What`s better – to go to San Cristobal or to go to Havanna ? – Reflections about the importance of mental flexibilty

We here in Brazil have firmly incorporated this talent into our live style and call it “jogo de cintura”. I`m terribly sorry, but I can`t translate this to English. Please – my readers – let me know, in case You have an idea, how to translate this beautiful expression. The great majority of all foreigners moving for longer periods or even forever to Brazil, learn this very fundamental ability sooner or later – or fail, continue to other destinations or return to wherever they originally came from. 

Let me share a wonderful travelling experience with You, which I made twenty years ago during my years end vacations in the exciting and challenging country Cuba. The year 1999 had been my first year back to Europe after three years of experience as Project & Engineering Manager for Henkel do Brasil at it`s chemical and adhesives plant in Jacarei, Sao Paulo. During 1999 I was in charge as Technical Manager of Schwarzkopf & Henkel`s worldwide flagship plant for hair coloring products in Viersen Dülken, Germany. This plant was a huge, multi-story concrete bunker full with state-of-the-art highspeed mixing, filling and packaging machinery on which we manufactured non-stop  consumer products for Henkel`s cosmetics division in the market sales value of 1.5 billion Euros per year. Anything but a kindergarden. Perfectly organised and operated by highly qualified employees on all levels. This was by the way the last time, that I have been working in Germany. Since then I stick to  the famous motto about boxers: “They never come back”. When years end 1999 came, I took my holidays and catched a plane to Havanna for two and a half weeks. Cuba had always interested and fascinated me and I decided, that  this was the right moment in my life, for getting to know in all details and aspects this unique country once. 

I arrived at Havanna airport shortly before midnight, stood patiently in the immigration control queue for almost two hours and took one of those fifty years old colorful Chevrolet, Buick or Oldsmobile taxis and asked the driver, to bring me to my clandestine – this was one of the repeating periods, where Fidel Castro had prohibited once again all private small enterprises, which he had let grow before during a few years – private accomodation in the old and almost totally broken and run down part of Havanna. We hardly found the old villa in the dark night and for my surprise, the very friendly young owners couple was already waiting for me in front of the house. Because beer was not available, we trank a bottle of rum as my welcome drink in their kitchen before I installed myself in my very rudimentarily equipped room without door for sleeping my first night in Cuba.

My original plan – developped in Spain before I started my travel – had been, to stay for a few days in Havanna and then travel from there with public busses across the island through Santa Clara and Camaguey to Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in the extreme south-east, not so far away from Guantanamo, at the cuban coast. But I must admit, that from the first arival there on, I fell in love with Havanna so deeply, that instead of doing this bus trip, I decided to stay more time in Havanna,  book a one week salsa course and just fly to Santiago for a few days before the end my vacations and my return to Spain. 

On the first weekend I visited some cuban friends in a small settlement at about fourty kilometers distance outside Havana City. One of my cuban friends drove me there in his car and on monday morning after the wonderful weekend,  I walked from the soviet style apartment block, where I had stayed with my friends, to the nearby bus stop. There were in total approximately twenty people waiting for a bus to Havanna since more than a hour already and from my arrival there on, we waited at least another hour, during which some more people joined us. Nobody could say, when exactly – if ever on this day – a bus to Havanna would arrive. Anyhow there was no fix bus schedule. When finally a bus appeared, the plate behind it`s front screen showed as destination in big letters the name of the city San Cristobal, a place which I will never forget again in my life. And this bus was completely empty. The driver stopped the bus in front of the waiting crowd, opened the passenger door and asked, who of us wanted to go to “San Cristobal”. But there was nobody, who wanted to go to San Cristobal. All the people waiting there, instead of this wanted – like me – to go to Havanna. When the driver realised this, he shouted “Ok people, let`s change the schedule of this bus. I will bring You to Havanna”. And he just substituted the indicator plate “San Cristobal” behind the front screen of his bus by another  indicator plate with the new destination “Havanna”. The whole crowd was receiving this decision of the driver with all kinds of loud cheers and stormed into the bus, which after approximately two hours delivered us to downtown Havanna. 

That`s exactly what I meant above with what the Brazilians call “jogo de cintura”. What sence would it have made for our bus driver, to drive an empty bus over thirty kilometers to San Cristobal and to let at the same time thirty desperate passengers wait besides the dusty road for another bus to Havanna for two or three more hours? This man for my concern was a real decision taker and merited a decoration because of his courage and flexibility. I have no idea, how many people because of his spontaneous decision had to wait additional hours at San Cristobal for a bus to Havanna, but to be true, You cannot always imagine and consider all other things, which might happen atother places in the world. Live is not – at least not always – a chess play.  

This little sympathetic adventure and my lessons learned from it, helped me later-on during my in total six years as Managing Director for two different German autoparts suppliers in Mexico and during my subsequent – meanwhile eleven –  years as Managing Director for three different German industrial companies in Brazil, which were all specialised on different businesses, products, markets and industries, to get more easily adapted to the survival tactics, which You need – at least in this part of the world – for becoming able to master Your daily challenges successfully one after the other. That`s the reason why palmtrees dont get broken by the wind, as  it happens quite frequently to oaks and other strong but stiff trees during intense storms.

This was exactly what I wanted to share with You today. Hope You have enjoyed it – at least a little bit. Please don`t hold back  with Your comments and explanations of own experiences with this kind of subjects and life and job situations.

Have a great new day and lots of fun and success.