The Landlady has flat shoes for Cuban heels
One of my favourite people in the world is Martha, in whose house I stay every time I go to Cuba. She is the long-suffering mother of Yusi, with whom I tread the dance floors of many a late-night Havana haunt. Martha, who must be in her 60s, is spectacularly funny and has a very dry sense of humour. Les Dawson-style and often without her teeth in, she is always ready to deliver a rapier-like sarcastic missive to Yusi and I, be it on the subject of us being yet-again cross-eyed with a hangover or the fact that our respective boyfriends are young enough to be our, erm, boyfriends. Ahem!
Well, as you read this I will be in Cuba again, no doubt a sitting target on the receiving end of Martha’s cutting ripostes. I am living in the unlikely hope that Martha might go a bit easier on me this time, as I shall be going to Cuba bearing a great amount of gifts, most of which are destined for the wardrobe of Martha herself.
The family in Cuba all use the same email address, which can be a little confusing until you realise that each family member has their own particular style of writing. Yusi’s is the most incomprehensible by a country mile, yet for this reason her emails are instantly recognisable, as she uses language composed entirely of Cuban slang, peppered with a liberal scattering of swear words. She never uses full stops, commas or capital letters and I am not joking when I say that my Spanish AS level is absolutely no use at all when it comes to deciphering one of Yusi’s mails. In fact, as a test once, I put one of Yusi’s emails through Google Translate, which only managed to untangle a couple of adverbs and claimed that the language didn’t exist.
“Les Dawson-style and often without her teeth in…”
Prior to my last Cuban trip, I was in receipt of emails from the same address asking for ‘blue contact lenses’, ‘long hair’ and ‘a Spanish fan for dancing with’, which it later transpired came from Yusi’s 7-year-old daughter Melanie, who was creeping out of bed in the middle of the night to request her secret heart’s desires.
Martha’s are far more straightforward; written in a large font in perfect Spanish with all the correct punctuation. I received a message from her a couple of months ago, which read more or less as follows, “Dear daughter, this is the old one, not your nightclub friend, writing. I am writing to ask if you could bring me some of your old shoes when you come to Cuba. NOT HIGH OR TRENDY. THEY HAVE TO BE COMFORTABLE BECAUSE MY FEET ARE OLD! Do not buy new ones, just some old ones of yours.”
Clearly, I have no shoes suitable for Martha – in fact I gave her my gold Fitflops last time I was there – but there were a wealth of Hotter and Clarks gems in Martha’s size and style in my late mum’s wardrobe…now there’s timely for you.
