1 Comment Written by Poppy Calhoun on October 8, 2008 – 9:08 am

I am true believer that existentialism exists for those who seek it…

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I was about 18, the world was big and I wanted to know how everything worked. I started to wake up to how things really are and rebelled against the commercial world. By chance I stumbled upon a film called Fidel and Che, it was the tale of the Cuban Revolution. It sparked a fire in my mind; a story about a group of young men who gained the support of the working class and would eventually overtake the country. It made me believe in the possibilities we have as young people.

By chance (at least what I thought was chance) my mother found a book in a local Op Shop called Cigar Cool. It was a photography book that featured pictures of people who enjoy smoking cigars (the famous, infamous and us regular folk), as well as the farming and production side of the tobacco industry. The first strange coincidence with this book was that the inside cover was inscribed  ’Dear Poppy’.  I forgot about this book for nearly five years.

This year I travelled throughout Mexico and Cuba. Having no set plans opened the door to more experiences than I had ever dreamt of. After nearly drowning in the big waves of Porto Escondito, I was then “reborn” in the jungles of Palenque. I jammed with a Mexican mariaches on a silent road stop and with Italian gypsies in a dishevelled garden. Towards the end of the journey I met a Cuban farmer who let me gallop his horses around the tobacco fields in Vinyales, Cuba.

Last week while unpacking boxes in my new house, I found the book again. Opening it up I immediately recognised the tobacco farms in Vinyales. Even stranger than that was the farmer on the cover, the same farmer that I had befriended on my travels.