Che's footsteps

As a teenager, I was in love with Che Guevara, like so many others around the world in different decades. I don't quite remember when or how I fell in love with him, and the "why" might have been just the teenage group thinking phenomena - someone discovers something "cool" and everyone else follows, until the next "cool" is discovered. For me the cool of Che didn't wear out too fast (although I never finished his biography by J. L. Anderson), and it actually expanded to reading about anti-apartheid activists Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko. (And now, when I think about it, it obviously continued beyond teenage years and led me to write my thesis on the Black Panthers.)

Che's passion to help others and change the world spoke to me, and I was dreaming that one day I would be making a difference too. Most likely NOT by starting or joining a revolution, since I was too busy playing volleyball and too chicken to join any even remotely activist groups in Finland, but by doing something. I guess I'm closest to that something in my current job: I know that everyday our services help newcomers in Canada to set their goals, to feel more confident and to have HOPE. Unfortunately the same job also exhausted me and pushed me for a one week thinking leave.

During that week I had plenty of time to re-organize work/life priorities and think many things, among them also the approaching Canadian November (dark and rainy, although not as dark and rainy as in Finland). I had time to count my remaining holiday-days, and realize that there are plenty, and I should use most of them by the end of the year. Hooray! Holiday! And where to? Well, a natural destination is the Crete of Canadians - Cuba - where everyone goes at least once. A month from now I'll be landing in Cuba, and I promise to think about Che when I drink rum on the beach. But I promise not to buy any tacky Che souvenirs with his famous pic on it.