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.

Massacre at Matanzas

To what do I refer with this powerful word "massacre", you might ask. To which I would respond: the hearts, souls, and spirits of twelve American students who had the mishap of being yoked for a three day tour with a tour guide who had never been to said areas and a professor who had never thought about logistics. Though I will write a greater explanation, you should know that this picture says it all:Our first morning in Matanzas dawned grey and cloudy: an omen. We boarded the tour bus and set off for our first destination, a famous old theater. My first inkling of the issues to come was that the theater was not yet open. I guess if you thought your tour guide should know such things or have planned out a schedule, you'd be wrong. The next planned destination, a seminary, was not yet open either, so we had to kill time (we hadn't done anything and we were already trying to kill time...) by stopping at a pharmacy which opened in 1882 and has been preserved ever since. Cuba thinks its such an important place that it charges visitors a whopping 3 CUC to enter. We students did not feel it was so important to see this place, and were prepared on such an "opportunity". After much negotiation, we were made to enter the pharmacy, and told to pay "what we felt appropriate" as we were leaving. I realize right now that this makes us sound like a bunch of ungrateful SOBs. I promise you, that really wasn't the case. Everyone started off excited about the Matanzas trip and we really wanted to get to know another part of the country. At this point, so many things were working against our enjoyment: the early morning, the last dregs of confusion and horror from the previous night's sex show, the fact that our tour guide was an imbecile...etc.to wait outside while our professor went it. He, rather than taking responsibility for the fact that A) the trip was poorly planned, and B) we weren't supposed to have to pay for anything besides meals on this trip, instead seemed to think that we were crazy and a little cheap for not immediately opening our wallets.

Anyway, the most interesting thing from the entire pharmacy debacle was (as another student pointed out) that most modern Cuban pharmacies don't even have a fourth of the products available that they had in other times.

Onward and upward to the seminary, which was indeed situated a bit outside of Matanzas on a hill. Mostly we checked out the view and spent time talking with an older theologian who talked to us about the different religious theories developed since the Revolution. The most interesting to me was the "Theory of the Absurd", which, while I still don't quite understand the name, was created during the Special Period in Cuba. The Special Period was during the nineties, right after the dissolution of the Soviet block. Because that was Cuba's major trading partner, the country suffered severe economic hardships during those years, and it was a very frustrating time, especially for the youth of the country. This theory more or less centered around trying to instill in these youth a sense of hope for the future. It seems to me that this theory should still be in practice right now, only I haven't sensed any hope in the youth we know, just the frustration.

The seminary was followed by lunch in a hillside restaurant. To cut to the chase, we waited about two hours for undercooked, bloody chicken. At some point during the wait, Honorio and I decided a bottle of wine was a good idea. An even better idea was getting a second bottle to go when lunch was finally done. We made one more stop at a little workshop that makes handmade books, and I passed the afternoon and most of the evening in a pleasant state.

Anticlimactic as this day was, it was nothing compared to what was to come. We found out Saturday morning that we were driving two hours away from Matanzas to see some rural villages. Interesting concept, executed because Profe wanted to, despite the fact that our tour guide had never been to these towns...It went about as well as you can imagine. We arrived in the first town, whose name will be forever lost in the annals of my history (in there?). We were told to disembark and walk around for 15 minutes before returning to the van. Imagine this, please. A rural town, in Cuba, which means dusty and poorly (if at all) paved roads. Many of the buildings are in a sad state. It was not a work day, so most people were out and about in town. Some cars could be seen, but it was apparent that biking or hoofin' it were the main modes of transportation. We roll up in a nice, AC-blasting tour bus and walk down the steps into this other world. I experienced some discomfort because everyone was staring at us, which was only natural, given the circumstances. But even more discomfort came from the realization that we were there more or less just to state at them as well. Oh, hai, we're a bunch of Americans and we're going to tour your town like it's something really strange. It's not that I didn't want to see a rural Cuban village, but I don't like making others feel like their life is under the microscope.

So we departed from this town and headed to another, called Jaguey Grande. En route, we passed miles and miles of orange orchards, the big industry in this part of the country. There are also a good deal of schools out in the countryside, and the students attend class in the morning and work picking oranges in the afternoon.

Jaguey Grande was...well, refer to the first picture in this post. This trip was full of half-assed (brief and inaccurate) and unnecessary translations, a random man that we picked up on the street to tell us about the town, and unsatisfying food despite the fact that a fantastic burger joint was just down the street. My favorite experience, however, was walking into an old, dusty building. A few chairs and some dilapidated boxes were in evidence, but not much else. We continued through into an inner patio. Where were we, we wondered? That's right. We were in a run-down building that contained nothing. There are plans in the works for it to eventually become the Municipal Museum of Jaguey Grande, but in the meantime, zilch. Actually, that's not true. They had one artifact, an ancient gasoline-powered iron. Good times.

I can't even write much more about this trip, except that for a short time it took away my will to live, because I also got sick in Matanzas, and suffered a sore throat since then until yesterday. Sunday we did spend on the beach, but I needed about a week's worth of beach days after that weekend.

Gardens, Diplomats, and Sex Shows

Date of writing: 2-05-09

It’s been a while since I last wrote, yet at the same time not too much has really happened. I definitely feel like I’m well-adjusted to my lifestyle here in Havana now, which scares me somewhat, as I now have less than 2 months to enjoy it.

One of the new things that we’ve done recently is pay visits to different community projects that are funded by the Cuban government. One of them was in Cojimar, on the outskirts of Havana. It was basically a co-op founded in order both to keep up sustainable agriculture and to teach people about better eating habits. It’s also tied into a school program. It was interesting to visit, although we spent more time looking at photographs of scarecrows that the co-op members make than seeing the actual results of their labor. This past week we also visited some more sustainable agriculture sites; these were rather anti-climatic as they mostly resembled big gardens in peoples’ back yards. Never seen one of those in rural Pennsylvania… Although, I really shouldn’t scoff. The whole “permacultura” movement (permanent agriculture) is tied into the ideas of caring for both the world and the people that live in it. So at heart, there are some really good ideals behind this. And when you think about, for instance, all the resources that are wasted so that I can have an avocado in Boston in January, you begin to realize that having a larger base in local and sustainable agriculture can really impact the environment. Other odd note, based on these materials we found in the gardens, SOMETHING isn't quite right about the embargo.

Speaking of agriculture and nature and whatnot, we also visited the National Botanical Gardens last Monday. Oh, Cuba. We arrived there after a fairly expensive cab ride. Apparently (and as we saw) the grounds of the gardens are quite extensive. We were hoping to nosh on some vegetarian fare at a buffet in the heart of the gardens, and were duly informed that we would have to wait a half hour for the tour car to return to the front of the garden to pick us up. How far is said restaurant, we inquired. On hearing that it was about a mile and a half, we decided that it would be a jolly good time to walk there, which would take a half hour anyway. But, oh no, it was MONDAY. Apparently, on Mondays, no one is allowed to walk around inside the park; you are only able to take tour cars. We ended up working it out with our cab driver that he would just drive through the park and take us to the restaurant. It was probably worth all the hassle to enjoy the all-you-can-eat buffet of greenery, not to mention the addicting pizza. After a brief digestive romp in the Japanese garden and a gander at 602 different species, we were on our way back to Vedado.

Today (Thursday) I went with Whitney to the hospital so that she would have company/backup in Spanish if necessary. During the wait, we met a diplomat from Mozambique who works at the UN but was delivering a package to her embassy here. Even after Whitney went in to her appointment, I continued chatting with the diplomat in the waiting room. First of all, we were talking about the state of affairs in Cuba, and the lack of opportunity that exists for Cubans, no matter how hardworking they are. I eventually asked her if it was hard to work at a place like the UN, which works supposedly to improve the world, when in her actual travels in different countries she sees so many hard things. She talked to me about feeling frustrated sometimes, that they spend so much time in meetings, and that the UN pays a good salary to so many people, yet at the same time so few tangible results are really accomplished from all of this. Lately I’ve been feeling somewhat out of touch with real life and the United States, because I’m getting so used to life here, and having this conversation with her in some ways brought me back to a different state of mind.

This afternoon we left for Matanzas and Varadero. We are staying in a nice hotel here in Matanzas, and to welcome us to the province, tonight we attended a cabaret show. I don’t know how to properly describe it. There were lots of mostly nude women, whose dancing costumes barely covered their va-jay-jays, let along their rears. The men were clothed in tight and revealing body suits. It almost felt like some type of barely veiled sex show. Steph and I spent time discussing the people in the show. Granted, it was a good show, and I’m sure they are paid fairly well. So for those who aspired to be dancers in the spotlight, this might be a terrific job. But for those who couldn’t find employment elsewhere and were forced to take this job as a way to make ends meet, this must be terrible. The women never stopped smiling the entire show, but mostly it didn’t seem to be in earnest. It seemed more or less the same as going to a strip club in some ways, because we were these tourists almost taking advantage of the fact that these people have to do these things to survive, yet we’ll watch the show and be taken in by it. I really can’t explain how uncomfortable it made me feel. It's even more bizarre, considering it was exactly this type of thing that Castro wanted to do away with after the Revolution- the idea of sex as an easily found commodity in Cuba. That coupled with the fact that it’s an outdoor show while Cuba is experiencing an uncommonly cold cold front made Meg and I depart early from the show. More on Matanzas soon!