Welcome to B.C. Photo by bolt of blue, Flickr.
My feet had hardly touched the ground in Vancouver after a decade long absence before I was inundated with the phrase: “British Columbia. The best
place on Earth!” I immediately found the arrogant implication in that statement shocking, and marvelled at the large number of locals who recited it with glowing ease.
Returning from a decade of living in Ontario, I quickly became fascinated with the Vancouverite compulsion to extol the virtues of this city in such a brazen manner. The mountains and the sea are lovely, and the air is cleaner compared to the rest of the country, but there are numerous other places in the world that boast similar attributes, yet appear to have less inflated egos.
Vancouver was my first Canadian home after moving here from the former Yugoslavia nearly two decades ago, and I have a special kind of tenderness for this city. I appreciate its natural beauty and eclectic cultural vibe.
However, I don’t think that idealizing Vancouver is a prerequisite for truly loving it. Just the opposite: I feel that acknowledging the city’s challenges such as high cost of living, and the plight of marginalized communities like the Downtown Eastside, are signs of a more sincere affection than inundating it with the best-paradise-on-Earth like status.
Last fall when I visited Cuba, a place whose natural and cultural vibrancy often attract paradise like comparisons, I didn’t want to fall prey to the seductive tourist billboards. Instead, I wanted to look at the country on its own terms, wide-eyed and open-hearted.
I thought that this would be difficult staying in a resort, as they’re in the business of manufacturing illusions of paradise. However, I was surprised at how I was able to use the few connections I made with the staff to learn a little bit about authentic Cuban life.
As a salsa dancer and instructor for many years, I befriended a dancing instructor named Sandra working at the resort. She had just taught a merengue class on the shore, and I was coming out to meet her from our so called “diamond section,” an upgraded and reserved area for paying tourists. My family paid extra in order to get the late check out and to be able to inhale every last atom of our vacation until the end.
Sandra seemed fascinated by this diamond reserved area, and opined that it’s no wonder that tourists go for that sort of thing, because people love to separate themselves from one another. I knew that her comment wasn’t directed at me, but I felt an immediate discomfort because I could imagine that, every second of her work-life, Sandra felt the enormous economic gap between her and the tourists. She knew that we have access to material goods that she can only dream of. She knew that the tables wouldn’t turn, and she couldn’t afford to visit Canada. And there I was, embodying this disheartening hierarchy by sitting in a segregated area of the beach.
Yet, I was oddly thrilled that even in the context of this carefully groomed tourist playground a local trusted me enough to let her true feelings seep beyond the professionally required smile. Over dinner at the hotel cafeteria she told me how, though lucky to have this hotel job, she is exhausted by the pace of the four hour daily commute to work, and by the fact that she hasn’t had any vacation time in a long time.
She was amazed when I told her that in Vancouver it’s tough to find a full time job in my field of journalism. I couldn’t elaborate further on the challenges of my life in Vancouver without sounding like a spoiled first world citizen complaining about what Sandra could likely have perceived as the little things. She may even have trouble believing this because North American lifestyle is excessively glamorized everywhere, even in Cuba. Despite our newfound ease with one another, some barriers between Sandra and me were immovable.
A week of sun and sand passed quickly, and the two hour bus-ride back to the airport went through the Cuban countryside, and as it meandered past a church, my eyes accidentally drifted to what appeared to be a church attic. There was a man standing there, and he waved at me, and smiled with a touching sadness. In seconds, he was gone, but I took his smile, and the memories with people, like Sandra, with me.
Despite the glorious beach that I had just spent a week enjoying, in the end what I treasured the most about my trip to Cuba is what I also cherish the most about Vancouver: those moments when paradise gets a chance to let its hair down, take off its glossy makeup, and give me a glimpse of its flawed, yet undeniable beauty.
