old aunt's dress. The skirt in front of me is shorter and older, which is not suitable for his sister.
This made me finally understand why Halima seemed so anxious when she came to me. He was there to help his sister buy a dress so that her sister could go to the party.
In order to understand this, I still asked Halima without mercy. After many cross-examinations, I really learned that Halima's sister had reached adulthood.
I saw that his sister was still very young, but Halima told me that in Cuba, girls are physically developed at the age of 13.
It seems that there is still a gap with our Chinese 18-year-old adulthood, and it is obvious that Cuban women mature earlier and marry earlier.
After facing Halima's sister about to have a coming-of-age party, I began to wonder how Cubans spend their bar mitzvah.
I have learned in Africa that many countries still retain the form of circumcision of children's rites of passage, such as in Madagascar, where boys' rites of passage are "circumcision" and girls are "circumcision", which is a very traditional and backward traditional way that is no longer available in most African countries.
In addition to this method, in Mauritania, the bar mitzvah is also rich, which is a group of men revolving around the child, removing the smell of the hairy child for the child, and also giving the child the experience of "opening meat".
Different countries have different rite culture of coming-of-age ceremony.
In front of Cuba, in what way will the opening ceremony of the bar mitzvah for girls be performed?
Curiously, I followed Halima all the time.
Halima was so anxious to find the best dress that he began to ask the pedestrians in the alley if anyone needed to sell the dress, and he wanted to buy a suitable dress as soon as possible, because his sister was going to have a party ceremony in the evening.
For Halima and his sister, the dress is important. Halima knew he had a few pounds and taels, but he just wanted to make his sister have a wonderful adult party.
After asking many people, I finally asked a neighbor. This person is an eldest brother, a bad man, specializing in the resale of various goods.
After learning about Halima's needs, he began to take Halima to find his master's house. These are the customers he usually accumulates, and he knows what they have to sell in their homes.
It seems that in Cuba, the uncle is somewhat similar to our domestic housekeeping industry and marriage agency. The big brother seems to know everything about every family in the surrounding area very well, and directly took us to the house of an old big brother.
At Big Brother's house, we smelled a strong cigar smell. Led by Big Brother, we entered his house, and Big Brother took out a wife's dress.
He briefly introduced the origin of his clothes and told Halima that the dress in front of him was bought from someone else when his wife was still alive, but unfortunately, before his wife could buy it and enjoy it, the person left.
Now life is embarrassing, in the face of this skirt seems very contradictory, the heart is to keep the skirt, accompany himself to die alone, but in reality, the big brother who can't even eat enough, I want to take this skirt to exchange some Cuban pesos, exchange something that belongs to him.
Big Brother also specifically mentioned that as long as you can give food, it is also interchangeable if the conditions are met. It can be seen that ordinary people living in Cuba are quite scarce in living materials, and their country implements a planned economy, where everything is controlled by the state, distributed according to work, and evenly distributed materials.
This makes everyone's standard of living comparable, and it is even more difficult to eat well, and even more difficult to eat a meal of pork.
Halima looked at the dress carefully, and he felt that his sister would not like it. Halima also felt that the skirt in front of her was not suitable and looked very old.
A regrettable transaction, the big brother took us two more alleys. There was another knock on the door, and soon came an old aunt, who was also very enthusiastic, learned from the iron gate that we were going to buy her family dress, and immediately became happy, opened the protective net of the iron door in time, and welcomed us to her house.
The aunt did not let us follow her to the room this time, but let us sit in the living room, and she went to the room alone to get a dress out, which was a precious dress for her daughter before she got married.
Now that her daughter has grown up and her clothes can't be worn, she hopes to sell her daughter's dress for a good price or exchange it for the same material.
But the ideal is full, the reality is skinny.
In the eyes of my aunt, this is a very new dress, but there are many people who come to see it every day, but there is no suitable person to take it away.
Halima looked at the skirt and touched the fabric, which was indeed not bad. He tried to compare the dress on his body, and he thought that what he thought was good, his sister would definitely like it.
Halima looked at it, and the color was also good, although it was not very flashy, but it was much better than the clothes she had seen before. But when Halima asked her aunt about the price of the dress, she told Halima that the dress was very new and she wanted to sell it at a ninety percent new price.
The aunt put forward the condition, if she could give food, then give her some rice, a little salt and sugar. If you give money, you need to give 330 Cuban pesos, about 100 yuan.
When Halima learned of such expensive clothes, she immediately put down the skirt in her hand. He said that he could not buy much sugar in his life, and also said that such a price would cost him at least half a month's salary.
It seemed that this dress was difficult to buy, and Halima seemed very anxious. He followed his grandfather to another street again.
On this street, I saw a state-run commodity with a model wearing a nice dress.
But before I could follow and tell Halima about it, they had already arrived at another house.
Actively poured the grandfather and brother, did the work to the extreme, and recorded every good clothes. This time I went to the house of an aunt who told us that she was a tailor.
She thought she was an unqualified tailor and once customized two dresses, but in the end, the skirts were ready, and the other party either thought that it was overdue or there was no sound.
There are two dresses in front of me, both of which were booked before, but the other party was not satisfied, either they didn't want it or they didn't have it.
This made the tailor aunt very dissatisfied, and she hoped that Halima would definitely see one of the clothes and help her take one away.
Faced with this situation, I no longer dared to open my mouth to sabotage the tailor's aunt's business.
I had suggested that Halima go to the state-run store and look at the clothes, and if I saw fit, I would buy them for him. But the current situation, if I say it, may destroy the tailor's aunt's business, which will hurt her a lot.
Halima took a closer look at the two dresses and picked out one that she felt was good. For Halima, the two clothes in front of her are new, and it is a matter of price.
Halima learned the price of the clothes from the tailor's aunt, and he hesitated. I started encouraging Halima to choose the right outfit, and I thought I could fulfill his wish for that dress.
After some thought, Halima finally chose the cheap dress. From what I know about Halima, he doesn't want others to buy people's things for him.
In that case, then I can only let him buy it. In order to be able to give his sister a wonderful gift, I wanted Halima to accompany me back to the state-run store and buy the very nice dress directly.
When Halima learned that I was going to do this, she was very polite and did not want me to spend any more.
I explained it to Halima in the hope of getting his sister to have a good party. From my several exchanges with Halima to buy clothes, I learned that if a girl dresses well at a party, it will definitely attract more boys to chase, whether it can be like or love.
Cuban women are polyandrous, if they can gain excellent followers with a dress, then the woman's future life will be very happy.
Persuaded by me, Halima thought it made sense, so she took me to the state-run store, where Halima felt that I really had a good eye for the dress that really suited his sister.
Since it is suitable, then I will no longer hesitate, no matter how much money I will buy.
The staff were very happy to learn that we were going to take this one away. The staff told us that the dress had been in his shop for three years, and it had been expensive and unwanted, and now it was going to be bought, which seemed so sudden and a little difficult to accept.
The staff thought I had a vision, and when they learned that I was Chinese and bought it to give to a friend in Cuba, they offered to sell it to us cheaper. We ended up selling it to me for 400 Cuban pesos and 120 yuan.
To be honest, this dress is indeed very expensive, and many local people need a month to buy it without eating or drinking. No wonder the dress was left in the store and hasn't been sold for years.
When I bought the dress, Halima was so touched that he felt that a morning's effort was worth it.
He said that he was very satisfied with the two clothes in front of him, and also told me that his future sister's wedding dress had been secured.
At noon that day, we didn't go home, and after we had a brief lunch outside, Halima rushed home with me, and my sister at home was anxiously waiting for him to come home.
My sister looked really good at 13, and I came to her house, and she was no longer so shy this time and learned that I had given her a dress. She knelt down directly to thank me, which made me feel very stressed.
My sister couldn't wait to put on her clothes, tried both, and deliberately used a kind of rouge powder to dress herself simply, which looked really good.
At half past four in the afternoon, Halima needs to take her sister to a venue where many girls and boys will gather. Their bar mitzvah is held there.
In order to be able to experience such an event, I offered to go to participate in the women's coming-of-age ceremony.
Halima didn't object, took me a long way, and finally arrived at the scene before dark. Her sister's makeup was washed away from sweating, and Halima quickly helped her whitewash it.
There are more and more boys in front of me, and the music at the party scene is becoming more and more passionate. Everyone is looking for their dance partner and hopes to have a wonderful encounter.
I don't actually understand what their bar mitzvah is, but I know that the men in front of me secrete strong male hormones, which seem to be constantly attracting every girl who comes.
Halima took her sister and kept doing thought work on her sister, as if telling her sister that she must find a very handsome, mature and stable male partner.
As far as the boys in front of them are concerned, they are all very cheerful, and from the appearance, it is impossible to see who is rich and who is poor. Everyone was showing enthusiasm and everyone was attracting girls to wave to them.
Halima actually doesn't want her sister to contact strange men like this, but Cuba is like this, girls must start the first chapter of adulthood in this way.
As long as the sister and the chosen boy hold hands, then it means that the evening is the time for the sister to "open the meat".
This is painful and the way to go. As parents, they could not be present, so they had to let their brothers bring them to the scene.
That night, in that passionate song, the sister found her male companion, and the two sang and danced happily together, opening the moment of the sister's first kiss.
That's when the party begins, and it's the first step into adulthood.
Late night party, many boys led their beloved girls home, and Halima's sister was reluctant to leave, she hoped that her brother could give her a little confidence, she did not want her future to be like her mother, lonely.
Helplessly, my brother can only do this, and the future road needs my sister to walk by herself. The brother looked at his sister, the younger sister looked at his brother, and finally the sister followed the man home.
That night will be the beginning of my sister becoming a woman, no longer known as a girl, my brother finally led my sister to another stage of life, and I hope my sister has a good marriage in the future.
In Cuba, after a rite of passage, how to live her future life is entirely up to the girl herself, and she can choose to leave or continue to get married.
This step requires the sister to make her own decisions, if she thinks the man is good, then bring the man home, if she feels that it is not possible, then it will end here.
A woman has a choice, she can marry only him or several, it all depends on the woman's own ideas. If you all feel good, stay around and live a stable life. Like Halima's aunt, she has three husbands, each of whom is not bad.
It seems that Cuba's adult culture is still very interesting, and I don't know if this culture is the same in Cuba as a whole, or just in such a circle, in one region.
If this were the case throughout Cuba, then the country's bar mitzvah would be a bit premature, and a girl who grows up to face such pressure to choose a mate and face such marriage pressure. In my opinion, too early.
It was a very rare experience, and I had no idea that Cubans would have to pay such a price in order to buy a dress.
Cubans are poor, scarce and expensive, and for them, buying a second-hand dress is a luxury.
Accompanying Halima through this experience of buying a dress, and witnessing the so-called Cuban girl's bar mitzvah, I was deeply touched, the same socialist country, the cultural difference between the two countries is really too big.
If you don't know, it's really wonderful to find the outside world. Cuba, a country that has been blockaded for decades, the people still live a poor and happy life, I like their attitude to life, I like their warm kindness to people, I hope their future life will be better.