Adventures in an escualida beauty parlor

We're in Caracas, of course, and I was going in to get my hair done. All the ladies there, old and young, were cubanitas, vivacious and resolute. The Thug ruling Caracas was as odious to them as the Beast they'd escaped 40 years earlier. But beast or no beast, there was still the need to get one's hair done, so this was a busy parlor nestled quietly in the leafy middle class neighborhood, not a fancy neighborhood, just a nice older one that reminds one of being home.

And with this parlor, the cubanitas get together and discuss the newest outrages from the dictator gripping Venezuela. It's a girl thing, and this goes on in Caracas every day.

At the beauty parlor, the television was set to Channel 14, or, Globovision, which is the fearless objective-news station Hugo Chavez cannot stand. It's better than CNN, lively, intelligent and on the mark. Truth freaks Chavez out, so he's trying to throw the journalists from that TV station all in jail. Chavez can't do that immediately, though, so to black out their hated broadcasts, he breaks into all the TV stations at once from time to time, making and reading his own news, in something called a 'cadena.' This is a gross abuse of the emergency broadcasting system of Venezuela, but he does it anyway, just so he can be on television braying and so he can conveniently black out any news he doesn't want to see reported with his own news, as delivered by him. He does it a lot. Sometimes he talks for hours.

The cubanitas and here they come in all colors and ages, have seen this show before.

Chavez's name for his opposition, Cuban and Venezuelan, is escualidos, or, squalid ones. He uses it ironically, because it's an attack on what he claims are rich people. They are not rich here, but never mind. Lacking imagination, the Thug projects his own household grossness onto people he wishes to destroy. It's no different from castro, who calls anyone who doesn't want to be near him a 'gusano.' These communists reveal what's in their minds this way.

I am introduced to a lady I'll call Alicia, and she is getting her short dark hair done by Anamaria, the hairdresser, who - she is recognizable, I just have to think - she reminds me of Celia Cruz - long nails, cafe au lait skin, blonde hair and a huge ready smile. Like Celia, she's sharp and witty, not a wilty daisy.

Alicia told me she was now a Venezuelan, but had been born Cuban. She came to Venezuela in the 1960s, when it was still possible to escape. She married shortly after that, and had lived a peaceful life in the leafy old neighborhood, always coming to get her hair done at this beauty parlor every few weeks. She was a grandmother, and very proud of her three grandchildren, showing me the pictures. And she had some sisters in Miami.

I asked how she got out of Cuba. She said it was not as conventional as many had done, because she had peculiar problems with the castro regime back in 1966 when she escaped.

Alicia had been a guerrilla girl in the Escambray mountains, resisting the murderous onslaught of fidel castro. She carryied a weapon and fought the likes of che guevara and his army of dupes and frauds. When the Soviets came castro's aid, the Cubans knew they were outnumbered and had to get out. So the guerrilla girl against fidel eventually moved to Venezuela, living for many years, for Venezuela is a friendly and welcoming place, where everyone immediately falls in love with the culture. Alicia did.

When Chavez came to power, she understood more swiftly that something was wrong. She had seen the monster before and it was back. She had heard from the Cuban doctors from time to time, the 30,000 'slaves of the white coat' that castro had sent to Havana, and once again, resumed helping them, for they too had to get out. When she was not working to rid Venezuela of Hugo Chavez - and this had gone on for five long years - she had devoted her time to helping Cuban doctors get out of there, so that they too could eventually experience freedom.

What did I think of castro, Alicia asked.

As my hair was being shampooed, I told her he was ... and I thought of the words of the great KillCastro.com blog .... sumo hijo de puto, mangling my Spanish a bit, not exactly getting it right.

But somehow it was funnier that way, and Anamaria, Alica, Marisela and all the other cubanitas in the escualida beauty parlor laughed their heads off, asking me to repeat it for them one more time.

My hair looked marvelous after that. I love the escualida beauty parlor nestled quietly on a street in Caracas.

Posted by Mora at December 21, 2005 09:52 PM

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