Excuse me, but have you been intimate with dead people lately?

Actual Date of Writing: 1/05/09

The title of this blog and the conversation to which it relates shall remain known only to those of us here. However, for all my fans at home, it is a great indication of how well we’re bonding. Let’s leave it at that.

So, lots to bring you all up to date on, as well as lots of random thoughts that somehow tangentially relate to what we’ve been doing. Let’s see. So we arrived in La Habana on Sunday afternoon. First note: last time I was here, we flew into the terminal for international arrivals, EXCEPT those for Americans. Not that it was the most majestic building ever, but it was decent, and I remember lots of duty-free shops and whatnot. Well, the American arrival terminal isn’t so much. Also, you walk out of the terminal and immediately see lots of revolutionary art- check out this photo (it says "that who gives refuge to a terrorist is a terrorist"). The other thing you see immediately on leaving the airport is amazing cars. Poppy, I will have an entire set of photos just of cars for you. There are some new cars here too, but you see a preponderance of old American cars. It’s so amazing.

We then arrived at our apartment, AKA the sweetest place ever. We have the penthouse apartment of a residence building, essentially. The apartment is owned by Casa de las Américas, the university at which we are studying, so students always live here. It’s a two floor apartment with maybe 5 or 6 bedrooms, each with 2 or 3 beds. I am living with Chelsea and Megan, and I have to say, we got the best room in the entire house- we are downstairs, in an apartment facing the sea, with its own bathrooom and balcony and huge windows. I’m living the good life here.

Maria, Milady, and Chino are all part of our household too. Maria is basically our house mom, and lives here too and cleans. She’s maybe in her 50s and really sweet. Rumor has it she’s a big Grey’s Anatomy fan (apparently you can watch American TV here), so I think I’ll be hanging out with her a lot (Tanya, Linny, and Kristen, I will think of you!). Milady is the best cook in the entire world, and my plan is to get her to teach me how to make beans the way she does. And Chino owns the place, and is ridiculously nice.

So we had dinner, unpacked a bit, etc, and then went out for our first drinks. We also decided to sit on the Malecon, and lots of people came up to us to talk. We spent the longest time with Yoandy, an eighteen year old student at Havana University. He’s learning English and wanted to practice with us, although we spent the majority of time speaking in Spanish anyway.

The night ended with four us sitting around the pool on the roofdeck. You know it’s going to be a good trip when one of you falls in the pool…and there’s no water in it. Thankfully, noone was hurt in the making of this comedic moment, and we soon went to bed.

The next morning was orientation at our school, which is basically a big art/cultural center kind of place. The rooms are open and large, and it’s a great place to have class. Also, the president of CASAs is Roberto Fernandez Retamar. This may or may not mean anything to people at home, but he is a tremendous writer who I’ve read for various classes, and we are going to get to meet him!!! This is also an amazing year for us to be here, because this is the year of the 50^th Anniversary of the “triumph of the revolution” (I have this in quotes because everyone here says is that way- I will talk later on the conditioning of nationalism). Our university was founded that year as well, and is also celebrating its anniversary, so because of this there will be really cool cultural events a few times a month here.

We had one class after orientation, our film class. We began watching a movie about the days of slavery and plantations. It’s a fascinating movie so far, but I’m going to hold back on the commentary until I finish watching it.

Following class, we headed down to Habana Vieja, or Old Havana. The professor of our Cuba in the 21^st Century class was our guide, and he is amazing. I’m so excited for his class. Anyway, Habana Vieja is the part of the city first constructed by the Spanish, with lots of forts and GORGEOUS architecture. Gerardo, the profe, also knew soo many people there, so we got to meet them all. He also introduced us to some school children playing in a park, and we spent some time with them. This is where the talk about conditioning comes in. These kids are inundated so young with their country’s history, focusing especially on José Martí and then the Revolution. They were able to recite to us a Martí poem and sing a song about his virtues. So from very young, they are taught all this. I suppose, really though, it’s not so different from the U.S.- we are brought up thinking that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are the most amazing people ever, and throughout the entirety of my schooling in PA I NEVER learned about the negative things that the U.S. does in the world, which is pretty sad.

Coming home, we had our first experience with a grocery store (this is different than the bodega, which I will write about in the next post- this only takes CUCs, also to be explained tomorrow). It was really busy, and to buy rum, you wait in line AT LEAST 10 minutes. Otherwise, it’s not tremendously different.

The last great highlight from the night was meeting Yoyo (Yoyo Valdez, you’re still the best Yoyo). He’s a mechanic, and me, Danny, and Honorio ended up talking to him for two and a half hours. Right now is not the time for me to go into a full explanation of Afrocuban religion, but he worships one of the gods- not that he chose the god, but a “priest” (I’ll explain and use the actual words later) helped him divine which god was his. Apparently, we also can go to this “priest” (babalao) to determine which god would be each of ours if we were to begin practicing the religion. This is all determined through a series of readings with conch shells and what not. So…yeah, I’m absolutely going to do it. Who knows, I’m spiritual and have my own personal beliefs and values, but still haven’t found an established belief system that really works for me- maybe this will be it.