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I was 16 years old, and it was my first year at the National School of Art. While talking with a few friends, I learned that I could go to the International Choir Festivals held in Santiago de Cuba and Havana as a choir conducting student.
Being that the festival was on the opposite side of the island, my only option was to catch a ride with the Euterpe choir, the only professional choir in our province.
That year, our choir received a surprising invitation to participate in the festival in Havana. It had been around five years since they had last received one, so this was an amazing opportunity for them, and for me.
Rehearsals were held after school hours. In time, I too entered their room to mingle and activate my scheme. I wasted no time, tackled the director head-on, and didn’t miss a beat in asking her if conducting students (me) could join their trip to Havana.
If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.
She smiled like she always did, and my imagination went instantly into planning mode: from outfits to where I was going to stay, how much money I’d need, all of it. My failure was to hear her second comment.
“There is no bus to take us there,” she said. This was the exact moment I learned to scrub my ears and listen first. I asked her to confirm her statement, which she did, followed by a disappointing shrug. I awkwardly smiled back and told her I was going to sit in the back of the room to finish music theory homework while they were rehearsing. She nodded in agreement.
For me, this made no fucking sense. But again, I keep forgetting that I’m in Cuba, where something like this makes 100% sense. Still, I didn’t want to give up on them, on me. As I sat quietly in the back, my thinking cap kept me busy. I might have looked a bit crazy, silently thinking out loud with the occasional nod or gesture. But then it clicked.
What do we need? A functional bus.
Where can I get that? I have no idea.
Can I find that information in less than three days? You bet your *ss I can.
Am I a member of the Communist Party? NO.
Do I have a carné de la juventud? NO.
Will that be a problem? Maybe… Absolutely!
Do I care? I have to try.
My dilemma was by no means easy.
After the session, I approached the choir director and proposed my idea: if I could find a bus by Friday, would she let six conducting students go for free? And perhaps I could find a bus with A/C. My faith in my powers of persuasion was genuine. She had known me since I was 7 years old, so she couldn’t help but smile. Thinking it was an unattainable task, she agreed.
This was Monday, and the clock was ticking.
I spent all night bouncing around my neighborhood, asking who they thought in the municipal government might be able to help with this.
At the end of the day, one of the boys chatting on the corner of my street yelled at me. After nagging at me and telling me I was insane, he told me the only person who had the power to do something like that was the Minister of Transportation.
Every boy in the group (the local neighborhood’s community of outdoor playing friends) went to find a phone book in search of the contact information for their offices and their addresses.
The next morning, I skipped class and called the Minister of Transportation’s office from my paternal grandmother’s place. My mom still didn’t know what I was doing. A nice lady answered and told me that the minister was out for the day and was not coming in until late afternoon.
I insisted on the urgency of the matter and claimed to be a representative of the Euterpe choir and also a student at the National School of Art. She told me I could come and wait for him, thinking that I wouldn’t dare.
She didn’t know me.
Armed with an umbrella, I told my grandma my plan and where I was going, just in case, and started walking nearly 2 miles to this political party office. I was terrified, but insisted on keeping my confident caricature. I showed the secretary my regular identification card. She recognized my voice and asked me to take a seat.
Hours passed by, and I didn’t even have water on me, which wasn't that bad, so I didn’t need to pee, but still. My insides were playing a nervous jig. I started walking outside to pretend and calm myself down. But I carried an adventurous hunger that was deeper than my fear. I went back inside, and I saw the secretary and a lot of people from the building leaving. A giant man in his 40s, flanked by a group of security men, walked the opposite way to those leaving.
Everyone was fake smiling and a bit nervous around him, so I knew he was the Minister.
The secretary pointed me out and whispered something to him. He scanned me up and down and agreed to see me.
Entering his vast office alone felt like a mistake, but before I walked up to the second floor, the secretary told me she was going to wait for me, so gave me some strange comfort. I think all of us would agree that I was nuts; certainly, that’s what I thought. The room had air conditioning, but the air was thick with an unsettling power dynamic. As I walked towards his desk, I entered in character, feeling his eyes scanning me, making my skin crawl.
I had my umbrella as a weapon, summoning every ounce of courage. I ignored his dreadful gaze and went straight to business. I explained how important this event was for the city, and the choir was scheduled to perform their first concert at the St. Francisco de Asís Basilica in Havana on Saturday at 7 pm. I laid out how embarrassing it would be for the city if the choir was not present at such an important international event to showcase their talents because there was not a single bus available for transportation.
He leaned back in his leather chair, touched his mouth, and said that they didn’t have a bus for the choir because there was an event going on that week. I insisted that our case was more important than any silly event in our city. I was burning alive, second-guessing everything that I was saying.
Mr. Minister of Transportation leaned close to me and gave me a piece of paper to write down a phone number to contact me, saying that he would see what he could do. I extended my hand to thank him, trying my best not to shake, and I exited that office faster than any Olympian, feeling both nauseous and in disbelief.
To my surprise, the girl did wait for me, which made me comfortable, and we walked together until I was close to home. As I was telling the story to my mom, she started reprimanding me for how crazy that was and for going alone. At that moment, I was tempted to soak in her reprimand and leave my quest there.
But then he called my landline a mere two hours later, claiming that he had found a bus. Without wheels. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of his comment. In other words, he had nothing. I replied that he’d better find some wheels then — I don’t know where I found the nerve to impose like that. Despite my snarkiness, he agreed to try and asked me to meet him again on Thursday.
I hadn’t yet gotten my hopes up, but the next day I shared the news with the choir director and all its members. They were shocked by my audacity. However, I requested to bring two or three choir members with me to that next meeting for my own safety. He was creepy and weird.
I was not going to make the same mistake.
Some of my safety walls were starting to rise up once again. Thursday came. We visited Mr. Minister of Transportation at his office. I came with an army behind me. His demeanor was professional and patriotic.
What a surprise!
He managed to secure a bus with air conditioning and, wait for it…
Wheels!
The creep tried to call me a few times, but my stepdad would answer every single time, so he stopped. In the end, I got my impossible, tourist-class bus and was grounded for a month by my mom, which I deserved.