Is.

We stopped at a roadside café/bar on our way to the Varadero airport.  As is typical in Cuba, there was a small, rail-thin cat lurking at the feet of the patrons, desperate for a scrap or two of food.  All the cats look like kittens in Cuba. I’m guessing that they never reach full-size due to malnutrition, though I also suspect that their lives are not very long, either.  Either way, I spent a few minutes watching this bony, starving cat sit patiently and attentively.  Then I saw some movement in a low hedge about 50 feet away from the cat.  A hen emerged, three chicks in tow.  The chicks were small; half fluff, half feather, and made a peeping cluck sound that reminded me of a teenage boy’s voice breaking.  The hen and her chicks moved in the direction of the cat, crossed within feet, and…nothing.  

That was my Cuba experience in a nutshell.

When a starving cat doesn’t hunt easy prey, that is defeat. I’ve seen that defeat before.  I really didn’t think that I’d go to Havana and spend a good part of the time struck by the similarities between Cuba and Nunavut, but there you have it.  No fruit, but 14 kinds of mayonnaise at the grocery store.  $7 bags of chips.  So. Much. Pop.  No real change on the immediate horizon.

“Is Cuba,” was the answer to nearly every question we asked all week.  Is Cuba, Is Nunavut, Is Long-Term Lack of Access to Resources Equals Shelf-Stable Food and a Culture of Shrugging Resignation. Like I said, I’ve seen it before.  There were coconuts everywhere, but we never saw a dish or a drink with coconut in it on a menu the entire time we were in the country.  

The food was mostly shit, and the Internet sucked.  I had an amazing time.  But let’s not kid ourselves—everything is amazing when you’re deeply in love and armed to the tits with charcoal pills and Immodium. 

I’m back in Baker Lake.  I just heard a radio announcement providing the local phone number for “if you want your dog to be shot”.  Then they played Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’ start to finish.

Is Baker Lake.

Is only two months.