I don’t smoke. Won’t smoke. And even the smell of cigar smoke makes me nauseous.* But when a very, very nice Cuban farmer in the middle of a field pulls tobacco leaves from his pocket, rolls you a cigar on his pants leg as a welcome gesture and lights it up for you with matches he pulls out of his hat, you should bite your lip a little, accept it graciously, and try not to hurl.
This was my second trip to Vinales – a small town west of Havana in the tobacco-growing region of Cuba. This time I wandered the outskirts of the small town with a new friend, Didi, a member of my photo group who is Cuban-American (more on her story later). As we wander down a tiny lane and started taking some pictures of the fields and mountains, we see a farmer coming toward us, planting melangas (potato-like root vegetables common in Cuba) one by one.
His clothes are tattered and caked in dirt (an occupational hazard for one hand-planting root vegetables). His hands were so covered with mud he offers only a fist when I try to shake hands. My pitiful Spanish-speaking skill let me engage in some superficial “Olas” and “mucho gustos” and very basic introductions. Didi, on the other hand, is a fluent native Spanish speaker who engages — deeply and sincerely — with everyone we run across. This farmer (“Marcello”) was no exception; he seemed to love her, despite the generation gap between them. We take lots of pictures, of course.
I thought of Bill Clinton – trying to do what’s expected without actually inhaling. This was only modestly successful. It won’t really stay lit without actual puffing, so Marcello takes it and puts it in his mouth and puffs it to a gentle smolder. Then he gives it back. I keep faking it. Thankfully, the cheap, dry tobacco leaves he had (probably scavenged from the edge of a neighbor’s field) were of such poor quality they’re practically odorless and tasteless. I may as well be smoking elm leaves. It just smelled like a campfire – smoky and unpleasant, but not nauseating – and tasted like nothing.
We thank him; he hugs Didi; he hugs Didi again. He goes back to work and we head on down the lane. I let the cigar go out and then stuck it in my camera bag after we left Marcello. Then I forgot about it. So I actually (accidentally!) carried one illegal Cuban cigar (such as it was) through U.S. customs (without declaring it). Oops.
As we continued wandering through the Vinales countryside, we got multiple invitations to come inside the modest homes along the dirt roads and paths. We were offered seats, food, coffee, and (most importantly) directions back to town. One thatch-roofed wooden hut was oozing smoke; inside we found three ladies roasting coffee in a small pan over an indoor fire. The women said they took turns inside the hut because it was so miserable. It wasn’t clear to me why this had to be done indoors. It looked like a lot of trouble for a few cups of coffee.
