Ruminations

So today I was thinking of taking our Cuban guy friends out of their context here and putting them into the context of the United States. Now, their ages are 24, 25, 26, and 30. However, except for Ruben (the 30 year old), all of the guys act much younger than their contemporaries in the United States. That's not to say less mature by any means, but it's more so that they are less serious than mid-20-somethings that I know in the United States. I can't decide if that's a positive thing or not. I guess I was thinking specifically of a lot of the coworkers that I've had over the past few years, and they (myself included as well) sometimes seem to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. It's definitely not like that with our Cuban friends- despite the fact that they have their own set of worries. Just an interesting thought.

Donde lo consiguiste?

Today we had a class about media and communication in Cuba, and the most interesting thing to me was this phrase, which means "where did you get it?" The women who were speaking to us said that it's much more common to say that instead of "where did you buy that?" This is because it's so difficult to get your hands on commercial goods here, and most of what people do get is somehow or another under the table. Reflecting that, the answer to this question is usually "a la izquierda", or "to the left", signifying some kind of deviation from the straight and narrow (aka legal) path. The language is being affected and changing due to economic stresses in society.

The other interesting note about the press is how international news articles are written here in Cuba. Let's use the Israel-Palestine conflict. Basically, a Cuban news agency will take about 12 or so articles from international press bureaus, and piece together from this their own account about what's going on. However, at the same time, the articles must also be checked and aligned with the Cuban Communist Party line...

Valentine’s Day

Date of actual writing: 2-15-09

Do any of you have a holiday that you really enhoy, yet at the same time deplore the amount of commercialization that surrounds it? Celebration minus Hallmark is one of the pleasures to be found in this socialist stronghold. Valentine’s Day, or El Día de los Enamorados, is as big (if not bigger) here as in the United States, only minus the expensive cards and the CVS chocolates. Right after breakfast all of us girls received flowers from Geovannis, who both works in the building and who first introduced us to the group of guys with whom we spend so much time. All day long, no matter where you were, people would make sure to wish one another Happy Valentine’s Day. People even called the house just to say it. I thought that it was just such a nice custom, and based more truly on caring about people that V-Day in the US with the fake cards that say nothing real.

So how did we celebrate Valentine’s Day? With a costume party, of course. I love Cuba. While we came in costumes such as 50’s housewives or Romans with togas, the boys went all out with masks and facepaints. I almost forgot whether we were celebrating Valentine’s or Halloween, but it was terrific.

Terrific just like most of the time that we spend with Cubans here. Which is why my hatred of the system here grows by leaps and bounds each time that I hear about incidents such as the one that happened to some of the girls and the two boys they were hanging out with yesterday. While walking down the Malecon, heading towards the Havana book fair (a huge event in one of the Spanish fortalezas, where thousands of people cram in to buy really cheap books- I was in heaven), the police came up and started asking the two Cuban boys a bunch of questions. Eventually, they took the boys to the police station, despite the fact that the girls tried to protest. The girls took a cab and followed them to the police station, and kept questioning the police about what was happening. This included one of the police officers blatantly lying to them and said that the guys were under investigation for something. This was total BS because this was the third time the police had stopped this group of girls and guys together, although it was the first time the guys were taken to prison. The system here is so desperate to prevent interactions between tourists and Cubans that they jail people over this. It’s so frustrating and unfair- I get mad almost to the point of crying when I think of these things here. The worst part is when you think about it in general, the words criminal justice are so terribly ironic because so often no justice is to be found. I was thinking about when I used to work at HSTF and talked to some of the youth, and they used to tell me about getting stopped and searched by the police- sometimes twice in a day- just for being black. This shit happens everywhere. The world still has so far to come. That’s why, for me, the thought of bringing and child into this world is so scary- I am tormented enough by thinking about these things, why expose another human being to it?

Funky Spidermonkey and Other Such Tales

Date of writing: 2-14-09

Somehow yet another week has gone by without me noticing. Most notably, Whitney and I heard my favorite attempted pick-up line to date. As we were eating hamburgers and walking to exchange money on Línea, a young man passes us and says, “Quieren una salchicha?”…or, “Want a sausage?” I personally loved the timing of this, as we were eating hamburgers, and we all know the good American combo of burgers and dogs (or sausages), but I’m not sure that the fellow realized how humorous this might be to us. Good times.

It’s been a very musical week here for us. The Havana Jazz Festival started on Thursday night, and we were able to attend one of the inagural events: a concert by world-famous Chucho Valdéz. It was really incredible; not only was Chucho himself a treat to see, but he was accompanied by a heartbreakingly good trumpet player and three soulful sisters, who are Celia Cruz’s contemporaries and (to put it into American terms) could give Aretha Franklin a run for her money. Then last night we went to see Buena Vista Social Club. Their rendition of Chan Chan was…I’ll go with amazing, but that doesn’t really even cover it. I had chills down my back listening to it. One thing that was interesting to me is that the concert arena wasn’t even full- for BVSC! But then I talked to Ruben and he was explaining that it’s another generation of music and that most people now want to hear younger and newer musical styles. While I understand that, I know that a CSNY concert would still be packed in the US, with both young and older fans.

The other interesting thing in relation to the music we’ve seen this week is that in the concerts, we see a slightly higher level of commercialism than we do in other places. There are jazz festival banners up at each concert, and sponsors are listed at the bottom, including Bucanero beers and Havana Club rum. This is probably the highest degree of advertising that we’ve seen, and it’s a slight shock to the senses.

In other cultural news, we went to the National Museum of Fine Arts. It wasn’t bad, except for the fact that we were stuck with a tour guide and spent two hours there. I don’t particularly enjoy art tours; I just like looking at the pieces that strike me. My favorite was “Campesinos Felices” (Happy Famers) by Carlos Enriquez- it’s an incredibly strong piece of art which depicts the life of Cuban peasants. It was done during the era of a less famous Cuban president, but suffice to say that in that era they were all pretty corrupt and didn’t do much to actually help the people. I recommend that people Google it, but I’ll tell you ahead of time that the title is nothing if not ironic.

In order to get the best of Italy, you need to go to Chinatown. Strange statement, but it makes sense in Cuba. Whitney and I went on a date with our boos the other day. They said we were going to get the best pizza in Havana, so imagine my confusion when we roll up in Chinatown. However, they did not tell a lie. It was the best pizza I’ve had here, and would rival some of the lesser pizzerias in the US as well. That also ended up being one of the most fun lunches I’ve ever had, including lots of debate about whether the girls or the guys would win the next game in our soccer series (important note: we finally did beat them! The series is currently Guys 3- Women 1, but don’t worry, we’re going full steam ahead now. It’s quite satisfying in this culture of machismo to be able to crush the male ego, at least a little bet. Plus, with victory I won myself a massage too. Life is good.) We also spent time explaining some different English phrases to them, chiefly “spidermonkey”. The phenomenon of the spidermonkey abounds in old Cuban films. Mostly, it involves a sappy woman, an abandoned building, and a lustful Cuban male. The female spends the scene equivocating between her desire and her fear, at some points making advances toward the male, and at other points pressing herself to the wall while said arduous suitor forms the other side in an awkward sandwich, performing a move known to we canny anthropologists as “spidermonkeying”.

In final exciting news, I gave my boyfriend hives. More accurately, the acetominaphin that I gave him for his aching tooth caused an allergic reaction, and at about 5 AM this morning he was covered in hives. That’s what you get for helping people. No, but it was pretty bad- I never even thought that someone could have that type of reaction to a Tylenol-like substance. Happy Valentine’s Day, honey. It makes me think of different allergies that people have- in the US, people are prone to peanut allergies, but in Africa that’s the main substance given to kids suffering from malnutrition (thanks Megatron). Or lactose intolerance, and how it’s common in some people and not others based on their proximity to cows in early historical times. However, I won’t be giving more acetominaphin to other Cubans in order to test this theory.