When I was 9 years old, I spent a summer visiting my aristocratic aunt Carmela that lived out in the country near Camaguey, Cuba. I loved it out there. There were no bug screens on the windows, and during the day these huge green lizards would come in the windows and crawl around the mahogany walls and vaulted ceilings of the place. At night, cucujos (koo-KOO-yos)would come in and crawl all over the mosquito netting over my bed, flashing their lights.

Cucujos were gigantic (1 and 1/2" black click beetles with bright green luminescent spots on their thoraxes. They looked like glowing eyes. Two or three in a coke bottle gave off enough light to read by.

In a totally unrelated story, the following year, Carmela came to Miami Beach on vacation and she invited me to stay with her and be her translator. One morning, while paying the breakfast bill at a diner, she reached over to a book rack and picked up a paperback copy of "Huckleberry Finn". She handed it to me as we left the place and told me, "Here, read this. It is the only piece of literature your country has produced."