Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Travel

Travel Advisor
Off-season Europe
Our travel expert gets readers to the heart of autumn Europe, finds the perfect Fallingwater stay and directs scuba divers to some great spots outside the United States.
By Donald D. Groff
[09/09/99]

Repast recaptured
Feasting in a temple of traditional gastronomy in rural France.
By David Downie
[09/08/99]

Out of the Blue
Flying in the age of air rage
When pilots are stabbed to death and flight attendants are taken to the hospital in ambulances, the skies are out of control.
By Elliott Neal Hester
[09/07/99]

Tempests in a Thai-pot
Despite sex scandals and overspeculation, Bangkok residents still find reasons to smile.
By Morris Dye
[09/04/99]

Wanderlust
Belize in the dark
We take to the dark so that we may buy some time in the light.
By Michael Perry
[09/03/99]

Complete archives for Travel

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I showed her the three-dimensional collage art of the locally renowned Scull twins in which a well-rounded woman walking through Old Havana causes a fruit vendor's eyes to bulge from his head. I even pointed out Haydee and Sahara Scull themselves, in person, in identical gold lamé dresses that looked to have been spray-painted on their curvy 46-inch hips.

I took her to a drumming session at a Haitian restaurant on Miami Beach where a troupe of woman dancers let loose an earthy, sway-back performance. I took her to an outdoor reggae concert where hundreds of Jamaican women rotated their hips to the pounding rhythms. And then I took her to a salsa nightclub where the action on the dance floor made the lambada look tame.

I recited the old Cuban come-on that goes something like this: "If you cook like you walk, I'd love to lick the pot." And told her that references to el culo (the butt) are engrained in Cuban literature, and that on the island itself, the body part enjoys an almost mythical status.

Katherine didn't get it. She cringed and rolled her eyes. The constant procession of swaying hips and big bottoms, she thought, was distasteful.

She lived in a place where Puritan values still prevailed. Where fair-skinned blonds with boyish hips and thin thighs were the ideal trophy wives. Where women tried to hide any hips they had in baggy L.L. Bean dresses and long flannel shirts. Where bony-butt girls suffered from anorexia in almost every private high school in town. Where a man who called his wife gorda would be considered a brute, a boor, an abusive husband.

Days later, when I took her to the airport, Katherine's flight to Boston was overbooked. Standing in line in her proper corduroy jumper and waterproof ankle-boots, she tried desperately to convince the sole Delta agent working the counter that she just had to get on the flight in order to be back at work the following morning.

There was one seat available and the Delta man had just given it away. Katherine scowled as a woman in a tight yellow skirt and four-inch platform shoes, boarding pass in hand, wiggled away from the ticket counter like a ripe mango in motion.
salon.com | Sept. 10, 1999

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

  Get a printer-friendly version

  E-mail a friend about this article

  Backflip this article to find it again

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Search Salon