A few years ago, before his passing, my father came over to my little hole of an office all excited.  He said that a bird had gotten into the house and was flying around the living room.  That bird turned out to be a bat.  A little brown bat to be exact.

How this little creature got inside the house is still a mystery.  But here’s the thing.  The other night I was watching some late night Hulu TV from my now well worn easy chair.  The house was dark except for the light being emitted from the TV screen.  It was hot, and the huge AC in the dinning room was not helping.  So Barney (my dog) and the boys (my two cats) were just laying on the cool stone tiles by the front door.

As usual, my stereo was pumping out the volume on the TV. Above the din I heard or felt a whisp of air.  I looked up and there it was.  A bat was flying in my living room again.  Barney and the boys heard it as well and instantly went into action.  Somehow one of the cats leaped up and brought the little bat down.  Barney and the other cat quickly surrounded the little creature.

Before the boys could do any harm, I quickly grabbed a towel from the bathroom and tossed it on the bat.  I picked up the little bundle and with the boys in tow I went out to the deck and shook the towel furiously.  The bat disappeared into the night.

So I’ll bet your asking yourself what does bats have to do with Cuba, right?  Well I’m always digging for information about Cuban Things and as it so happens I came across some very interesting information regarding the Cuban Bat Thing.

Bats are by far the most numerous of all mammals.  There are over 27 species in Cuba alone.  The many caves of Cuba are home to many of these bats.  One can come across some species hanging from trees or in old abandoned structures during the day.  As amatter of fact, the logo for Bacardi rum is a bat.  The reason being that the first building where the rum was distilled was filled with bats.

There are no vampire bats in Cuba. Most of the Cuban species are frutivores or insectivores.
The best known Cuban bat, found in the area near Baracoa is the Butterfly bat. They belong to the Vespertilionidae family or evening bats.  They have a wingspan of just 5 inches and have an average weight of 3 grams. At one time it was thought to be the world’s smallest bat until recently when the Phillipine Bamboo Bat was discovered weighing in at 1.5 grams.

It seems that many of Cuba’s animals have evolved into the smallest species in the world.  There is the “pájaro mosca” the smallest known bird, the sapito, the smallest known amphibian and the Bee Hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world. This is attributed to the islands size and distance from other countries in the region.

I never found out how these bats got into the house, but I found a great site about bats and their environment called Bat Houses For Sale.  So I got a bat house and attached it to my garage.  I hope that this will keep the liitle critters out of the house and in theirs.  So far I haven’t seen any, but it does take a while.  Hopefully by next summer I will have a nice size colony and an insect free yard.

Unlike most of the harrowing stories one reads about Cuban refugees that come to this country, mine was somewhat uneventful.  I was four years old when I left Cuba  with my mother in 1955.  We flew “Cubana de Aviacion” from Havana into Idlewilde Airport (JFK) on a very cold November night.  My father, who had come several months before, met us and took us to our new home. My father had rented a room from a nice Puerto Rican lady who owned this  huge apartmment on Riverside Drive.

We eventually moved into our own apartment on 135th. Street (highlighted on the left.)  I remember that my parents worked very hard  and saved their money so that we could go back to Cuba each year.  At the beginning of each summer my mother would take me to Cuba so that I could spend time with my grandparents. My father would then come at the end of summer to bring me home.

I remember that there were a few mishapps on those trips.  For one thing my grandparents lived in a small town in Oriente Province, which was a good 12 hour bus ride from Havana.  On one of those trips the bus was involved in an accident in which I ended up losing my two top front teeth.  On another occasion on our plane ride down to Cuba our plane had to make an emergency landing in Miami because one of our engines had caught fire.

After 1960 relations between Cuba and the United States quickly disintegrated.  In April of the following year the botched invasion of the Bay Of Pigs occurred and then came the Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962.  My parents, like so many other Cubans in the US at the time, managed to return to Cuba to bring their families much needed necessaties, but I never returned.  As a matter of fact, I never saw my grandparents or other family members again.

Well this coming summer all that will change.  You see my daughter has always dreamed of visiting the land where her father came from. So last year we started thinking about actually making the trip.  Currently my daughter is attending graduate school at Ohio State and as it so happens, she applied for a study abroad grant in Cuba to study dance.  Since President Obama relaxed the travel restrictions to Cuba last April, we thought that this would be a perfect  opportunity for us to reconnect with our Cuban Thing.

After my father’s death I had rummaged through his personal items and came across the email address of a cousin of mine in Cuba.  This cousin is a retired doctor in Havana who apparently has the benefit of having computer access.  So I sent him an email telling him about our plan to visit Cuba this coming year.  He was ecstatic to hear from me and in the several emails that we have exchanged

The course that my daughter will be attending will last about a month.  During that time I plan to go into the interior of the country and visit the towns where my father and mother came from.  My cousin will accompany me on this journey and hopefully I will find some relatives and friends along the way.  It should prove to be quite an adventure.