What happens when different worlds collide...
There is an old saying which wisely states that visitors and fish, after three days start to “smell”; time to move on. Don’t get me wrong; by no means do I wish to imply that after three days my welcome wore out. Not at all! However, the daily routine had to be reinstated in the household(s), especially in a household that due to the (now increased) numbers, depended on this routine to function properly. In our house, both parents worked, Mr. C., as many did in Richland in those days, worked at Hanford Works. Mrs. C. God Bless her, worked her tail off at home, keeping everyone in line and also did some work as a part time nurse at Kadek Hospital, the local hospital. She did mostly special care.
On Monday, I was introduced to Columbia High School, the proud home of the Bombers! Somewhere along the way, due to political correctness and/or local changes, the school has been rechristened Richland High School and I believe that the logo and/or name “Bombers” has suffered some attacks. No matter, Col-Hi, the home of the Bombers lives on! I have to add that it is truly amazing how some would do their all to change other people’s lives and memories just because their own ideas may not be agreeable to related issues; guess what? What is, cannot be changed after the fact. We shall now get back to the story at hand. Rah Rah!
I did not know any schools in the US yet; my own school in Cuba had been a good size one, but nothing compared to the campus style high school which we would attend. We were coming from a camp school “al fresco”, under the trees, to a school which sprawled over the top of a small hill and beyond; several buildings, a football camp and a lot of green spaces. I really don’t remember how many students there were at the time. I think somewhere around 2,000 (I may be short here!) but however many, it was a lot to us.
Most of us were brought in by our respective foster parents, in order to have several acquaintance sessions with the counselors, teachers, etc. It was a little bit like a circus atmosphere, where all concerned wanted to take a look at these people who came from so far away. Luckily for us, the school already had a successful international student exchange program, so there was a precedent as to what to do with us. But that program handled one student from each of the 3 or 4 countries which participated. In our case, all of the sudden there were 10 or 12 kids from Cuba which, after all, wasn’t as glitzy or catchy as Japan, Sweden or France… Also, the students who came through this program, spoke English; our group, if you were to put our collective English knowledge together at that time, it was enough to say -Good Morrrning, “jow are ju” (pronunciation was tough for a while). So, the rules and expectations had to be somewhat amended.
I will make an aside here. Often my style of communication tends to be on the irreverent side. However, there is no subject dearer to my heart or to the hearts of those of us who lived in this beautiful town than the people we met, with whom we shared our lives and who shared with us their lives, their homes and, most of all, their love and friendship.
Having put that on the table, let’s go on. One of the most definitive issues with which we (at least, I) had to quickly deal, were the P&B lunches. Today, I love P&B (after the army tour, this is almost a delicacy!) and always keep a jar handy at home. HOWEVER… then, we were coming from rice, beans, bananas, chicken, etc. There were times at Matecumbe when we were fed P&B but at these times, for the most part, these strange things were largely ignored. In fact, Cubans in Miami were convinced that Peanut BUTTER was something used for cooking; they could not understand the strange flavor our traditional dishes would acquire when this butter was used to cook them. Ahhh! What the lack of language will do to you… Once into the daily brown bag routine at HS, however, we could not ignore them anymore. So I have to say that hunger brought us into the P&B, chips, coke and cookie culture. The most immediate issue was not an earth shattering philosophical issue, but a matter of basic food.
We herded (literally!) together for a couple of weeks, while getting our bearings and getting accustomed to the new culture and to the fact that it was getting cold! And it was only late October. We were coming from a climate zone which traditionally forced us to break out the sweaters and jackets as soon as it went below 78 degrees. Here we were already kissing 40 at night and in the high 50’s during the day. I remember we went to school semi bundled while everyone else was basically still in shirtsleeves. We did OK in school; in the beginning there was leniency on the academic side of the house and much help from everyone. When I say everyone that is exactly what I mean. Classmates would come and offer help and teachers would go out of their way to help.
It was now November, and I was headed straight for a major “Kultural Klash” (hence the title for this entry). P&B was a matter of acquiring the taste, but it was not a truly major issue. There is, however, a holiday which is celebrated only in the US: Thanksgiving. Although today it has spread somewhat to other countries, then (1962) the turkey hunt was strictly an American issue; we knew absolutely nothing about it, or how important it was as a family holiday.
Unfortunately, for those who gave us the briefings at the airport, it was more important to make sure we did not chew gum in public, than to let us know about these cultural issues.
All I knew when I got up that fateful morning is that there was no school, and that there was a long week-end ahead of us. One of our Cuban friends (the only one who had been living in Richland for a while and whose mother was in charge, more or less, of the overall local program) had a car, and it was a day ripe for “cruising”. I remember it was a 1956 white Ford (see, us boys will remember the really important things!!) and we had it for the day. So, it was he and his brother, as well as Roberto Negrin, and myself. Off we went into the center of the city, into West Richland (where I would later on spend some good time due to a good boy-girl relationship) and other parts. We were just cruisin’; nothing to do and a lot of time in which to do it, or so we thought. Sometime around 2:30 we decided to head back. If we had been able to do this without an incident, I think we would have still been in time to salvage a turkey. However, we had a flat tire on the way back and, by the time I arrived at our household, it was past 6pm.
What can I say? There was this family I had just joined sitting with very long and hungry faces, in a circle (wagon circle comes to mind, with me being the attacking Indian at that moment) and, on the dining room table there was this turkey which, at some point had been beautifully cooked. Now, it was a somewhat dark and dry mass, a far cry from what it was intended to be.
There was a short lecture about the holiday and what it meant in the US. In my still broken English, there were a lot of excuses and ramblings on. I came close to ripping my garments, but not quite. Once they realized why this had happened and that it had never been an intent on my part to ignore such an important moment, they were actually very gracious (in all honesty, probably more than I might have been had it been the other way around) and we ended up having the turkey with lots of liquids to push it down…
When two very different cultures meet and you add a healthy pinch of language miscommunication, there is a recipe for minor (and sometimes major) disasters. It is truly a testament to this family’s character that they reacted then and in many other occasions with such grace, understanding and care.
Is there any question as to why I came to love them as much as I did?
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