Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Report from Trinidad and Santiago de Cuba 2003
To be precise, I’ve left Cuba and am spending five days in Mexico City, to develop 20 rolls of film and have some enlargements made (assuming the photos warrant it), but internet access was too expensive and too slow during the rest of my trip for me to report on it earlier.
It’s been a trouble-free trip in that I didn’t get sick, didn’t fall down, and wasn’t robbed, the closest thing to a crisis being when the dog stole my shampoo at the house where I stayed in Trinidad. At times I felt in danger of getting sick of mangos and Cuban music, two of my favorite things in life, but it never quite happened. What at times made things difficult was a) the combination of heat and humidity (I have never sweat so much in my life) and b) constantly being a target--of jineteros (hustlers), of beggers, of taxistas. The approach was generally either “Amiga—“ or “Lady—“ or “Where are you from?”, almost always in English. (At one point I decided that I could be a non-English-speaking Italian and just continue walking.) Occasionally the jineteros were useful in that if I was looking for a street or a building when one approached, I could ask directions and then do my no, no, no routine. (Their interest was in being a guide or a salsa partner or something to earn some dollars.) But by the end of the trip I had to steel myself to go out on the street.
What I missed most during the trip was a newspaper that was really a newspaper, not a propaganda sheet, and it struck me that one of the deprivations Cubans suffer is a lack of information. One of the young men asking where I was from, after I said I lived in Mexico but was norteamericana, asked me if Mexico was near the US. A cybercafé I used in Santiago had a sign saying it was for foreign tourists only; I asked a young Cuban who was standing around why that was and he said to prevent Cubans from getting counterrevolutionary ideas. My hostess in Santiago had a computer and email, but for unclear reasons it was impossible for her to have access to the internet. I also missed the innumerable, colorful little tienditas one always sees in Mexico—in Cuba a store is either faded, dark, and dreary, with very little stock (charging pesos) or bright, colorful, modern looking, and well stocked but with people clustered at the locked entrance, waiting to be let in as others leave (charging dollars).
Someone asked in response to my report from Havana if I was able to discuss politics with my hosts, to which the answer is yes and no. In Havana I got mixed signals: When I first arrived, Elvia and her mother were all excited that the next day there were going to be demonstrations at the Spanish and Italian embassies and I should go and take pictures. (I said I wasn’t aware of what Italy or Spain had done lately, though they both had right-wing governments, and got no response.) On the other hand, a few days later at breakfast Elvia was complaining about the flies that always clustered around my fruit and said, ironically, “Es la culpa del bloqueo” (It’s the fault of the embargo), to which I replied, “Sí, todo es culpa del bloqueo”—wishing later that I had followed up by saying that the embargo was an idiotic policy because it gave Fidel an excuse for all of Cuba’s problems. In Trinidad, Luis was eager to talk, even babble, but his accent was so thickly Cuban (Cubans, for those who didn’t know, speak the world’s worst Spanish) that he was excruciatingly difficult to understand. I did gather that he was under great stress because the rules of the game for renting rooms keep changing. (The regime seems not to like the idea of people having foreigners in their homes, though it profits greatly by charging a tax of $150 per month per room rented.) He indicated that he was afraid to talk freely over the phone because it might be tapped. And he said that people have to be dishonest in order to survive (people who make cigars stealing tobacco and selling it on the street, a worker telling his boss he needed to buy two kilos of cement when he only needed one), that there was a black-market economy parallel to the official economy. He used the word “lucha” (struggle) a lot, as in life being a struggle. Asela in Santiago talked about people lining up at the Spanish Embassy and the US Interests Section so they could leave the country and “respirar un poco” (breathe a little), and then, unfortunately, the doorbell rang.
To report a little on my two other destinations: Trinidad, a town of 50,000 five hours by bus from Havana (on the dollar bus line, as opposed to the peso bus line, with air-conditioning), is a charming colonial setting of high-ceilinged pastel-colored houses with tile roofs, along cobblestone streets, punctuated by palm trees, with the Sierra Maestra hovering in the background. (Trinidad itself is at sea level and if anything was hotter than Havana.) Aside from museums featuring very elegant colonial-era furnishings, it offers easy music-listening opportunities at the Casa de la Trova, where CDs and percussion instruments (I bought a pair of claves to accompany my Cuban CDs) are sold in front and musical groups of five or six perform all day in the café at the back.
But my favorite music-listening experience took place in someone’s livingroom, across the street from the restaurant where I was trying to cool off with a soda and lots of ice (my survival strategy being to ask for mucho hielo at the outset and then request un vaso de hielo, por favor, when it started to melt—I was too desperate for something cold to worry about the quality of the ice). Leaving the restaurant, I followed the music I was hearing to an open door, inside which a group comprising electric piano, trumpet, guitar, bass, bongos, güiro, and solo singer was playing. The piano player motioned me inside to an easy chair next to him, facing the other musicians. After a couple of pieces, brilliantly done, the trumpeter handed me a CD, one of two copies sitting on a miniature chair by the door. I asked how much, he said $10, and after the next piece I haded him the money and left, not feeling at all bamboozled beause the performance was so good.
Santiago de Cuba, at the eastern end of the island, which I flew to (in a plane with propellers) after returning to Havana for one night because I could’t bear 15 hours on a bus, is Cuba’s second-largest city, of about 400,000, and site of the beginning and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. I liked it much better from above than from street level. From the Roof Garden Bar of the Hotel Casa Granda or the balconies of the Museo de la Lucha Clandestina Santiago is quite picturesque, with church towers punctuating tile roofs, the harbor and the mountains in the background. At street level it becomes somewhat oppressive, due to an amazing number of (noisy) motorcycles that tear down the streets, which have either no traffic lights or inoperative ones. Somehow Havana, with four or five times the population, manages to be much less frenetic than downtown Santiago. Like Trinidad, Santiago has a Casa de la Trova, but here the groups of five or six performed at 10 p.m. (when I wasn’t inclined to be out alone) and those performing during the day were duos, not especially enthralling. I did see a fabulous performance of Afro-Cuban dance with percussion accompaniment at the Museo de Carnaval. The great advantage of Santiago for me was that my living arrangement (an independent entrance and a private bath in a lovely old house) included a small refrigerator and an extremely accommodating hostess, who lent me a pitcher so that I could make moon tea and have my beloved iced tea twice a day.
A word about shopping: I was sorely tempted by a $50 coffee-table book showing before and after photos of the restoration of La Habana Vieja (really breathtaking), was stopped less by its price than by its bulk and weight. I spent $20 instead on a book of the movie “Buena Vista Social Club,” with essays, photos, the autobiographical statements of the performers, and the lyrics of the songs, so that now I can sing along to “Chan Chan” while playing my claves. I also bought four CDs, the usual commemorative T-shirt, and an exquisitely made dresser scarf (the kind of work where they take away threads), made in Trinidad.
Do I plan to go again? To Havana, absolutely, and they tell me that if I liked Trinidad, I would love Baracoa, so I must look into that and other possible destinations. And after all, Cuba is one of the last places on earth where you can travel without running into a McDonalds!
It’s been a trouble-free trip in that I didn’t get sick, didn’t fall down, and wasn’t robbed, the closest thing to a crisis being when the dog stole my shampoo at the house where I stayed in Trinidad. At times I felt in danger of getting sick of mangos and Cuban music, two of my favorite things in life, but it never quite happened. What at times made things difficult was a) the combination of heat and humidity (I have never sweat so much in my life) and b) constantly being a target--of jineteros (hustlers), of beggers, of taxistas. The approach was generally either “Amiga—“ or “Lady—“ or “Where are you from?”, almost always in English. (At one point I decided that I could be a non-English-speaking Italian and just continue walking.) Occasionally the jineteros were useful in that if I was looking for a street or a building when one approached, I could ask directions and then do my no, no, no routine. (Their interest was in being a guide or a salsa partner or something to earn some dollars.) But by the end of the trip I had to steel myself to go out on the street.
What I missed most during the trip was a newspaper that was really a newspaper, not a propaganda sheet, and it struck me that one of the deprivations Cubans suffer is a lack of information. One of the young men asking where I was from, after I said I lived in Mexico but was norteamericana, asked me if Mexico was near the US. A cybercafé I used in Santiago had a sign saying it was for foreign tourists only; I asked a young Cuban who was standing around why that was and he said to prevent Cubans from getting counterrevolutionary ideas. My hostess in Santiago had a computer and email, but for unclear reasons it was impossible for her to have access to the internet. I also missed the innumerable, colorful little tienditas one always sees in Mexico—in Cuba a store is either faded, dark, and dreary, with very little stock (charging pesos) or bright, colorful, modern looking, and well stocked but with people clustered at the locked entrance, waiting to be let in as others leave (charging dollars).
Someone asked in response to my report from Havana if I was able to discuss politics with my hosts, to which the answer is yes and no. In Havana I got mixed signals: When I first arrived, Elvia and her mother were all excited that the next day there were going to be demonstrations at the Spanish and Italian embassies and I should go and take pictures. (I said I wasn’t aware of what Italy or Spain had done lately, though they both had right-wing governments, and got no response.) On the other hand, a few days later at breakfast Elvia was complaining about the flies that always clustered around my fruit and said, ironically, “Es la culpa del bloqueo” (It’s the fault of the embargo), to which I replied, “Sí, todo es culpa del bloqueo”—wishing later that I had followed up by saying that the embargo was an idiotic policy because it gave Fidel an excuse for all of Cuba’s problems. In Trinidad, Luis was eager to talk, even babble, but his accent was so thickly Cuban (Cubans, for those who didn’t know, speak the world’s worst Spanish) that he was excruciatingly difficult to understand. I did gather that he was under great stress because the rules of the game for renting rooms keep changing. (The regime seems not to like the idea of people having foreigners in their homes, though it profits greatly by charging a tax of $150 per month per room rented.) He indicated that he was afraid to talk freely over the phone because it might be tapped. And he said that people have to be dishonest in order to survive (people who make cigars stealing tobacco and selling it on the street, a worker telling his boss he needed to buy two kilos of cement when he only needed one), that there was a black-market economy parallel to the official economy. He used the word “lucha” (struggle) a lot, as in life being a struggle. Asela in Santiago talked about people lining up at the Spanish Embassy and the US Interests Section so they could leave the country and “respirar un poco” (breathe a little), and then, unfortunately, the doorbell rang.
To report a little on my two other destinations: Trinidad, a town of 50,000 five hours by bus from Havana (on the dollar bus line, as opposed to the peso bus line, with air-conditioning), is a charming colonial setting of high-ceilinged pastel-colored houses with tile roofs, along cobblestone streets, punctuated by palm trees, with the Sierra Maestra hovering in the background. (Trinidad itself is at sea level and if anything was hotter than Havana.) Aside from museums featuring very elegant colonial-era furnishings, it offers easy music-listening opportunities at the Casa de la Trova, where CDs and percussion instruments (I bought a pair of claves to accompany my Cuban CDs) are sold in front and musical groups of five or six perform all day in the café at the back.
But my favorite music-listening experience took place in someone’s livingroom, across the street from the restaurant where I was trying to cool off with a soda and lots of ice (my survival strategy being to ask for mucho hielo at the outset and then request un vaso de hielo, por favor, when it started to melt—I was too desperate for something cold to worry about the quality of the ice). Leaving the restaurant, I followed the music I was hearing to an open door, inside which a group comprising electric piano, trumpet, guitar, bass, bongos, güiro, and solo singer was playing. The piano player motioned me inside to an easy chair next to him, facing the other musicians. After a couple of pieces, brilliantly done, the trumpeter handed me a CD, one of two copies sitting on a miniature chair by the door. I asked how much, he said $10, and after the next piece I haded him the money and left, not feeling at all bamboozled beause the performance was so good.
Santiago de Cuba, at the eastern end of the island, which I flew to (in a plane with propellers) after returning to Havana for one night because I could’t bear 15 hours on a bus, is Cuba’s second-largest city, of about 400,000, and site of the beginning and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. I liked it much better from above than from street level. From the Roof Garden Bar of the Hotel Casa Granda or the balconies of the Museo de la Lucha Clandestina Santiago is quite picturesque, with church towers punctuating tile roofs, the harbor and the mountains in the background. At street level it becomes somewhat oppressive, due to an amazing number of (noisy) motorcycles that tear down the streets, which have either no traffic lights or inoperative ones. Somehow Havana, with four or five times the population, manages to be much less frenetic than downtown Santiago. Like Trinidad, Santiago has a Casa de la Trova, but here the groups of five or six performed at 10 p.m. (when I wasn’t inclined to be out alone) and those performing during the day were duos, not especially enthralling. I did see a fabulous performance of Afro-Cuban dance with percussion accompaniment at the Museo de Carnaval. The great advantage of Santiago for me was that my living arrangement (an independent entrance and a private bath in a lovely old house) included a small refrigerator and an extremely accommodating hostess, who lent me a pitcher so that I could make moon tea and have my beloved iced tea twice a day.
A word about shopping: I was sorely tempted by a $50 coffee-table book showing before and after photos of the restoration of La Habana Vieja (really breathtaking), was stopped less by its price than by its bulk and weight. I spent $20 instead on a book of the movie “Buena Vista Social Club,” with essays, photos, the autobiographical statements of the performers, and the lyrics of the songs, so that now I can sing along to “Chan Chan” while playing my claves. I also bought four CDs, the usual commemorative T-shirt, and an exquisitely made dresser scarf (the kind of work where they take away threads), made in Trinidad.
Do I plan to go again? To Havana, absolutely, and they tell me that if I liked Trinidad, I would love Baracoa, so I must look into that and other possible destinations. And after all, Cuba is one of the last places on earth where you can travel without running into a McDonalds!
