Rescuing Tanya; Perilous journey ends with a new beginning.

Fifteen dollars and ninety five cents was the final bill (tip included). I had an unsweetened tea with lemon, my guest had a Budweiser. The staff at The China Steak House in Hialeah Florida was persnickety about taking up table space (in their practically empty restaurant) without ordering food so I ordered a heaping plate of sweet and sour chicken to go. It came with that delicious duck sauce, some rice and two fortune cookies. All of which were familiar to me. Familiar to all of us really, except those that have only seen a fortune cookie opened up on a movie screen!

Introducing; Tanya Olga Rodriguez; dining guest, long lost cousin, Cuban escapee and newest immigrant to America.

The story really begins at another restaurant many miles away from The China Steak. I was checking my voice mail from a borrowed cell phone just before entering the Shoney’s All u can eat Buffet Restaurant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when I got word from my mother that “Tanya had finally arrived.” Those words sent chills down my spine. For Tanya has been on my mind since I was a kid. Early on in one’s Cuban-American reality, you will hear of a visiting great-grandfather or aunt about to visit from Cuba. The excitement levels rise, parties are planned anticipation builds and everyone heads for Miami International Airport as if The Beetles were arriving!

Now I had known that a plan was in place to get her out of Cuba but I had no idea how dicey it would end up being. When I checked my voice mail the details were sketchy. Tanya had arrived in Texas, she then flew to Miami and was now in Hialeah Florida with her father! Huh? That just proved to open up a slough of questions….so I quickly called my mom.

“It took 5 days, there was a boat, rough seas, a holding house, several buses and small planes and a border crossing.”

It seemed surreal. Especially since I was inside this (above mentioned) all u can eat buffet. Where the only danger was the off chance that the place would run out of chocolate pudding. Well for maybe 5 minutes. Nothing runs out at the Golden Corral, a place that is a world and a reality away from the story I would hear when I’d finally meet my long lost and never seen before cousin.

My first recollection of having a cousin in Cuba was a faint photograph of this skinny wirey haired girl with a big smile wearing a yellow jumper like outfit. It is still in my mind. Mention of her was always followed with “you know she’s about your age” and so there was something I could relate to. However just about everything else in our lives were the extreme polar opposites. I knew that for years but until I would meet her, it would not dawn on me just HOW different our upbringings could be.

Much of that realization makes me think about the slight of fate that comes with history and moments in history that can change things forever.

But for years I would get to know Tanya a little bit by writing her letters and she in turn writing back. Now it wasn’t gobs of letters but now and then maybe once a year. Sending a letter to Cuba could in fact take a long time. Maybe a few months since all letters going in and all letters going out ARE ALL READ by censors who’s job it is to make sure nobody is planning anything….and maybe just to fuck with peoples minds a bit.

Control is a constant in Cuba. Control of freedom, food, speech even movement are all carefully watched. Thinking however is another story. Which is where Tanya’ tale comes in. As with my own train of thought, there are just some people who no matter how long they have been blasted and exposed by a particular way of life….just don’t conform. Just do not agree with the status quo. And in the end either lead dual lives or rebel wholeheartedly.

I’m a rebel and although I have come to find out that Tanya is too, her act of rebellion was years in the making. But where I had the opportunity to choose, Tanya had to lead a dual life. She tried, tried real hard to make it work. She studied, got her degree (architecture), rose up the ranks, kept her unhappy demeanor in check and lived on the best she could. But unhappiness and restlessness are not good partners to keep. And so it was that when her father was able to leave Cuba due to his age and retirement, he vowed to get her out as well.

That would of course be easier said than done.

It is not easy leaving Cuba legally, sometimes that proves to be even more dicey when yu begin planning elaborate ways to safely get off the island. Tanya’s father Luiz had been working on a plan for Tanya to marry an American. The plan was only part plan, the other half unfortunately was part business proposal. And it went sour….along with the $6,000 that her father worked so hard to make….he himself a recent newcomer.

So it was that a few months later, another plan was hatched to hire Mexican smugglers who traffic in human cargo. Yes there is a price for everything. And this one was to cost $12,000. Most of it for bribing folks and officers along the way.

THE JOURNEY;

It began innocently with a messenger who came to let Tanya know just where to be and when. 7pm outside of a park outside of Havana alongside a remote road. Getting there is another story. One which Tanya relied on a good friend who she said respected the fact that she could not tell him just what was happening. “All he knew was to have the car ready, with enough fuel, at a certain time and be ready to drive.”

“that ride was the longest two hours of my life. I knew then there was no turning back. I could not tell anybody, anything, not my mom (although Tanya feels that she must have known or had a feeling) nor my best friends. You just cant take that risk. Plus yu do not want to get anybody into any trouble or have them in an uncomfortable situation where they are hiding something. So its best to just go!”

At the park, she waited and waited, with a small bag (part of the directions she was given was to pack very lightly, with a few things to wear and eat) the size of a big purse, but nothing bigger. A car pulled up and opened its passenger door. The driver knew exactly who she was and she was whisked off into the night, to God knows where. When the car stopped she was joined by three dozen more souls and ordered to climb aboard a giant truck and crouch down low so that nobody would see them. The truck rolled and bounced along with the loose wooden boards that made up its structure as the wind chilled all 40 something souls that now resembled more cargo like qualities than that of human beings.

Four long hours went by as the truck road down even bumpier roads and as the air changed from chilly and cold to salty. They were near the ocean they could hear, but it was pitch dark and even the smokers were asked not to light up as were the chatter-bugs asked not even to whisper. One by one they were brought down off the truck and when Tanya’s feet hit the ground her equilibrium was off. For some reason she could not stand up straight. She thought it was from being crouched down on the long ride.

Soon there after as she began taking steps she realized it was not that after all. It was the fact that the ground was uneven, rocky and sharp. The smugglers called for everybody’s attention and began whispering orders to follow in a single file line slowly. “Slow was the key word.” explained Tanya “each and every step was just impossible, I felt like I was going to fall down, I could not see my hand in front of me, it was that dark….so I would crouch down almost and walk as if on all fours.”

Her hands and at times knees paid the price with scratches and bruise marks. That walk took four hours. But she thinks they barely went but 2 miles or so.

When the group reached an alcove they realized that this must be the place where the boat was to meet them. And sure as hell did a boat appear…only problem was that it looked as if it was a toy boat. “I laughed inside….yu got to in this situation, some folks freaked out and turned around and left. What was clear was that this had to be a joke right? There were 40 of us, this boat looked like it could hold 15….tops!”

But on they went. One by one. Some into the galley and in the hold, others on the deck or the fishing platform. Slowly, precariously…. the boat chugged away.

It took nearly 24 hours for the boat to reach Cancun, Mexico. And the seas were rough. Many was the moment where barf bags were distributed, filled with human queasiness and tossed over into the ocean until the process was begun again. Distribute. Barf. Toss. And Refill!

On a few occasions the Mexicans scrambled everybody below deck like a can of sardines. They’s pull out the fishing gear and act as if they were on some grand Sailfish tournament. Only it was 3am and the boats that approached them luckily were not from the law.

However something tells me that was more of a tactic to protect their profits than to protect their cargo. The less entanglements meant that they had less people to bribe. So the money was a just in case measurement more than it was money for gas and food or labor costs.

In Cancun they were met with more Mexican smugglers who greeted them with Cancun tourist t-shorts and resort wrist bands as they (in small groups of 4 or so) exited the boat to smiling guards, rifles in tow and onto waiting mini vans after sashaying thru oppulant swimming pools and hotel lobbies.

A few minutes later they were all back again, sardined into a few rooms of a home away from the core tourist area. It is there where they got a pretty decent meal and the cell phones were busy making calls to relatives in other parts of the world. It is also there where the Mexicans would then give orders on how to get the balance of the money (in cash) paid to their men on the street. “meet so and so at this time, 9,000 dollars in cash, then we will proceed” So it cost 3 grand to get them to Mexico and another 9 to get them across the border!

That process took another 4 days where Tanya says she could barely sleep or eat. She was emaciated. But eventually the call came in. Her family had rounded up the cash. Tanya was ready to go home. A few bus rides a small plane ride and a van ride later, she was somewhere near the border. The van door opened and she was told to proceed toward the guards.

The very same guards that were holding rifles. Smiling. Only instead of standing between her and the border. They welcomed her and bid her a good trip into America. After crossing a bridge. She entered the United States and asked for political asylum (a privilege denied most other immigrants {i.e. Hatians} but thanks to the political and economic influence of the well connected Cuban community, folks like Tanya are welcomed with open arms).

In less than a few hours she had paperwork and was free to go. Only she had no idea where she was. And had little money left to her name. What hit her soon was the biggest hunger pains she had experienced. Maybe even bigger than back in Cuba. She had been such a nervous wreck, that hunger was the last thing on her mind. “In Cuba we would curb hunger by drinking a glass of water with sugar. But I was at any moment of this crossing fearing that we would be caught, I would be sent back and me and my family, punished. So I really forgot to eat. But when I was free, it hit me, and I bought, I think yu all call a hot dog, somehow it tasted like the best thing I had ever eaten!”

A friend that also made the crossing helped her dial up her family and soon arrangements were made to get her to a small airport where a plane would take her to Houston. The airport was so tiny it actually was closed by the tiome she got there and the flight would have to wait till the next morning. It was nippy outside and Tanya was not prepared for it. She could not see why the guard would not let her inside to get warm. So she sat on a bench shivering. Ironically, even though she was now free, she probably came very close to the effects of hypothermia – not a laughing matter. Luckily she managed to stay warm and in the morning flew into Houston.

It is there where her new surroundings began to hit her hard. The terminal at Houston was so grandiose and so filled with food, products and shiny things that it was dawning on her that “if this was the airport, I cant imagine what the regular cities would look like.” Coming from Cuba, yu are used to (as Tanya explained) a lot of nothingness. Whether it be bare shelves or empty stores to dull packaged products and raw materials. But here at the Houston airport, life looked like a dream sequence. Was this happening? Was this for real?

Another ticket had been purchased and soon Tanya was whisked off to Miami. Her family had booked her a first class ticket. But Tanya had never flown in first class. Come to think of it, Tanya had never flown a commercial airliner so she wouldn’t know what first class was if it fell on her lap. Which is exactly what happened. The hot towels. NEW for Tanya. Glasses of campaign. NEW for Tanya. (actually it took her a while to realize that she could ask for a glass, when she did, she asked for two) Fancy food delivered to yur seat at 30,000 feet. ALL NEW for Tanya!

The plane landed in Miami and after 6 long days her ordeal and journey was over. But there was a new one to start. One that I will follow up in the future. One that might even prove to dwarf the peril of her underground-railroad like crossing.

But for now, she is safe. She is with her father and her family. Some of her family. The other ( a mom a few relatives and her real stability – her friends) is across a 90 mile stretch of water that separates one world from a completely different reality.

See the above mentioned story was told to me at a restaurant whose (above mentioned) meal cost 15 dollars – the actual monthly salary of Tanya Olga and others who are professionals in Cuba – she being an architect. So there in lies the new challenge and mind screw that is the divide between Cuba and the US and for anybody making that transition. It is the rewiring and the path that Tanya will choose to find her own way and happiness, plus the balance of the two that is of great interest to me and to her. I’m picking on a money example so that yu can get a taste to relate to the divide, but it is far more complicated than that. We talked about it at length but I felt it was too early to comment about it here. It has been 3 months since our talk so I hope to wait a bit to see how she is doing before I tackle on. Until then, I am wishing Tanya all the luck and good opportunity that this country can offer and hope that the transition goes smoothly.

Cesar Becerra

Note on photo; Tanya Olga Rodriguez is pictured in the center being flanked by my sister Leslie on the left and brother Carlos on the right, and far right is Tanya’s father Luiz. Of course there is Leslies dog Kayla….and we don’t want to miss out on mentioning her.

I will post other photos of Tanya when I get them scanned, so stay tuned.