Category Archives: Uncategorized

May 27, 2011 · 1:23 pm

Lost in Cuban Translation

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When was the last time you felt like a 5-year-old? If you live in a foreign language like me, it was probably yesterday.

Maybe it’s because as an adult, my English grammar and pronunciation very rarely need correcting. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and pride myself on how I wield words. Or maybe it’s because the person doing the correcting – consciously or not – establishes an immediate power construct in which I’m the perennial underdog. Reasons aside, having my speech corrected makes me feel like a child (or special needs adult).

So too, does not knowing the word for something – a handicap reserved for foreign language speakers and kids. Struggling for how to say bruise or gutter, ravish or rhetorical is a quick, sure smack down to the ego let me tell you. It doesn’t help that my husband too often gives me a dumfounded look when I ask him how to say things like hydrant or drain. Adding insult to injury: when he does remember a word or is listening closely enough to correct my pronunciation, it is nearly always in the presence of studiously hip (and oddly competitive) Cuban intellectuals. Thanks buddy.

Written Spanish is another issue altogether. Like many, I occasionally write a Cuban word as it sounds, resulting in glaring mistakes (and dogged corrections by readers). Nothing as bad as pescao or toke, but still.

I admit I’m prickly when it comes to this language business. I suppose my command of English – hammered into me by a family of grammar Nazis and Scrabble fanatics – colors my approach to Spanish and feeds the neurosis. Why else would I want five choices for how to say ‘disgruntled’ en español? Some days I’d settle for just being able to find the word for ‘upset.’ Sad, but true.

Yet, even while I’m beating myself up for calling a crutch a woman of mixed race (‘muleta’ is quite different from ‘mulatta’ after all), Cubans often comment about how well I speak, saying my accent is 100% cubano. The aforementioned hipster intellectual class excepted, of course.

Such unsolicited props for my verbal skills provide a temporary ego jack, it’s true. But some words continue to elude me. In fact, I’ve realized after nine years of living here that some Cuban words have no English equivalent whatsoever. Am I wrong? Let me know.

gaceñiga – I discovered this treat back in my first days here in Havana when an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair would peddle past our microbrigada several times a week yelling ‘gaceñiga! gaceñiga!’ Since no one sold much besides bleach and brooms out that way, I was intrigued. After a cajoling, linguistic tango, my husband equated this long baked confection with a pound cake. It’s unclear whether his comparison stems from his verbally-challenged tendencies or his unfamiliarity with baked goods, but to call a gaceñiga a pound cake is like calling a groupie a music critic. Definitely not a pound cake, it’s not a stöllen either. However, a fresh gaceñiga does resolve breakfast nicely. (This is not to be confused with Sponge Rusk, or as the Cubans say esponrrú, another favorite over this way).

descampó – This is one of those Spanish words that makes English jealous. How efficient and to the point! Just one word to say ‘it has stopped raining.’ You’d think the nose-to-the-grindstone Anglos would have come up with this one word wonder instead of the expressive, expansive Spaniards.

guara – Elusive little bugger this one. In a previous post and under pressure, I translated this as ‘moxie’ or ‘pluck.’ But since then I’ve heard a couple of different meanings for guara and now I’m not so sure. Anyone? Anyone?

mantecado – Given that ice cream is one of my minor addictions, this one has chapped my ass since the early days. Mantecado is an ice cream flavor (and only ice cream as far as I’ve been able to determine) that has been described to me as ‘the absence of flavor. Like cream-flavored ice cream.’ While the ‘manteca’ stem of the word would suggest butter or fat of some kind, if it were truly cream-flavored it wouldn’t taste so blech. I’ll try anything once – especially a new to me ice cream flavor – and once was enough for mantecado (NB: a pox on the waiter who told me vanilla was the flavor of the day when what he really meant was mantecado).

pena – I’ve saved the best for last. Most people translate pena as embarrassment. But that’s a gross simplification for a very complex concept (among the most complex in the entire Cuban character if you ask me). Pena is something so ingrained in generations of Cubans it’s like a dominant gene. If you know Cubans, you know what I’m talking about.

To start, pena is intrinsic – it’s not caused by outside forces. Whereas falling in a hotel lobby or having your period in a white pair of pants is embarrassing, neither is a cause for pena – not for a Cuban anyway. It’s also a slippery concept, pena, and is more like a state of mind because it’s so individual. At its most base, it’s related to how one’s actions will be perceived and received by others.

‘I don’t want to ask to borrow a cup of rice. Me da pena.’

‘I want to go to her house, pero me da pena.’

‘Will you flag down a car? Me da pena.’

Pena is so powerful it can lead people to inaction, which is a paradox given Cubans’ seemingly innate desire and ability to resolve problems. Some people suffer so acutely, they’re labeled penoso/a. If you’ve been here and had something go mysteriously pear shaped or unaccountably awry, look to pena.

Me? I’m completamente sin pena.

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Filed under Americans in cuba, Communications, Cuban customs, Cuban idiosyncracies, Cuban phrases, cuban words without translation, Expat life, Living Abroad, Uncategorized

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February 28, 2011 · 11:29 am

Trip Tips: Havana Independently

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Havana is hot and I’m not talking about mulatas or the weather: from Cayo Hueso to Regla, Cementerio Colón to Ciudad Deportiva, you can’t swing a dead gato around here these days without hitting a tourist. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve seen this many foreigners in Havana since the 2006 Non-Aligned Meeting (see note 1).

There are reasons of course. The Cigar and Young Filmmakers Festivals are going strong as I write this, we’re getting a couple of monster cruise ships docking each week, and all-inclusive packages from Canada are mad cheap (see note 2). But most importantly, Havana’s streets teem thanks to Obama’s rollback to Clinton’s policy whereby US college students and select others can travel “legally” to the island. I’m surprised the effects have been so lightening fast – the new/old regulations were just announced in January – but everywhere I turn these days there seems to be a fresh-faced co-ed in Wesleyan gear or a Teva-shod geek. I hope they all have iPads.

Many of these people won’t end up liking Havana (hell, even I don’t like Havana some times). Starting with poor air quality, negative travelogues grouse about the expense of this place; perceived levels of state control; difficulties scratching below the surface +/o contextualizing their experience; and of course, crappy goods and even shittier services.

The dramatic economic changes happening around here – legalizing 178 types of private business from clown to cook, masseur to manicurist – are altering the travelers landscape (see note 3). So that Here is Havana readers can maximize their visit to this enigmatic city, I dedicate this post to travel strategies designed to get you beneath Havana’s skin.

#1. Talk the talk. There is no better way to maximize an independent holiday here than to speak cubano, with all its chopped off words, odd pronunciation and slang (see note 4). Even if ¿que bola asere? and ‘la heva está enpinga’ isn’t in your repertoire, try at least to dust off that high school Spanish since surprisingly few Cubans dominate English (and many of those that do are unusually accomplished charlatans). Not speaking Spanish doesn’t mean you’ll have a bad time – on the contrary. But it will limit your ability to get information, negotiate, learn and arrange logistics.

#2. Embrace pesos cubanos. As soon as you’re able, get some moneda nacional, also known as pesos cubanos and CUP. There’s a myth out there as tenacious as herpes in a whorehouse and which no amount of posting, commenting, and conversing seems to dispel: that tourists can’t use this ‘local’ currency. Complete rubbish. The truth is, most visitors simply don’t know how to use CUP. I suggest starting your trip by changing $5 of hard currency (24 CUP = 1 CUC = 0.82 USD) into this funny money to use for fixed route taxis, movies, food, condoms, cigars, and stepping out.

#3. Roll like a local. Long-finned Pontiacs, Capone-era Dodges, and other ‘Yank tanks’ leap to most minds when Cuba is mentioned. Undeniably cliché, these cars are everywhere, plying Havana’s streets working as communal, fixed-route taxis. For 10 pesos cubanos (about 0.40 USD), you can hail one of these endearing jalopies (I climbed into one yesterday that had packing tape upholstery and a ceiling lined with old refrigerator boxes) between Playa and Vedado or Habana Vieja, out to Miramar or Marianao. Longer routes – from Habana Vieja out to the Playas del Este beaches for example – will run double. To grab one, just stick out your arm parallel to the ground and ask the driver if he’s going to where you need to be. It helps to be on the right thoroughfare: 23 or Línea in Vedado, San Lázaro or Neptuno in Centro Habana, Avenida 31 or 41 in Playa, Calle 51 in Marianao, or 3ra Avenida in Miramar.

c. C Gorry

Even lower down on the transportation food chain is the guagua (pronounced wa-wa) – the Cuban bus. A ride literally costs pennies and while not especially comfortable or efficient, riding the guagua gives a real taste of Cuban daily life with all its attendant humor and hardships.

If these options don’t appeal, consider renting a car and driver. Part of the new regulations stipulate that licensed freelance drivers can now be contracted (by anyone, including foreigners as I understand it) to provide transport islandwide. There are no set fares, with rates to be determined between driver and client. Already nearly 6,000 choferes in Havana have applied for the freelance license; 2,000 have been granted. If the market has its way, the increased competition should make for more bargaining power and improved service. At the very least, it provides visitors an alternative to renting a car for $100 a day (which will somehow end up costing more when the agency is done with you). I predict that freelance drivers who speak English are going to do very well under these new regulations.

#4. Make yourself at home. One of the great benefits presented by the new regulations for travelers is the possibility to legally rent an entire house. This means you can shop at the agro (using those pesos cubanos) and cook for yourself, throw a dinner party, or introduce Cuban friends to the concept of brunch. Having your own private space means you can channel surf Cuban state TV (University for All! Little House on the Prairie! Seinfeld!), take mojitos on your porch to the delight of the neighborhood gossips, or stumble in carefree at 4am.

Another idea for a different Havana experience is to take lodging in more off-the-beaten-track places like the beach towns of Guanabo or Baracoa or Cojimar – the fishing village made famous by Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. These are close enough to enjoy Havana but just far enough removed to give a taste of small town life.

c. C Gorry

#5. Get primped & pampered. The new regulations approve all sorts of services which visitors can now enjoy without any sneaking around. Now your visit can include a 1-hr massage for $20 (really $10, but you might be charged double – the foreigner tax digamos), manicures for $2, and haircuts for $5 (careful with this last however).

If you’re interested to learn if someone – driver, masseuse, pizza maker – proffering these and other goods and services is licensed to do so, ask to see their licencia de cuenta propista. Most people are proud to flash their spiffy new ID cards.

#6. Spread the wealth. Frankly I weary of travelers asking me how they can avoid patronizing state businesses. That’s like asking how to avoid death or taxes. From the moment you buy your $20 tourist card to enter the country, to the minute you’re paying the $25 tax to leave, you’re supporting the Cuban government. What’s so evolved about this place is that paying into government coffers does in turn support the Cuban people (maybe not how or to the extent you’d like, but in my book the Cuban approach is fundamentally better than subsidizing bombs in Afghanistan and spies in Caracas). If you have a problem with this, do us all a favor and go to Cancun.

Having said that, I do recommend spending your hard-earned cash at a mix of state and private enterprises, but how to tell the difference? With eateries, there are some telltale signs. If your server is wearing a uniform or hairnet the place is probably state-owned. If your food descends from a balcony in a bucket it’s definitely private.

With taxis it’s even clearer: 99% of the old Motor City monsters (and many of the Ladas) brandishing taxi signs are privately owned. When in doubt, do like the Cubans do and look at the license plate (see note 5). There’s an entire code for plates here, with the first clue being the color: blue is for state-owned, yellow is private. All hotels, meanwhile, are at least 51% state-owned, but casas particulares (rooms or independent houses for rent) are privately operated. Look for the blue ‘arrendador divisa‘ sign.

c. C Gorry

If you’re interested in learning more of the Havana ‘mécanica‘ including bus and fixed-fare taxi routes, the best spot for 75 cent whisky shots and $1 lunch, Cuban line etiquette and more, please check out my iapp Havana Good Time.

Notes

1. It’s highly doubtful we’ll reap the same benefits however: when Cuba hosted the meeting as is customary for the country holding the rotating presidency, Havana’s main roads were repaved, trees were planted (including many of the trees lining Boyeros every visitor zooms by on their way from the airport) and house facades all along the arrival route were painted up nice and spiffy for the visiting delegations.

2. These 7-day all inclusive deals are oftentimes cheaper than just a Toronto-Havana Cubana flight. Savvy travelers just book the package and stay a day or two at their resort and then travel independently. As an aside, tourism figures for January indicate a 16% increase for the same period last year. Top countries visiting Cuba: Canada, Italy, Germany, France, Russia, Argentina, and Mexico.

3. I say travelers here instead of tourists because I believe there is a fundamental difference between a person who passively observes a culture and someone who desires to actively participate in it. If you’re one of those disposed to take issue with the tourist vs traveler terminology, I invite you to focus on the phenomenon/philosophy I’m talking about rather than the etymology of the terms used to describe it.

4. Those interested in Cuban slang and phrases should check out this Dichos iapp. I haven’t been able to get it yet (the US government blocks iTunes from operating in Cuba) but am loca to try it.

5. This national reflex is widespread and wild to watch: no matter what type of car you’re in, observe how passing Cubans immediately drop their eyes to check out the license plate. Via the coded plates, they’ll know if your car is from Havana or the provinces, whether you’re a foreign resident or visiting, even if you work for the state, a mixed Cuban-foreign enterprise, a church or an NGO.

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December 25, 2010 · 8:08 pm

Wanna Go to Havana for Free?!

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Now that the paroxysm of consumerism known as Christmas is behind us (and any entity public or private still playing carols should be shut down or shot), I invite you to experience a different slice of life – Havana.

Until January 3, I’ll be giving away 30 free copies of my iapp Havana Good Time (see notes 1 & 2). All you have to do is let me in on one of your favorite places in Merida (Mexico), The Big Island (Hawaii) or Havana. Why these three? Just because they’re among my favorite places in this hemisphere. If your suggestion is already known to me (in the case of the first two) or listed in the iapp in the case of my adopted city, I might still gift you Havana Good Time just for playing (see note 3).

How to play? Easy: just enter your submission in the comment field or drop me a line.

CAVEAT EMPTOR: this offer only good at the US iTunes store (sorry about that folks – this part is out of my control)

Tell your friends!

Hell, tell strangers. And while you’re at it, let them know about Havana Good Time’s Facebook page, where I post all the latest tidbits, juicy news, and hot concerts happening around town.

Happy 2011 everyone – may it be full of new adventures and health for all.

Notes

1. OK, so it’s a free virtual trip to Havana, but this iapp is so dialed in, with over 300 great images, you’ll feel like you’re there.

2. Havana Good Time currently works on the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad. Versions that work on your computer coming soon!

3. If you win, all subsequent versions of Havana Good Time are free too!

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November 26, 2010 · 3:54 pm

Driving Eleggua: Adventures at the DMV, Finale

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Countdown: 15 Days to Departure

I got all my mojo working the morning of the road test. I donned my lucky Argentinean underwear, wore my St Christopher’s medal tight around my neck (see note 1), and insisted my beloved husband not accompany me. That’s all I needed. It had taken me two tries to pass the written and the aborted attempt at the road test the day before had pushed my panic button. My time was running out; I needed this driver license.

My friend Angela arrived in her car and we stood around chatting with the other would-be drivers while we waited for Oswaldo The Road Test Cop. He sauntered up late and nonplussed. I looked him in the eye and smiled.

‘Remember me?’ that smile said. Today’s the day.

I knew the drill but gathered in close with the others to listen to his pre-test spiel. I wanted to show him I was respectful and ready. That I meant business. I waited my turn and handed over the required documents: my Cuban ID card, plus Angela’s license and registration. Oswaldo looked them over, plucking Angela’s license from the fan of laminated cards in his hand.

“She can’t be your representante. You need someone with a Cuban license” (see note 2).

I had asked my husband precisely this the night before.

“You’re worrying too much. She can be your representante and you’re going to pass,” he had assured me.

Turns out Mr. Know-it-All was wrong on both counts. Angela couldn’t represent me and the Po Po Cubano didn’t take kindly to me asking the gathered crowd if anyone was willing to stand in for Angela. In the end, a co-worker of my husband’s came to my rescue, but by then my nerves were shot; I didn’t make turns at a true 90° angle, I parked incorrectly, and even confused third gear with first when pulling away from a stop light. It was a disaster and Oswaldo flunked me.

“Practice your turns, pay better attention to how and where you park, and come back next week to try again.”

I was disconsolate and walked home choking back tears. I finally let them pour once I was safely inside. The stress was killing me. Worse, I felt really, really dumb. After all, I’d been driving for years.

Countdown: 8 Days to Departure

I practiced all week. I re-conned the route, memorized the one- and two-way streets so I’d know where to park (see note 3) and familiarized myself with Angela’s Kia. I enlisted my friend Camilo the taxi driver to be my representante.

To be honest, I was a complete mess. My work depended on this license, my backup plan had totally backfired (the jalopy of a truck I was going to “rent” from a friend had blown a fuel pump), and I had no Plan C. I stayed awake at night or woke in the middle fretting about the license, my job, and our financial future. I was nasty that week, fighting with my husband and myself. My stomach permanently ached.

I did breathing exercises. I visualized myself on the tropical balcony of the Cuban DMV receiving my newly-minted driver’s license. I did everything short of pray (and even considered it).

All for naught.

I hesitated when I had the right of way and was snookered anew by the tricky parking question. Oswaldo could have passed me had he wanted but he didn’t. Was he looking for a bribe, or did he just have it out for foreigners I wondered? Either way, I was really up that proverbial creek; my departure was in eight short days and I had only one more chance to pass the road test.

“You’re right: we need to name the car,” Angela said to me when I told her I’d failed. Last week I’d asked her if her car had a name – I felt the need to talk to it, commune and communicate with the mechanical beast.

We agreed the car was male since it was presenting so many difficulties.

“It has to be a good name, a powerful name,” she said to me. “I know! Eleggua!” (see note 4).

I quit practicing the exam route – You’ve been driving for years! I told myself. You have real life experience; you don’t need practice! Still, I slipped a 50 CUC note in my pocket just in case wheels needed greasing (see note 5) and I switched up my representante. This time I took my own weapon: Eliseo, a retired top cop and dear friend. Aside from being an all around great guy – what Cubans call un pan – maybe Eliseo could give Oswaldo some special cop handshake or eyebrow wiggle or something. Couldn’t hurt I figured.

Countdown: 1 Day to Departure

On my last try, I showed up more resigned than nervous. The world wouldn’t stop turning if I didn’t pass the test. I was healthy, I was loved, so whatever. ‘It is what is,’ as Mom would say.

Eliseo and I waited for Oswaldo with yet another group of wannabe drivers. Seems a lot of drivers fail this road test: I recognized the trucker from the week before and a kid with his jeans slung so low I could see his bad Job Boxer knock off underwear.

‘When I was practicing for the test, my uncle set a tiny cup of coffee on the dash and said ‘Drive. And don’t spill any!'” one guy said.

“I screwed up on the parking the first two times I took it,” said his friend.

I looked at Eliseo.

“Don’t worry muchacha. You’ll be fine,” he reassured me.

“Here he comes,” someone said and we all looked over to watch our examiner approach. To my horror, it wasn’t my old buddy Oswaldo. My stomach knotted. My palms grew slick.

Our new examiner took us through the same orientation song and dance as Oswaldo, asked if we had any questions and proceeded to inspect the cars – checking that the blinkers and brakes were in good working order. He then told us we could have our representante in the car if we were nervous.

Eliseo hopped in the back seat. I gave Oswaldo’s substitute my winningest smile. I drove Eleggua down and around the block, pulling over and parking at the curb when told to do so. I looked over at my examiner.

“You drive beautifully,” he said. “Congratulations.”

Within 20 minutes I had my brand spanking new Cuban license. Tomorrow: Hawaii (see note 6).

Notes
1. I’m more superstitious than religious, but he is the patron saint of travelers.

2. Angela has been based in Cuba for nearly two decades, but never switched over to a Cuban license, preferring to maintain her US license. Smart lady.

3. This is one of the tricks these driving cops use to fail folks: they take you down a one-way street with cars parked every which way on both sides and ask you: ‘which side of the street will you park on?’ Of course it’s the left, but it gets tricky with Havana’s poor signage and cars parked facing forward and back on both sides of the street. “They can park illegally,” Oswaldo told me as I hesitated. “They have their license. You don’t.”

4. In the Afro-Cuban religion of Santería, Eleggua is the trickster god, but also the god who opens pathways, broadening horizons so to speak. Coincidentally (or not), a babalawo once told me that Eleggua was my guardian god.

5. I’m terrible at this kind of thing and offering a bribe in Cuba always carries the risk of backfiring. See other readers’ comments and ideas on bribing Cuban officials here.

6. Those of you following this saga may have been wondering – where is she off to and on what assignment? I’m currently on the Big Island of Hawaii updating the Lonely Planet guide to that wild and wonderful place. And check it out: you can both rent and drive a car in the United States with a Cuban driver’s license (well, in this state anyway).

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November 24, 2010 · 4:06 pm

Here is Havana in Stellar New eBook

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Hi folks and sorry for the absence. Ive been watching live lava and baby dolphins a-leapin’ and a-spinnin’ on another far away isle lately (post coming soon on these adventures!). In the meantime, I wanted to let you know that Stephen Roll of Travel Ojos has just published a fantastic eBook entitled Celebrating Latin America at Ground Level. There is some terrific writing in here, by people who are living the dream (and occasional nightmare!). Here is Havana represents with an entry entitled “La Gente.”

The best part? The book is free! just click: Celebrating Latin America at Ground Level.

Adventures at the DMV: The Finale coming soon. Stay tuned and thanks for all your support!

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Filed under Americans in cuba, Living Abroad, Uncategorized, Writerly stuff

July 27, 2010 · 10:56 am

Gone Campin’

Hola Readers,

We need to get the hell out o’ Dodge for a while, so we packed up Rocinante and are on our way to Playa Girón (probably better known as the Bay of Pigs where you are) and other coastal points for a wee bit of wild camping.

Ive been writing a lot lately and aim to get some done (if the jejene ‘sand fleas’) let me and will come back at ya with

– Hemingway’s Sexcapades

– Wild Tales from Cuban Doctors Abroad

– Finding Conner

– And more!!

Stay cool. Keep reading, writing, traveling, and dreaming. Life is about the memories!

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June 25, 2010 · 12:56 pm

Slowtown

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Occasionally people ask me how I do it – how I can afford to travel without having a “real job” (and I’m unsure if freelance writing, no matter how lucrative, will ever be considered “real”). Even more to the immediate point, people wonder how I can afford to live in Cuba given our hand-to-mouth subsistence existence. In my mind, there is no puzzle. The answer is obvious, simple even. Keep your overhead low. If you control expenses and practice thrift, there’s likely to be more left over to play with.

This strategy isn’t for everyone. It helps to not be attracted by things, I suppose, to not be predisposed to accumulating gadgets, jewelry, or art let’s say (see note 1). Not being a clothes horse helps, as does not drinking; the hooch can add up – just ask my husband or my good friend 007. In my case, it helps immeasurably that Cuba is a low overhead kind of place. Paradoxically however, so much obligatory, by-default low overhead has created an insatiable desire in Cubans to (over)consume. And it matters little what: life-sized plaster Dalmatians, karaoke systems, plastic flowers, gold chains, shoes, sugar.

To get by and get the stuff they want or need, Cubans are en la lucha. Technically this means to be ‘in the struggle’ or ‘fighting,’ but the short phrase contains a universe of problems and difficulties, entire galaxies of uncertainty, frustration, and doubt. But being en la lucha also implies a certain pro-active approach, an intrinsic motivation to ease those troubles and doubt. And not only yours, but those of your family, friends, and neighbors as well. It means you have to inventar, another concept which, coupled with la lucha, encapsulates modern Havana (see note 2). I suppose it’s what outsiders call resourceful. The bottom line is that having so few resources forces you to rely on what’s available.

Here in Havana, relying on what’s available means depending on local suppliers, talent, and ingenuity. The precise elements that have helped create Cuba’s biotech sector, software development capabilities, and organic agriculture model. We are, in short, a slow people, living in a slow town. It’s everywhere: keep your eyes peeled, your nose poised, and your ears open on your next visit and you’ll slip easily into this local world.

From yogurt to honey, bookshelves to shoes, industrious Habaneros provide. Eat locally? We do (and must). Support local businesses? Each and every day. Know your supplier? We invite her in for coffee and a chat. I love this about Havana. I love that it disproves all the neo-liberal vitriol about Cuba not having private industry and small businesses. The place is crawling with entrepreneurs and private concerns. You just have to know what to look for and where to listen for them.

A high pitched, not entirely unmelodious whistle announces the knife sharpener, reminding me of my childhood. Rolling up on his bike and parking in the chiffonade shade of a palm, he sharpens our knives, cleavers, and scissors. By peddling the whet stone around until it gains enough speed to throw off sparks, he deftly angles the blades this way and that until they’re so sharp you have to take care dicing onions and aji cachucha for the bean pot. While he sharpens, we chat. About baseball, the weather, and how’s business?

The same can be said for yogurt. Made fresh in small batches, we ring the doorbell of our yogurt connection whenever we need to re-up. Within moments he lowers a basket on a rope from his third floor balcony. We put 20 pesos (see note 3) and an empty 1-1/2 liter soda bottle in the basket and give the rope a little tug. Up goes the basket to the third floor. When it’s lowered once again, it holds 1-1/2 liters of the thick, rich, organic yogurt that has my chicken Marsala and cucumber raita fast gaining fame in these parts (see note 4).

Once my imported granola runs out, honey-laced yogurt is my go-to breakfast. Happily, our honey is also produced on a small scale by local beekeepers. Sold in recycled Havana Club bottles for 25 pesos, the amber liquid comes rimmed with a dark band of honeycomb flakes and other natural detritus like the odd bee’s wing. The best honey moves sluggishly when the bottle’s inverted, slowed by its viscosity. Marketing fuels sales; one guy sings of his honey’s Ciénaga origins, another’s bees are sustained solely on chamomile blossoms, supposedly giving the golden elixir subtle floral undertones, though I’ve yet to detect them. Organic, from-the-source food procurement happens daily here: I regularly fry fish caught by my neighbor and eat mangoes from my boss’s backyard tree. Five blocks from my house there’s a friendly old fella who sells homemade wine and vinegar while nearby a wrinkled veteran peddles roasted peanuts from a metal box with a brazier burning live coals on the bottom.

And it’s not only food. Without leaving my living room, I get offers (sang up from the street) to reupholster my sofa and restore my mattress. Need a coffee table or TV stand? No problem. Just dig out that business card the neighborhood carpenter slipped under the door the other day. A favorite sundress can be repaired or replicated by the seamstress two doors down and a pair of sexy, strappy sandals procured from the family of renowned cobblers who pass through every now and then.

And so it goes. Our coveted Bic lighters are refilled at the market in that ingenious Cuban way, our aprons are made by friends of friends, even car parts are fashioned by machinists pounding them out in their garage-cum-workshop down the street. I love living here and living slow.

It’s funny though. As the ‘developed’ world moves snail-like towards this model, Cuba is fast moving away from it. Inevitable? Probably. Lamentable? Definitely.

Notes

1. Art is a different ballgame, actually. I would buy pieces that really move me – and living in Cuba, believe me, I’ve been moved, repeatedly – if I could afford it.

2. I’ve said it many times before, but it bears repeating: what I know intimately is Havana, a reality which in many ways can’t be extrapolated to the rest of Cuba. Just like New York isn’t the United States and Port-au-Prince isn’t Haiti (especially these days), Havana can’t be considered representative of Cuba. Nevertheless, after hanging out with doctors from Holguín who own a cow or two to provide milk for their family and naweys from Guantánamo who earn their living initiating foreigners into Santería, I suspect that la lucha and inventing are fundamental in those far flung places too.

3. About 85 cents USD.

4. This is one of the six or so dishes on my private restaurant menu. Known as a paladar in Cuba, my husband and I fantasize about opening a low-key, high-standard private restaurant serving a selection of my top tried and true dishes. In addition to this Indian delight, other candidates include tea-smoked chicken, snapper Veracruz and veggie lasagne, plus desserts like dulce de leche cheesecake and blondies a la mode. We could even spin off the ex-pat cookbook! Interested in investing? Contact me.

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May 17, 2010 · 10:15 am

The Greening of Cuba?!

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My knickers are in a bit of a twist over here and it’s not due to the chronic butter shortage or colossal heat (both of which are cause for loud complaint, believe me). What’s got me riled up these days is more macro. Regular readers know that I (try to) let most of what Cuba hands down roll off my back. But I could go to the mat on this one.

Golf.

Cuba recently confirmed what rumor had held for a couple of years already: moving forward, the cornerstone of the country’s tourism strategy will be to develop 10 golf courses across the island. This grand plan was revealed by tourism Minister Manuel Marrero at FIT – Cuba’s international tourism fair (see note 1). I had hoped it wasn’t true. (I also hope to win the Pulitzer and earn the Cuban Medal of Friendship someday. Don’t mean it’s gonna happen). But this golf scheme seems particularly hair brained to me.

Let’s review the facts, shall we?

WATER
A conventional 18-hole golf course requires 312,000 gallons of water a day (that’s 1,181,048 liters for my more advanced readers) to keep it green. I knew they were resource-suckers these playgrounds for the rich, but 312,000 gallons a day?!

Meanwhile, back on our little island…

“a [Cuban] government report released in mid-April said large areas of Cuba have been suffering the effects of a prolonged drought that began in November 2008. The shortage of rain has led to a significant drop in water levels in the country’s reservoirs and has hurt the availability of groundwater, affecting water supplies for more than 500,000 people…The Meteorology Institute’s Climate Centre, said that the overall scarcity of rainfall from April 2009 to March 2010 ‘has affected 68 percent of the national territory’…while 2009 had the fourth lowest rainfall total in 109 years, according to official sources” (see note 2).

LAND
An 18-hole course requires between 140 and 200 acres (57 to 80 hectares) of land – half of this is maintained turf. Multiply that by 10 courses and you’ve got a healthy chunk of Cuba’s territory. Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t that land be put to better use raising cattle or homes?

PESTICIDES
Keeping those greens green requires about 30 different types of pesticides. These poisons have the potential to contaminate ground water while destroying wetlands, mangroves, and other habitat. And they’re seriously bad for us bipeds too: a scientific study found golf groundskeepers have higher mortality rates than the general population for lung, prostate, large intestine, and brain cancers, with some non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma thrown in for good measure (see note 3). Meanwhile, a study has yet to be conducted on golfers, who are also regularly exposed to these toxins.

The pesticide question scares me – have you ever seen them fumigate for mosquitoes here? Clouds of chemicals shot from a “bazooka” into each room of a closed home without a scrap of protective clothing or gear in sight. Worrisome, this pesticide-dependent “sport” called golf.

PUSHBACK
From the Bahamas to the Philippines, environmentalists and land reformers are saying NO! to golf courses (sometimes violently). Given global trends, Cuba is appearing pretty backwards with this golf strategy (see note 4). I’m a golf dissident, I admit, but given the few facts I’ve presented here, shouldn’t we all be? Maybe if there was more information available about this strategy, it would temper my position: where will these courses be located? Who’s designing them? Will alternative methods be employed?

Alas and alack.

Golf is a multi-billion dollar business and Cuba needs revenue. I get it. But so that we might be as forward thinking in our backwardness, I’d like to offer you, Mr. Minister, the following policy recommendations:

– Employ alternative designs that use fewer chemicals
– Consider going organic – Cuba wouldn’t be the first
– Use only drought-tolerant grasses and native plants
– Irrigate with grey water
– Conduct independent feasibility and environmental impact studies for each proposed site (and be prepared to follow recommendations, including scrapping plans for sites that threaten habitat, migratory flyways, etc)

I repeat: I think the Cuban golf strategy is folly. Who’s going to play Pinar del Río when there’s Pebble Beach? Or Holguín instead of Augusta? Some, I’m sure (including those people of color and Jewish-ness denied access to US links). But enough to sustain and make profitable ten courses?

And is this what we really want? Throngs of sorta sporty men in pastel plaids and unfortunate loafers laying claim to thousands of Cuba’s green acres for their individual pleasure? The whole plan just seems too extreme, too contradictory.

Leading up to the Cuban tourism fair, Spanish golfer Álvaro Quiros gushed: “golf could become a new attraction for tourists visiting Cuba because of…the magnificent climatic conditions on the island all year round” (see note 5). Excuse me, Álvaro? Have you heard of a hurricane? How about drought?

Extreme, contradictory and…hair brained.

And while I’ve got your ear, Mr. Minister, would you please consider putting an end to the capture and use of dolphins for those swim with dolphin programs? Or haven’t you seen The Cove?

Notes

1. The week-long affair was themed ‘Authentic Cuba,’ which is hilarious for so many reasons. And ironic: how, exactly, is golf (and yacht clubs which also figure in the grand plan) ‘authentically Cuban?’ But as always, truth is stranger than fiction and the irony of the ‘Cuba auténtica’ press junket/dog and pony show was summed up by a Colombian journalist who whispered dramatically to a reporter friend of mine: ‘do you want to sit in on this interview? I’ve got a guy who’ll talk about the bad things in Cuba for 10 bucks. You pay five and I’ll pay five.’ On second thought, this is probably the most authentic Cuban thing that happened during this journalist’s island jaunt.

2. For full article, see Drought Looming again in Cuba

3. For more see www.beyondpesticides.org/news/daily_news_archive/2004/09_23_04.htm

4. Ditto the blind acceptance of Styrofoam. Until a handful of years ago, I never saw one piece of Styrofoam here. Now it’s everywhere and will be for generations to come. There are advantages to a one-party system. You can integrate health and education efforts for example and you can ban bad shit like Styrofoam with the stroke of a pen. Whatever criticisms you may have of Cuba, who can argue with the wisdom of keeping this evil out of our midst – especially on an island? What, after all, has Styrofoam ever done to improve our lives?

5. This, along with the golfer’s other assertion, that “golf helps to improve the health of practitioners, encourages personal relationships and caring for the environment” qualifies, in my opinion, as some of the stupidest shit ever uttered by a professional athlete. No small feat.

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May 8, 2010 · 11:15 am

DIY Project – Where We’re At

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August, 2012

It has been a while, friends, and quiet on this particular collaborative front. I’ve been crazy busy with all sorts of projects and plans and hadn’t been to my post office box in too long, when I popped in last week. Holy cojones! was there alotta loot in that cajita of mine. Here’s a recap and thanks to these nice folks for taking part; your postcards are in the mail soon!

Letter sent by K Clark

Sent from: New Orleans, 05 Mar 2012

Received: 27 March 2012

Highlight: It’s from NOLA, that’s highlight enough for me!

Letter from R Martynuik

Sent from: Alberta, 28 April 2012

Received: 15 May 2012

Highlight: This was a long, funny letter from someone who caught the Cuba bug, bad not too long ago. I was delighted to receive something from Alberta since Ive been cooking up an article based there for about a decade now…This letter has put gas in my tank to get on it. Thanks chica!

Labor Day Update

So Ive been kind of remiss in my upkeep of the DIY project. Sorry about that folks. But Im back in the saddle and I have to admit, things are arriving (both here and there) with an alacrity hertofore unknown. Case in point:

card sent from reader John
Sent from:Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia on May 20 (that’s how far behind I am!!)
Arrived Havana: June 14, 2010
Highlight: At 15,000+ kilometers, this is the longest travelled contribution to the project.

Shortly after John’s card arrived (and for those of you shaking your head about my slacker approach to the DIY project, please note in comments below that I DID comply with promised card from Havana to Oz, which arrived within 20 or so days. not bad for half way ’round the world!), I got one from DRUM ROLL PLEASE…..

BONNAROO STATION

Funny thing is, it was sent from said station (so says the stamp) on June 30, 2010, but arrived in Havana on July 1, 2010. Two days to hop the Straits? Me thinks there was a lot of blue smoke billowing about that Bonnaroo post office!! Thanks C & N for the card. love it!

NOTE TO READERS: Next year is 10 years of Bonnaroo. Ive never been able to attend. I WANT IN. I have a ride. I have the gear. I have the gumption and you KNOW I have the dancing shoes. I am looking for a sponsor to help get me and the hubby (rock festival virgin! help pop his cherry!) to TN. Ill blog about it. Ill write articles about it. You’ll be the famous patron! You’ll create the memory of a lifetime. Whaddya say?! Contact me here if you’re interested!

+++++

QUICKIE UPDATE

Went to old 6464 yesterday. What a haul! A new issue of Good
and three postcards.

Seems things are going along smoothly:

1. From Heathrow

2. From Connecticut

3. From Moscow

All postcards took 2 weeks to arrive.

thanks for participating folks!

+++++

It’s been a long while since I’ve been to the old PO Box – since before Haiti, which in psychological time is like dog years. It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about it. On the contrary. My dear friend A out in LA told me she sent me a package – full of well-crafted novels and thought-provoking magazines no doubt – which is my porn (and as rare here in Havana).

So it was with baited breath (and sweat-slicked back: summer has suddenly descended on Havana and things are heating up. Coming out of the shower sweating is a bitch – something I’ll kvetch about in a subsequent post) that I rolled up to Box 6464 at Havana’s main post office. I should point out here that my movements were being recorded. Not by any sinister state apparatchik, but by journalists Ken Hegan and Robin Esrock.

Seems I may be leaping on to the boob tube sometime in the future and we spent a day together filming us doing Cuban things – resolving, shopping, smoking – to see if I’m what? Photogenic? Informed? Funny? It was a gas, no matter. Anyway, these two cool cats are here for FIT, the over-the-top dog and pony show of a tourism fair in Cuba – more on this in a later post as I’ve much to say on the issue.

Back at the post office, they were as excited as me, I think, to see what treasures the box held. Lo and behold, major treats awaited! One was a letter from a reader participating in this DIY postal project whereby we’re testing the Obama and Castro administrations’ pledge to improve postal services between the two countries. This little card is significant for several reasons: first, it’s from someone I don’t know, so that’s a first. Second, it’s from South Florida. We’re talking 90 miles away people; this innocuous envelope took over 3 weeks to get here. It was sent on March 8 (International Women’s Day incidentally, when I was dancing salsa with my doctor friends in our Port-au-Prince tent camp) and arrived on April 1. This means it traveled, on average, 3.75 miles a day. Joke’s on me, I guess about improved postal relations.

Thanks O Anderson of Ft Lauderdale for participating in our little experiment. A postcard from Havana is on its way!

The other surprise was the arrival of my issue of Good Magazine. If you don’t know this publication, get with it NOW. This is the Slow issue, dedicated to slowing down, slow cities, slow food and all that jazz. It was slow in getting here too, but I’m not complaining. Better late than never. And as I started pouring through its fascinating pages (this is after Ken, Robin and I had freckle bonded and gorged ourselves on Coppelia. That is to say, long after the camera was switched off) and what do I see on page 12, in the Dialogue section? A postcard I sent to the editors on September 29 last year imploring them to keep publishing the print version.

I feel like a butterfly somewhere just flapped its wings and the wider world is going to start (re)exploring the art and joy of letter writing. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m retro or pre-curve. Can I be both?

+++++

UPDATE FOUR! (post Haiti)
Finally! One of my postcards sent up north arrived (and with comically large pope stamp which contrasted nicely with the B&W image of the rebel army in the Sierra Maestra).
Sent from: Habana Cuba on February 14 or so, 2010
Arrived in Queens, NY: March 23, 2010

UPDATE THREE!
Well folks, I’m hours away from taking off for Haiti but I wanted to let you know I had a nice little (record-breaking!) surprise in my PO box today. In the interest of brevity (haiti prep continues apace!):

Card with lovely family photo from A Lee
Sent from: Albany, NY on December 10, 2009
Arrived Havana: February 19, 2010 (slowest to date!)
Highlight:Stamped with a never before seen message in bright red ink: “Missent to Bermuda.” This is one well traveled card!

A Lee – you’ll have to wait for me to return from Haiti for your missive from here. So far, none of the people below have received theirs as far as I know

!UPDATE DOS!

Hi folks! New development on the DIY project front…

Postcard from LP colleague Zora O’neill
Sent from: Bali, Indonesia on January 20, 2010
Arrived Havana: February 13, 2010 (note: this is the date stamped on the postcard as being received at my post office, not the day I went around to collect it)
Highlight: The stamps are beautiful, four color floral affairs and the 1657 temple on the postcard is a wonder. Also, this is the first item I’ve received from someone I’ve never met.
Upshot: Nora, fellow LP writer/blogger and New Yorker is a fast rising star – thanks for taking out the time from Forkin Fantastic to participate in our little project! Also, her postal travel time is neck and neck with the goodies from LA – and came WAY farther.

UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!

I’ve got mail!

Well, a big hola to all my readers (and writers) from across the Straits. I’ve at last been able to visit the old P.O. Box and what a haul! Our little DIY US-Cuba postal collaboration is bearing its first fruit. Interestingly, only items from the two coasts have arrived (once again, proving that middle America is a wasteland. Kidding!). Interestingly de nuevo, only items from people I already know happened to get here. Random, but at least it was speedy.

So here are the preliminary results:

Package from my dear friend AD
Sent from: Los Angeles on December 14, 2009
Arrived Havana: December 28, 2009
Highlight: A package! What more do you need to know? OK, it contained a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace that I can’t wait to read (can I BE him? please?) and a super cool envirosax reusable shopping bag unit with 10% of the sale going to the surfrider foundation (www.surfrider.org). I had to pay 1.5 pesos (that’s about 6 cents USD) to get the package from the nice lady behind the glass. Like all packages entering Cuba, this one was opened by customs, inspected and resealed with the aforementioned official form inside detailing what is/was in the package and the state in which it was found. Interestingly, for the first time, there was a problem with the form. Namely, it wasn’t mine! Instead, the form corresponded to Zeida Paez Garcia in Matanzas. Her package contained bags and jars, books, magazines, catalogs, and postcards. I like the contents of my package much better, sorry Zeida.
Upshot: Nothing cheers up like a package from a friend! AND it seems LA PO wins for speedy delivery – just two weeks (or maybe that it was a package had something to do with it)

Long, fun letter from my creative friend AL
Sent from: NY, NY on December 16, 2009
Arrived Havana: January 12, 2010
Highlight: So many! This letter was written in stages during AL’s performance piece enacted during 24 hours riding the F train – I especially enjoyed reading about her pulling into Coney Island at 3:37 am and awaiting the next train, wondering if it will be on time, observing all the other New Yorkers wondering the same thing. (It pulled in promptly at 3:41. Rudy Giuliani – he did get the trains running on time). Bonus: the original Keith Herring Free South Africa postcard, circa 1985. Thanks A!
Upshot: Anything arriving in under a month is pretty good in my opinion.

Postcard from my old friend C
Sent from: Westchester, New York on December 23, 2009
Arrived Havana: January 28, 2010
Highlight: Hubby out in a blizzard at the Jet’s game – some folks never give up hope!
Upshot: Took a month, but hey, it’s the holidays.

So far so good. To post offices and their employees on both sides of the straits, I say: keep up the good work! (If anyone is reading this in Miami or elsewhere in southern Florida, I invite you to participate in our little project: it would be fun to see how long it takes for a card or letter to travel that interminable 90 miles) And to my correpsondents: your postcard is on its way!

—–
DIY US-CUBA COLLABORATION

So have you heard Obama and Company espousing ‘change’ towards Cuba? Newsflash! It’s a whole bunch of hooey, (despite pundits’ claims to the contrary). OK, maybe not a whole bunch, but mostly. For instance, absolutely nothing floated so far by the United States is bringing my dear friends Karna and Joseph any closer to my doorstep or my husband any closer to my Mom’s (see note 1). Nor has anything changed that would help bring life-saving medicines to Cuban kids with cancer or allow me to access my bank account. My knickers do tend to get in a twist, therefore, when I read about the supposed strides being made. From where I’m sitting, it’s the same old story, save for a new protagonist of color instead of the rich, old white dudes who have been ruling the free world for what seems like forever (see note 2).

But I can tell you from years of firsthand experience that things have improved markedly in one area: mail service. Sounds terribly unsexy and 19th Century, I know, but if you’ve ever had a smile sneak across your lips or a flutter erupt in your gut when a letter from a friend or lover graces your mailbox, you know receiving mail can be one of life’s small but great pleasures. Letter writing is also one of our few remaining acts of pure reciprocity – usually you have to write a letter to get a letter.

And living where I do, without YouTube or podcasts, Skype and webcam capabilities (see note 3), it’s a downright thrill to receive something “from the other side.” Imagine my delight peering into my post office box (a gilded iron affair with the Cuban coat of arms on the door) recently to behold a little pink envelope sent by my youngest niece from summer camp. No matter that she was already assembling her Halloween costume by the time it reached Box 6464 at Havana’s main post office. Or the record-breaking postcard sent by my good friend Claudia from the heights of Denver that took a full three months to reach me.

But arrive it did, which brings me to the pollo of the arroz con pollo of this post: I contracted my post office box in 2002. In those early years, I received magazines, recipes, letters, photos – even boxes packed with paperback books and CDs friends had culled from their collections. A sheet of paper tucked inside each of those incoming packages informed me that the box had been opened and inspected by Cuban postal authorities. It was all very official, with the standardized, column-filled form itemizing the contents and their condition upon arrival, plus whether any prohibited items had been removed. None ever had and nothing was ever stolen or damaged.

Then, after 3 or 4 similar packages and a couple of years of postal elation or deflation depending on what, if anything, my P.O. box contained, my mail lifeline was choked off. I’d get the occasional postcard from China or South Africa from globetrotting friends and family, but nothing from my compadres up north. Letters were getting lost somewhere in transit. Postcards sent from California, Colorado, New York, and New Hampshire never graced Box 6464. Mom resorted to sending newspaper clippings about the Knicks’ new coach and New Yorker cartoons just to see if they’d get here. Few did. I was dismayed – these handwritten, stamped gestures are like Red Bull for the expat soul (without the nasty taste) and I wanted to know what was up with my dose.

I went to talk to the postmistress. I explained the sudden death of my correspondence.

“But if you’re sending money through the mail…” she commented with a raised eyebrow and ‘what do you expect?’ shrug.

This is the type of foreigner-as-village-idiot comment Cubans sometimes make that gets my Irish up. My first inclination is to look the woman straight in the eye and ask: “¿¡tengo cara de boba?! (do I look like an idiot?!) But since this will likely be my postmistress for life, I must be careful not piss her off.

“No, no. Nothing like that. Just postcards and letters and such.”

I inquire as to whether there have been any staffing or procedural changes at the post office that may account for the lapse.

Negativo.

After months of missives gone missing, people stopped writing. Oh, I’d get a postcard from Kenya or Cambodia now and then, but these were few and far between. More often than not, I’d walk the long marble hallway to the bank of boxes, lean in and see nothing but a dark, empty slot. And so it went until one day, in some obscure way, the information reached me that George W had decreed postal services to Cuba would cease, indefinitely. I imagine there’s some P.O. purgatory somewhere up north piled high with pink envelopes addressed to Cuba by beloved campers and secret banana bread recipes that never found their new home.

Fast forward to 2009. My magazine subscriptions started arriving again and Mom’s clipping about the ongoing Kilauea eruption (see note 4) came at last. Then I got a letter from an old friend.

Finally!! I was experiencing direct, positive results from regime change in the USA.

So I’d like to get some evidence as to how well the US-Cuba mail service accords are working, make it scientific, if you will. Drop me a line and we’ll see how long it takes for a simple letter or postcard to cross the 86 miles of water separating us (see note 5). Some will surely never arrive, but those that do will receive a response from yours truly here in Havana. I’ll be sure to keep readers posted on the results.

Send all letter love (and please! nothing inflammatory or flammable, edible or fragile, dangerous or dissenting) to:

Conner Gorry
Apdo 6464
Habana 6
10600
Habana CUBA

Notes

1. Something that typically gets lost in all the venom and rhetoric is that the US routinely denies tourist visas to Cubans unless they’re over 70, an artist, or musician. My husband and several of my friends – although they traveled to the US on occasion prior to 2002 – can now only dream of visiting because of this unstated, exclusionary policy.

2. In no way do I mean to minimize Obama’s achievement. His election was triumphant and exultant and not wholly expected in that underdog, tear-jerking Hoosiers kind of way. But when it comes to Cuba, he’s singing the same tune – perhaps with more rhythm and style – but in the end, it’s the same regime change, capitalism-is-better-just-admit-it-and-surrender song and dance we’ve been subjected to for 50 years.

3. People (Cubans and foreigners alike) who can afford to use the WiFi at hotels (cost: $7/hr, 2-hr minimum) or access the Internet through a private provider (cost: $36 for 30 hours/month minimum) do have wider access than me to some of these services.

4. Kilauea on Hawaii’s Big Island has been erupting since 1983 – the longest recorded eruption in history. If you have never been to the Big Island, go there, now. And take my guide with you!

5. But wait! Please join in even if you live in Canada or Argentina, France or Hong Kong. After all, the blogosphere has no borders, why should our experiment?

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April 29, 2010 · 9:14 am

Excerpt: Here is Havana, Chapter 3

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Hola Readers. In anticipation of Saturday’s big May Day celebration (always a hoot), I’m posting this second excerpt from my work-in-progress Here is Havana. If you’re interested in reading more, I’ve got several bits up on my website.

You’ll no doubt notice that this excerpt is dated in its way; this section was written in reference to the event that took place on May 14, 2004. Workers of the world unite!

—–

The buses start rolling up at around five. Birds are already chirping though night’s darkness has yet to lift, and I can smell my neighbor’s coffee brewing. Honking horns and gleeful singsong reach us from the street as an interminable line of trucks rumbles past, their flatbeds a sea of straw hats. They’ve been pouring into Havana for the big show since before three this morning. Sleep, needless to say, is elusive.

The night sky has already bled purple, then pink and orange into dawn by the time we’re on the street angling for a bus. All my neighbors look different from their workaday selves: Grandma Sylvia is sporty in her sneakers and jeans and even Tania – famous for her spiked heels and micro-minis courtesy of one Italian lover or another – wears sensible shoes and a sun hat. The street teems with groups of factory workers in matching t-shirts, moms with babies strapped to their chests, and young boys excited to be sprung from school for the rally.

Lanky, whistle-blowing cops usher dangerously-crowded buses to the curb, convinced that a few more people can still squeeze on. Today, few private cars ply the main highway leading to Havana, now choked with trucks and buses packed with the boisterous faithful, making their way towards Vedado. It is after six and already the morning heat is steaming off the pavement when we finally get on a bus. The bumper to bumper traffic goes from a crawl to a standstill and the stagnant air inside the bus hangs heavy with cheap cologne. My neighbor works her fan, wafting ripples of perfumed soap my way.

After twenty minutes we’ve only gone three blocks; our tolerance eroded a block ago. No one can remember the last time Havana saw this type of traffic and the bus chatter quickly turns to marches past. Tens of thousands for Elian and the Pope, many more to protest the Helms-Burton legislation. Cubans mobilize proudly, enthusiastically: 45 years protesting US policies designed to choke or change you will do that. Still, each rally feels different from those that came before and it’s especially true today since George W Bush is viewed as even more cruel than his father.

Nearly an hour later and only a mile or so along, we decide to get off and walk, even though it will add two miles to an already laboriously long parade route. We wade into an ocean of people heading north and west to the Malecón. The pulsating crowd waves small Cuban flags on wooden sticks or big placards depicting Bush as a Nazi, complete with an em dash moustache and SS uniform. We grab flags from a man handing them out in the middle of the street, the current of people flowing around him, and stop for one peso coffee shots on a street corner.

“Hey Chino!” I call out, catching sight of our neighbor leaning against a chipped pillar.

“How’s it going?” he asks, kissing my cheek and clapping my husband on the back.

“It’s hot, eh?!” I comment in that Cuban way that says ‘Damn! I love this infernal place.’

We take pulls of icy fruit drink from Chino’s thermos before melting away into the burgeoning crowd. All around us people are dancing to coronet blasts fattened by a cajón backbeat and laughing despite the heat, long walk, and little sleep the night before. It’s just past 8 o’clock when we’re near enough to the Malecón to smell the sea. Helicopters whoop overhead, drawing our collective gaze to a black man joyously two-stepping on a rooftop overlooking the millions.

The sun is already punishing the crowd by the time we push as close to the parade route as possible, alongside the fancy ice cream parlor facing the Malecón. Mothers console their children with rationed sips of water from old plastic soda bottles wrapped in newspapers to keep it coldish. “Hang in there,” they tell the kids as they hop from swollen foot to swollen foot. More people are arriving all the time, packing us in to a tight, motionless mass.

We can’t see anything beyond the backs and heads in front of us and that nauseating flutter of claustrophobia threatens. I look around to shake the trapped feeling. Fat beads of sweat tremble on the neck folds of the woman to my left. Just in front of her a devilishly handsome young man with hazel eyes and café con leche skin rearranges his arms around his girlfriend. His thinning red t-shirt from marches past reads ‘En Defensa del Socialismo,’ but the only thing he’s defending right now is his girlfriend’s ass from the feral stares of men in the growing, surging crowd. Reedy but round in the right places, with hip bones poking out between low rider jeans and a tight pink camisole, she might be a model somewhere else. She’s laughing in her boyfriend’s ear, showing bright, white teeth. The sweat bead finally drops into the folds of the woman’s neck nearby. I fight the urge to look at her watch or mine. The wait feels interminable.

Nearly three hours have passed since we staked our claim in front of the ice cream parlor and we’re no closer to the official parade route. It’s as if a million of us showed up at the DMV together. My gaze wanders to a shrinking old lady on my right and I almost burst out laughing, punch drunk from the wait, heat, and hunger. She’s wearing cushy orthopedic shoes and a polyester wash ’n wear housecoat – the uniform for women of a certain age here. But what’s so funny is her vintage Diane Von Furstenberg headscarf, tastefully festooned with mauve grapes and muted green leaves. Surreal and odd is the little old lady in classic couture waiting for Fidel. She is looking faint as her husband guides her crepe-y elbow to the curb. When she sits, a pissy smell rises from the gutter. My nose is wrinkling when the loudspeakers boom,

“¡¡Compañeros! y Compañeras!!”

The crowd falls silent. The Diane Von Furstenberg lady stands to attention and the girlfriend breaks from her lover’s embrace. Rapt faces point towards the voice, half a mile off at the “Protestódromo,” but coming in loud and clear over the monitors at our corner.

It is a rousing speech, reverberating with that ardent conviction I’d only heard about, despite having witnessed hours of Fidelista discourse over the years. Styled as an open letter to President Bush, the personalized rhetoric is enormously persuasive – much more so in its way than the laundry list of statistics that usually issue forth. The atmosphere is electric, the crowd around me conducting the energy in silent exaltation.

In less than 45 minutes, the legendary orator transforms an impossibly bored multitude into a riveted crowd, going wild in its condemnation of US policy. When he tells Bush “you cannot mention the word democracy…everyone knows you became President of the United States through fraud,” a roar rises from the crowd, along with a million little Cuban flags. The Malecón is transformed into a rippling sea of red, white and blue. Chants of “Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” erupt when he bellows, “Cuba fights on the side of life in the world; you fight on the side of death.” Then he brings down the hammer, giving me a glimpse of those heady days in the early 60’s: “Since you have decided that the die is cast, I have the pleasure of saying farewell like the Roman gladiators poised to fight in the arena: Hail Caesar! Those who are about to die salute you!” The cheers are deafening and the crowd waves their flags ecstatically as the municipal band strikes up. In these parts, Bush is still known as Caesar.

Suddenly, after more than four hours, we’re moving towards the Malecón. It only takes a few minutes for our small crowd of thousands to feed into the tens of thousands streaming along the waterfront. The breeze tempers the unrelenting sun as we pass the Hotel Nacional and the turreted mansions that were once the seaside refuges of the rich. Finally, our goal is in sight: concrete and sterile, the US Interests Section looks like a high security prison, incongruous among the dowdy, chipped paint abodes of today’s rank and file. Members of the Young (and Not So) Communists line this part of the route, keeping the crowd compacted for full visual effect, encouraging us to wave our flags high. On the Malecón wall, the international press angles for that elusive best shot: the crowd is so enormous, undulating several miles from Vedado to Havana Vieja, it’s hard to capture. A helicopter buzzes the seawall and journalists hanging out the door-less maw capture the spectacle for world viewing, should any network choose to air it.

The crowd is spreading out and breaking up, heading home for a nap or to a cafeteria for cheap, watery beer and burning shots of rum. There is always a fiesta somewhere after rallies, when people get together to tell jokes, analyze events, share a meal, and get shitfaced.

“Do you want to go to Caridad’s party?” I ask my husband as we pass the famous billboard: ‘Señor Imperialists: We are Fearless!’

“Sure,” he responds.

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