Guantanamera

I think the first aspect of Hispanic culture that I noticed was the machismo.The way Adolpho treated Gina, telling her what to wear and how to style her hair. Mariano was so blatantly running around with so many different women, much like Ivan in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I felt these two movies were very similar. I also noticed the selling of goods on the street, how odd that would be here in our area to have someone bring large ropes of garlic(?) to your car window while stopped at a traffic light, or a whole bunch of bananas! This does happen on a smaller scale here, people do sell candy and flower curbside to raise money for different reasons especially around holidays. One of the most odd was when I heard Adolfo speaking of the "permit" he had obtained for travel for four people. We only need a permit, or passport, when we go to different countries. I guess this is something like that. I do not recall anyone checking their permit along the way. Something else that seemed very common or natural for them was when the truck would stop at points along the way people climbed aboard like it was public transportation. It was very dangerous, no seats or seatbelts. Just a load of people standing in the back hanging on to the boards to keep them from falling when the truck stopped and started. It seemed there was always some nice salsa music playing, except when Caudido asked the driver to turn it off so that he could morn properly. I think last thing that really struck me was the vision of the girl who seemed to represent death. I assume there is a strong belief in spirits, the truck driver was performing some type of ritual on the truck before their trip. Aunt Yoyita saw her in a photo right before she died and Caudido acutally saw her several times before his death. Adolpho asked her for help when he was standing alone on the stone column, did he die also?