Pink Boots and a Machete Read Online Free PDF Page A

Castro stood in the Plaza of the Revolution and announced that anyone who wanted to leave Cuba could go. My grandfather didn’t want to abandon his mother, but my grandmother wouldn’t take no for an answer. She begged him to thinkof their children. Less than 24 hours later, police arrived at their home to inventory their belongings, making sure that nothing but the clothes they were wearing left the island with them.
    I often try to imagine how difficult it must be to leave your country, your relatives and friends, your home and all its contents—all the people and possessions that make up your life—fully knowing that there is no turning back. My grandmother made that life-altering decision overnight.
    It was a fortunate decision. By the end of the 1960s an estimated 15,000 to 17,000 people had been executed.
    But my grandmother didn’t leave everything behind. Living up to the adage “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” she hid her most valued possessions under her clothes. She boldly left the island with photographs of her children, to this day their only tangible memories of their cherished childhood.
    Although she eventually became a nurse, my mom’s dreams of becoming a doctor were first reduced to working for one. She became secretary to one of the top oncologists in Miami and put in extremely long hours. As a result, I spent most of my time with Mima. My grandmother’s job was to take care of me, which was, I admit, no easy task. Mima never learned to drive, so most of our time was spent on long bus rides, one of the most exciting parts of my childhood. Something about the treks to the bus stop and the ensuing trips seemed adventurous. There were journeys in the making, my first expeditions, even if the destination was only the park or the shopping mall.
    At the park I would disappear into the trees and comeback with handfuls of tamarind, which I would proudly watch Mima eat on the park bench. I showed early that I had skill as a hunter-gatherer, like the BaAka, the Pygmy people of Africa I would come to know and love years later.
    My grandmother, who in the mother-chain was second in command, was a bit more permissive of my exploratory tendencies. In my mother’s absence, I would get permission from Mima to ride my bike in areas I knew very well Mom wouldn’t allow. As soon as I got home from school, I wasted no time in ripping off my skirt and jumping into what my grandmother called “street clothes,” so that I could join in a neighborhood ball game. Baseball glove in hand, I’d take off on my bike and race down the street, crossing the railroad tracks and hollering at the prostitutes who plied their wares there, racing on as they hollered back. I’m not sure why we did this, but I do remember loving the adrenalin rush. It also seems to have been good training for fleeing elephants.
    After some pedaling, I would find myself in a much more affluent area, where banyan trees lined the avenues. These trees are majestic, with limbs that grow thick and wide from their trunks. In order to support the tree’s great weight, the limbs grow shoots at stress points that stretch downward and take root when they reach ground.
    The banyan always makes me think of my family; in many ways they are alike. Both are resilient, surviving even the harshest of storms. And like the shoots that help support that great tree, my family was always there with the support I needed to get where I wanted to go.

Two
Antithesis of a Scientist
    JANUARY 7, 1995: It’s a little like leading a double life. I rehearse the dance routines for hours on end and save just enough energy to pore through the science text and memorize Latin names of species. It makes me wonder if Darwin had some surprising hobby. Sure, he spent all his time on voyages to far and remote lands, coming up with scientific theories on evolution. But perhaps he was a good dancer, too. Yes, in my mind, Charles