So an American loses a bag in Cuba...

All I can say is I must have been really tired.

When I finally arrived, the flight had already been delayed a couple times, making my total journey time to Havana 24 hours.

Going through customs could have been worse. Officers had masks on and were inspecting people for flu-like symptoms while I filled out a card saying I hadn't had a headache in 24 hours, which of course wasn't entirely true. Customs asked me my name, where I was staying and the purpose of my trip, and my visa (never passport) was stamped through.

Tourismo was the purpose, and in the next hour I'd certainly act like one.

Jose greeted me on the other end of the glass doors. He looked exactly like I remembered him, if a little thinner for the wear.

It was one of those much anticipated moments: rare for me in that it didn't disappoint my always unreasonably high expectations. The airport was filled with that energy you sometimes hear about, especially in countries where people are usually leaving. I felt the other who were waiting for loved ones watch us hug, and could feel the cariÑo that radiated back from their own memories of greetings and departures.

Before we left the airport a driver offered us a taxi for 20 bucks back into Havana, which is standard. We got in his car and talked and talked and it wasn't until we'd arrived at the hotel I realized my laptop bag was gone. I'd taken it with me in the backseat, but in my haze of exhaustion and happiness I'd only grabbed my other bag and must have thought the other was in the trunk with the bags Jose carried.

Of course the driver was gone by the time I realized, so we commenced our hazy sleepwalk through Havana. First we went to the hub where a lot of the taxis go and looked for the driver, who wasn't there. When we told other drivers what had happened, none seemed too optimistic, since the cab we'd both thought was legal--the yellow/black CubaTaxi is apparently somehow illegal to take from the airport. Another company has a monopoly on airport rides so the taxi agency would have no way of tracking the driver because he shouldn't have been at the airport in the first place. Like most things involving the cross between socialistic bureaucracy and capitalistic monopoly in Cuba, I don't pretend to understand the logic.

Like most Cuban conversations, each driver we spoke with was personally concerned, and had their own detailed opinion about our situation which usually took between 5 to 10 minutes to deliver.

After exhausting the taxi drivers, (or vice versa) we went to the police station, which at first seemed logical to me.

I wasn't worried because as far as Cubans are concerned, I have a visa to enter the country from Mexico, and there's nothing illegal about me being here. Still, I realize I've been lucky enough not to interact with the law before, especially with Jose.

From what I've read and heard, a relationship like mine and Jose's used to be cause enough for the police to stop you on the street and ask for identification. I've heard even friendships between Cubans and tourists could be considered cause for enough for harassment from the law. As of now, from what I've heard/experienced, that's changed, and it's only illegal to harass tourists. Still, it occurred to me once we entered the station that Jose was taking a small risk.
The police asked him where I was from once they realized I was a foreigner. The conversation went something like this:
--De donde es ella?
--Estados Unidos
--Y tu?
--Cubano
--Cubano-Cubano?
--Si.

I learned later that the purpose of that exchange was not to question the nature of our relationship but to chastise Jose for not knowing that the yellow taxis aren't allowed at the airport.

The rest of the exchange with the police was resembled the conversations with the taxi drivers, except with the police we had to work harder to convince them to care about what had happened.

One officer, (Jose told me later after we were waiting for the investigator because I missed it) had been hitting the computer monitor repeating 'que pasa con eso?' Jose laughed that after a few minutes of this, he accidently knocked the mouse with his elbow, thus accidentally 'fixing' the computer.

Kind of funny, but hilarious to our Cuban friends Jose reenacted the story for later. What I didn't know before is that the police here in Havana have the reputation being a sort of hick-brute hybrid. The stereotype is that they're curated from the countryside where they come to the big city to bully other more 'educated' Habaneros. Jose seems to feel they have few skills beyond breaking up fights and asking for ID on the street.

I have to say, the police didn't seem dumb to me, but they also didn't exactly illicit a feeling of comfort or effort. I got the feeling they could try to make a notice to put at the airport like we begged, but it didn't vale the pena.

When we were directed to another station specializing in tourists, we ended up talking with a couple other officers for almost an hour. They were nice guys and who at least cared enough to each give their animated opinions about every element of the story. A few times, I almost cracked up laughing because the scene was so surreal, the cops smoking and joking with us, while one took down my name and how much each item in the bag cost. He wrote the items (Apple I spelled out loud a few times, they don't exist here) in an inventory book that looked like what guest book at a wedding. I imagined all the other claims for lost good greeting the ghost of my laptop in black market heaven.

The police took down Jose's number, walked us to the door, patted Jose on the back (I love how this was seen as more his problem than mine) and said 'Hermano, if we ever find it, I'l bring it personally to your door and we'll celebrate with a bottle of rum'.

It was about that moment I said hasta luego to my laptop and heard Havana grin back a bienvenidos in return.

So imagine my surprise when today, almost 5 days later, Jose's mom got a call from the driver saying he had the bag. When she couldn't reach us, she called our friend Italo to find us. Italo ran from his house to the Ludwig Foundation where we happened to have just arrived. He yelled from the street over the balcony for Jose, who ran back up five minutes later grinning with the news.

We met the driver outside the hotel an hour later where he drove up with 3 other guys in a car. He proudly showed me everything still in its place, unharmed and very much not stolen. He told me his daughters had wanted to keep the new pink toothbrushes I'd packed in the bag but that he had told them it wasn't theirs. Of course I gave him the toothbrushes along with a nice reward in cash, but the whole interaction still amazes me.

And yet it doesn't at all. In some ways, I expected Cuba to be the one place my computer would come back. That it didn't the day after it was lost was almost more surprising to me then its return. Why, I'm not sure, because other Cubans here sure can't believe I got it back.

The driver says the bag fell underneath the seat, which might have been why I missed it when I left and why he didn't find and return it until now.

Or, according to Jose and other Cubans, he probably got scared that my phone or computer could be tracked and realized it wasn't worth the risk. When he went to the police station and realized we'd left our number with the police, that certainly would have sealed the deal.

And yet, either way, he returned it.

And it's not that people are only good samaritans in Cuba. Even in New York, people return things. I think the difference is, they're usually things they could hope to buy someday. Or maybe things they already have.

What was in that bag was a fortune for that man and his family. There was a new computer, a cell phone, prescription glasses, an ipod, and yes, pink toothbrushes. No reward I could give him could be anywhere near the value it would have here. So why do I feel safer in this country, even in the days I considered my things long gone? Why do I expect that people here, even if they're not 'better', are more likely to at least act in a way that is better?

Because this is a police state? Because if something violent happens to me its international news and life in jail? Because I'm acting like an entitled tourist? Because the average stranger here is more likely to offer their home to me than a neighbor would back home?

Yes, yes, yes and yes. At first I was pretty sure the moral of this story was obvious, almost too simple to merit writing down. Now I think the moral is to stop generalizing about Cubans, to stop romanticizing this great country and begin seeing it for what it is: a place that so far, has been good to me.