Fifteenth birthday? In Cuba!

By Aurelio Pedroso

HAVANA – To cross “the sea ocean,” as Christopher Columbus used to say, or the small and distant Straits of Florida, loaded with streamers, balloons, disposable tablecloths that will never be discarded and even rose-colored napkins to perform that controversial and oh-so-Latin 15th-birthday party has become a frequent passion for Cubans who live outside the island.

After questioning in some cases (and in some depth) the principal motivation for such a festivity, I’ve come to the preliminary conclusion that this is due to a combination of the economic factor and the nostalgia that consumes every Cuban, even if he’s been outside the island for only 15 days.

A fellow Cuban, Ernesto Fuentes, who lives in Tenerife, Canary Islands, told me that just the rental price for a hall was enough to put one’s hairs on end, and if you added the buffet it was like asking God that the young girl might stay 14 years old for the rest of her life, or at least went directly from 14 to 16. That’s not new, because there are hotels in Cuba (built during the days of U.S. tourism in the 1950s) whose elevators have no 13th floor.

Then there are other expenses, such as the dance classes, the dress, the video, the photographs, the transportation, the flower arrangements, the decor, the music and the barbecued pork that always shows up at the ceremony, like the girl’s grandparents, who – because of their age – don’t dance, much less do the reggaeton, so they’re the ideal guardians to make sure that nobody steals the piggie during the laughter and tears spilled during these occasions, which are unique in the lives of soon-to-be women.

Finding ice is something special. To find it and conserve it can be compared only to the efforts of the early humans to start a fire and keep it going. In an island with hellish-hot weather year round, no authority has set up (or permitted others to set up) small businesses that sell ice. Some years ago, a Spanish firm did it. You went to any gasoline station and found the little bags, but something must have made the Spaniards take the ice back to Iberia. Do they need ice there? Or did they get the cold shoulder here?

At no time has anyone politicized the fact that the guest of honor or her parents come to the land of their ancestors to stage such a special festivity. It has not occurred to them that such an activity might be contributing to the secret coffers of those who govern the island.

There are people who think like that and even picture the President of the Republic holding a small calculator and adding up the bills from four parties in Havana, one in Guanajay, two in Camagüey, three in Santiago de Cuba, five in Varadero and one in WhoKnowsWhere, a place from where we still don’t have counterintelligence reports. If those people knew that almost all the money goes into the pockets of private entrepreneurs who have set up party shops, they wouldn’t say or write such foolishness.

Other Cuban girls are opting for a closed celebration, or at least closed to the many relatives, friends and strangers who sneak into the feast and have a good time in a disco or a restaurant. First, obviously, comes a picture and/or video session through a number of locations, like outside the Capitol building, where everybody photographs the firstborn son.

If you want to see your girl under the Eiffel Tower, on the Mongolian desert or aboard the Titanic, there are some private photo studios that provide those computerized backgrounds. “We put you wherever and however you wish,” says a sign in one of those studios.

There is no official rule that says how the ceremony must be held, but there are some unavoidable steps that are very moving. Especially if the beverages include rum and some questionable vodka rebottled in Turkey.

I refer to the videos that students of Francis Ford Coppola and fans of Star Wars produce, which show the girl’s first photographs zooming onto the screen, showing her first steps and going on to illustrate her 15 years of school, family and social life.

A sugary soundtrack and the previously mentioned booze are enough to make the old-timers in the hall blubber with an intensity that will soften the hardest of hearts. “Poor little darling, what an angel” is heard on extreme occasions.

After all, it’s a tradition of ours, of our culture, regardless of admirers, reformers and detractors. It is a tradition at that point in life between adolescence and the mandate of Mother Nature that calls for ova to drop and be fertilized.

If that moment is lived in the land where our people were born, then it’s worthwhile to organize the cheerful celebration here, and let some cry and others feast. But let’s hope that Customs won’t charge you double for the balloons, the 15 noisemakers and the 10 kilograms of ice you bring.

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