In March 2023, Suzanne and her husband lived in a downtown Varadero apartment, neighbours to a dozen Cubans who are making their living in the tourist industry.
Her reflections record her escapades as she sees, through the limited perspective of her own culture, Cuban life, love, community, and hope.
"We learned a lot about ourselves, about endurance, about community and what makes people truly happy."
From the comfort of our living room, at the click of a button, most North Americans can order anything from mattresses and widgets to toilet paper by the truckload, delivered the next day to our doorstep, and destined soon after to the landfill.
We Canadians feel entitled to multiple varieties of soap, fruits and vegetables, household items, snacks, tools, medicines and spare parts. Yet are we truly richer for it?
Veritable Varadero: A journal of appreciation in the face of lack explores the ‘attitude of gratitude’ Suzanne experienced in the Cubans she encountered, in the face of what any of us in North America would call "lack".
Suzanne discusses material wealth and spiritual poverty, as she encounters material simplicity and spiritual wealth while making friends in Varadero. She also witnesses tragedies of some who envy the northern culture enough to lose themselves in the hopes of living like North Americans.
“Will I ever go back?” says the traveler who experienced shortages of almost everything material in their sunny holiday in Cuba. How has this 'lack' shaped the Cuban people? Veritable Varadero is a journal of her appreciation of the Cubans she met in the face of evident material lack.
Chapter titles include:
Abundance is Relative
Grocery Store?
The Street Market
Samaritan Tourism
Scrooge and Santa
Sexual Tourism
Roosters and my Shadow
Fair Trade
Babel
Communidad
If you want to help Suzanne support the people of Cuba, $5 from every book sale (epub or paperback) will be sent to Cuba.
About the author: Suzanne L. Nadon is a writer, publisher and visionary, mystically devoted to her spiritual path since the early 1980s.
With various community associates, partners and friends she founded alternative education programs, ran a retreat centre, had a counselling practice specializing in spiritual dream work, authored several articles and books on earth-centered spiritual living and became an ordained minister.
She raised four children in the beauty and splendour of Creation, near Owen Sound, and was adopted into a large blended family in 2000 when she married Rick Metcalfe.
She is now NanaSuzi to 12 grandchildren in seven families across Canada.
A retired United Church of Canada minister since 2015, Suzanne’s education in Creation Spirituality, Jungian psychology, Aboriginal teachings, and Christian theology is the foundation of her writing. She believes that dreams are a pathway, a journey towards knowing your authentic self and participating in the Soul of the World, Anima Mundi.
Her work is honest, authentic, dramatic and even humourous at times.
She currently lives downtown Owen Sound with her husband Rick and their poodle Rusty.
