The Tribune

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ Associated Press HAVANA (AP) -- HAVANA (AP) -- For months, Cecilia Damau's mother refused to discuss her daughter's trip to Cuba for Pope Benedict XVI's visit. Then four days before Damau left, her mother made one request: "I would love to see pictures from my childhood home." Damau's mother fled Cuba in 1959 as a young girl, days after Fidel Castro and his fellow revolutionaries marched victoriously into Havana. The family never returned. They remade their life in Miami, and Damau grew up hearing little from her mother about the island. Still, she yearned to see the place they had left behind. This week, the 29-year-old pediatric dietician is one of more than 300 mostly Cuban-Americans on a pilgrimage to Cuba led by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Miami. Like many on the tour, Damau came seeking a spiritual experience. But she also was on a personal journey -- to find her ancestral home and make a connection with her family's roots. Accompanied by her nervous Cuban exile father, Damau set off to see her parents' old neighbourhood in the upscale district of Miramar. "Here it is," taxi driver Juan Bettancourt announced as they pulled up to a shady Havana street lined with elegant Spanish-style mansions. A group of young man chatted outside the home, a large sand-colored villa. Damau's grandfather had served as treasury secretary under Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban strongman ousted by Castro's guerrillas. She expected a grand house. But the home has fallen on hard times since her family left. "It looks like it could fall down at any minute," she said. "But I can imagine them living here, my grandmother upstairs. The life they once had. This is so surreal." Damau's emotional return mirrored others taken by Cuban Americans over the years, especially since President Barack Obama lifted limits on how often those with relatives on the island are allowed to visit. American tourists are still barred. The home's 41-year-old occupant, Umberto Lopez, soon arrived and Damau explained her story again. He agreed to show her around but was clearly anxious about the unexpected visit. For years, exile families whose homes were confiscated after the revolution sought compensation and hoped to one day reclaim them. Most have long since given up that dream, but the ghost of such threats remain for Cubans on the island. Inside, a cluster of wooden rocking chairs faced a small television, encircling a floral design in the marble-tile floor. Lopez said the staircase had long been blocked off so another family could live upstairs, typical of the many buildings that have been subdivided since 1959 to create more, but smaller, homes. In the corner was a small altar with carved wooden figures. In addition to being a painter, Lopez is a babalawo -- a priest of Cuba's Afro-Cuban Yoruba faith. "I help people with what ails them," he explained, taking out the beaded chains and deer horns he uses as part of the healing ceremony. A quick look at a list of cures showed much of Lopez's work entails special foods to help his patients. Damau couldn't help but smile -- not so different from her line of work, she noted later. Lopez took Damau through the rest of the house, showing off pictures of his children and looking nervously at her father. "This must be very difficult for him," Lopez said quietly. "It must be hard coming back here." In the taxi again, Damau wondered what her mother would make of the photos she snapped. "I don't know if seeing her home in this way will bring her joy or sadness," she said. But in just over a day in Cuba, Damau's own perspective had changed. "It's really sad to think what it could have been. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have been here. But I do know now I want to be more involved in helping in any way," she said. "I'd like to learn more about their experience," she said of the Cubans who stayed on the island and those who emigrated more recently. "And I'd like to maybe bring our two worlds closer together."