Review
The Cuban Chronicles is written in a `Dear Diary' fashion, part travelogue, part musings about the past, and part a self analysis of her needs and wants.
Wanda leads us gently into the exotic island of Cuba, the Prisoners Paradise Island as she calls it at one point. Cuba is an enigma, while the government calls it a workers paradise, it is far from it. On her first visit to Cuba Wanda views the the island through some rose colored glasses, finding the good and skillfully avoiding the seamier aspects, or at least downplaying them.
It is on this visit that she meets a Cuban man, Paulo, ruggedly handsome, the die are cast. Wanda quickly finds herself at the mercy of her Latin lover. Returning to Canada they maintain a long distance love affair via the phone and occasional email. There is to be a much anticipated reunion over the Christmas holiday with Wanda once more returning to Cuba, this time though the plan is not to stay in a hotel, but rather a private rented apartment.
Even before leaving for the Christmas of a lifetime Wanda is beginning to have some misgivings, little things are beginning to bother her. Paulo is most certainly a taker rather than a giver, he has some great plans for the vacation, but all seem to rest on Wanda's money.
I don't think I need to explain the plot any further, suffice it to say that dream vacation rapidly descended into Dante's Inferno. Paulo clearly viewed Wanda as his meal ticket out of Cuba, a not uncommon occurrence not just in Cuba, but parts of eastern Europe and Asia. Through air travel and the internet we live in an every shrinking world. Predators abound. In Wanda's case it was male, but there are an equal number of females attempting the same escape route.
The Cuba Chronicles is an interesting book, and one that operates on several levels. You can read it as a straight story, a novel of an independent woman's view on life, almost the book version of `Sex and the city', with scandalous hijinks going on. You can also read it and see the darker side of human nature at work. It was this view that I took. Caveat Emptor, buyer beware, when engaging in long distance love affairs.
My wife and I have many online friends, and we have a few that just never seem to learn the dangers. Every few months we hear some new tale of woe, some great love affair from afar that has become derailed. The international financier with a private jet and houses across the globe is actually an unemployed bum sponging off his aging mother, the fashion model, with pictures to prove it, is some toothless hag with 5 children and on government assistance. Oh and of course the all time favorite.... HE'S MARRIED!
Read this book, it will open your eyes.
You can order your copy from Amazon.
Product Description
tiny island. In spite of her love of all things Latin, she puts herself
on a travel ban to Castro’s Cuba, one that lasts twenty years.
When she is forced to cancel a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico at the last minute,
she finds herself in Cuba twice, on back-to-back trips. Walking into
the backstreets of Havana, eyes wide open, she finds herself pulled into
a dalliance with a charismatic cubano.
Underneath the façade of Cuba’s tourism lies the desperation of a society
living mostly in abject poverty. When tourists mingle with locals, we
get a glimpse of what underlies the frivolity of Cuban entanglements.
St.Hilaire speaks with an authentic voice and doesn’t mince words;
she recounts her own activities, emotions and opinions with refreshing
honesty.
With each solo adventure, the author reaches a deeper understanding
of human nature and the world. At the same time, she conducts a
journey of self-discovery, learning about her own entrenched beliefs,
biases and blemishes.
