Adiós Cuba

Above: Havana as seen from La Habana Vieja.

The week went so fast--too fast. This Sunday morning, after an early breakfast, we all boarded the bus for a two and a half hour trip from Viñales to Havana's José Martí International Airport. Only one person out of the group stayed for an additional week in Cuba. Vicky and I would not get home until late on Monday night, because plane connections are hugely spaced out, but we arranged to spend the night in Mexico City, so at least we'd be able to rest.

Below: Havana's Christ as seen from La Habana Vieja.
It's too soon for me to have processed all the lessons learned while in Cuba, but I can say with certainty that the trip was worth every penny. It was a fabulously fun learning experience, one that can't be replaced by reading or even knowing people from the island. I wish I could have spent at least a month there, but that just means I'll have to carve time to return.
So, in this final posting I'll simply let you enjoy a few of my favorite pictures, some taken by Vicky.
Below: near the plaza in Viñales, top on my list of all the pictures I took during the week.


Below, Conrado Benitez who was killed during the literacy campaign in 1961 simply because he was teaching people to read and write.
Below, peeking into Ernest Hemingway's private life, a receipt given to him for payment he made to dock his yatch, Pilar.
Below, Santeras ready to tell anyone's future at the plaza in front of the cathedral.


Yep, our bus broke down, but we had a replacement in less than an hour.
Below, tourist trees... all red and peeling!


Below, a mural at the Literacy Museum.

Pictures taken by Vicky
Below, me holding on to El Caballero de Paris/the Gentleman of Paris in La Habana Vieja. Legend has it that he was a proud and kind homeless philosopher in 1950s Havana, and that if you touch his beard or finger, you will have good luck.

Below, the hill where Che readied his men for the revolution.


Etc.
I saw this painting at the Museo Nacional de Cuba, El Rapto de las Mulatas, painted in 1938 by Carlos Enríquez, one of the "Scandalous Painters." I know its value as an expressionist Cuban painting; I know that it references Jacques Louis David's 1799 painting, Intervention of the Sabine Women, which in turn references the ancient myth of Romulus’ founding of Rome... blah, blah, but the image is so disturbing!
Ceiba tree
Below, old picture of El Templete from the web... because I've been thinking about Ceibas, those massive sacred trees in Maya culture where they were known as "ya'axche," which means "the first tree"/the tree of life. In Maya spiritual belief the Ceiba is a model for the universe; Maya believed that Ceibas held up the sky. Cubans believe that Ceibas have magical power. We saw a young Ceiba at El Templete in Havana, planted on 19 May 1960 to replace the one that had been there since 1691. Every November people are allowed to enter the chapel and to circle the tree three times in silence, touching it, hugging and kissing it, hoping to have their wishes granted.
To read
Under the Shade of the Ceiba Tree , a novel by Betty Heisler-Samuels (Chutzpah Publishing 2002). A fictionalized account of Castro's death, the beginnings of Cuba's black population, Santería, music, folklore, and the future of Cubans on the island and in exile.

A National Georgraphic Channel series: "Inside Guantanamo."

Gracias!
Thank you to all my students, colleagues, family and friends for reading and enjoying my trip vicariously!

Viñales

We started this Saturday morning by running in a short version of the Terry Fox cancer-fundraising marathon in Viñales--and Vicky won!!! What a beautiful mural right in the middle of town! Our aim this morning was to explore the rural agriculture-based Viñales Valley, which is particularly famous for its great freestanding rock formations, called mogotes, that are designated as one of only four UNESCO Cultural Heritage Landscape sites. We visited several local farming families; in one we learned about the process of cultivating tobacco, an essential and famed commodity for Cuba's US-blockaded economy.

Sublime tobacco...
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe,
When tipp'd with amber; mellow, rich and ripe:
Like other charmers, wooing the caress
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress:
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties--Give me a cigar!
from Lord Byron's "The Island" II, 19

(To the left, tobacco leaves drying.) At home I have a cocktail table-size book called The Havana Cigar: Cuba's Finest by Charles del Todesco (NY, Abbeville Press Publishers); I bought it in 1996 when it was first published in English, because the photography, by Patrick Jantet, is gorgeous, and because I'm enthralled by the cultural history of the Cuban cigar. Among the things I learned in this book is that tobacco, grown in the "new" world long before Columbus' arrival, had been used as a state-altering ingredient to facilitate divinations and communication with supernatural spirits. And, that Cuba is the "motherland" of tobacco. Early in the history of tobacco's exportation, Catholic priests emphasized tabacco's use in Native religious ceremonies in order to demonstrate--and denounce--its diabolical character. Nevertheless, by 1540 the use of tobacco had spread throughout Europe, and throughout the Far East by the early 1600s. By 1612 tobacco was being grown in Virginia, US!

By the early 1800s, cigar factories were burgeoning in Havana. They became places for promulgating ideas, and for promoting literacy. One interesting by-product was the use of lectors in cigar factories. His (it was never a woman) role was to inform the workers about current events, perhaps to inculcate political ideas, but also to entertain them and keep them happy so that they produced more. Oftentimes, the lector read from great works of literature; consequently, illiterate workers were very familiar with the intellectual and polemical issues in Don Quixote, for instance. Two cool factoids: José Martí was a lector in and around Tampa, Florida after his exile to the US. Nilo Cruz (see here too), a Cuban American playwright, wrote a fabulous play, called Anna in the Tropics, about lectors in Florida's cigar factories.
We visited a small tobacco farm and met the owner, Benito (pictured above, his bohio, where the leaves are dried, in the background) whose parents, like most tobacco farmers in Cuba, emigrated from the Canary Islands. He talked to us about raising, drying and curing tobacco, and then he rolled a few cigars. He also clarified that he's contracted with the government to grow a certain amount of tobacco, and that he's allowed to keep the excess--and surely, he must need it; he showed us how he packs bunches of cigars into each of his shirt pockets, so that they're readily available to him through the workday--all ten cigars, yes, ten cigars a day! But he affirmed repeatedly that he only smokes the first half of each cigar. The other half he throws back into the soil, because as the cigar burns it intensifies the potency of nicotine. At age 68, he said, he's yet to cough because of a cigar.

This is soooo funny: all week Vicky kept telling me that we tourists can be very silly taking pictures. She told me a hilarious story about her grandparents back in their Greek village. Tourists would stop by and her grandmother was consistently consternated by them taking pictures of their house, and their flowers, and their chickens and animals--all the things that were mundane to her. Vicky imitated her grandmother calling out to her grandfather and showing him how she took an egg and pushed it in a tourist's face to explain that it was just an egg, just an egg. I was in stitches. Then, when we were visiting Benito, he walked over to his chicken coop and started feeding all his birds. Vicky took her camera and was clicking away when suddenly she turned to me and cracked up in the loudest heartiest laugh I'd heard all week. I think everyone else must have thought we were crazy. (Below, another farmer's home, mogotes in the background.)
Afterward, we took a magical walking and boat tour through the limestone Cueva del Indio (pictured on the left) used by Guanahatabey Amerindians as a burial site, and later as a refuge from Spanish slavers. The group walked a little inside the cave, then boarded two boats and motored up the subterranean river for a bit and then back and out of the cave. The tour guide pointed out different formations resembling various things such as a witch, and animals. This cave is part of one of the largest cave systems in Latin America. Lunch was in the restaurant (pictured below) on one side of the Dos Hermanas mogote, right in front of the Mural de la Prehistoria (a bit of it shows to the left of the car in the picture).

Then we returned to the town for a last dinner together at Casa de Don Tomas Restaurant in the oldest building in Viñales. After exploring the open-air craft market and the church, there was dancing in the central plaza at the Parque Martí.

Pinal del Río

The vistas became more and more beautiful (as you can see in the picture of sugar cane fields above) early Friday morning when we left Havana and drove 50 km west to Las Terrazas in the Sierra del Rosario mountain range in the municipality called Pinal del Río. Sierra del Rosario occupies the easter half of the Guaniquanico mountain range. The area was designated a Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1985. A major project in this community of farmers was founded by the revolutionary government in 1968; it integrated sustainable development with tourism and aimed to focus on reforestation, historical preservation, environmental balance and on helping farmers to make a living. The name of the community derives from the terraces that were laid out and are now a characterisitic feature of the area. When we arrived at Rancho Curujey, the reserve's visitor and information center right by the small Lago San Juan, we were served a welcome drink called Curujey (which is also the common name for the epiphytes that grow abundantly); it consists of Fanta orange pop, Pepsi or Coke, ice and Cuban rum. I drank coffee instead.

I had great fun walking through the lush area filled with wild orchids, ferns and, my most favorite, mimosa pudica (the shy/sensitive plant). That seemed to be growing everywhere! Mimosa pudica is a creeping perennial herb native to South and Central America; its leaves curl inward and close at night or when touched. That type of movement is called nyctinastic; essentially, the movement is caused by turgor pressure, that is, stimuli unbalances the water in each of the cells. Botanists believe that this plant's ability to shrink is a defense mechanism. Of course, I didn't know any of that when I was a child and spent endless hours entertaining myself with this amazing plant. Back then I called it "morir-vivir"--to die-to live! I was thrilled to see them again!
From Rancho Curujey, we went on to Cafetal Buenavista, a coffee plantation built by the French in 1801, worked by African slaves, and now exquisitely restored. The vistas from there are outstanding, as you can see in the picture on the left. (Note the tree; its botanical name is almácigo/mastic lentiscus, but now it is commonly known as "the tourist tree," because the peeling bark is red, like white-skinned tourists who forget to wear suntan lotion.) Pinal del Río, the easternmost region of the island, is famous for producing the finest tobacco leaves in Cuba and maybe even the world. Perhaps that's because of the abundant pine trees that shade tobacco plants. This picture, taken by Vicky, shows the man or/and mule-powered coffee grinder:

Today, Pinal del Río contributes 70% of the raw material used to make cigars. We enjoyed a sumptuous lunch in the veranda of the restored plantation house. Of course, there was live music and invariably various renditions of the very popular song "Hasta Siempre Comandante Che Guevara." I think we heard that song at least four times a day; it was especially fun to hear it with Vicky, because she'd learned it while growing up in Greece, so she'd sing it along in Greek while everyone else was singing in Spanish. (Picture of performers by Vicky.) Here are the two versions: in Greek (with loads of pictures), then in Spanish (sung by Compay Segundo and Buena Vista Social Club).


"Hasta la victoria siempre!"

Well, since I'm on this reminiscing kick, I might as well tell you about how psyched I was during my early teens, because my parents allowed me to wear a beret, just like Che's, and to line my bedroom walls with pictures of him. I often imagined being his sidekick and fighting for justice in mountains unknown. Oh my... If by chance you don't know about Ernesto "Che" Guevara, check out his life, here and here. (Picture of Che from the web.)

After lunch, we went to the San Juan river; supposedly, the water has mineral and medicinal properties.

We also visited primary and secondary schools; teachers seemed just as resourceful as those in Havana.

I should also tell you that I survived the week by eating, almost exclusively, rice, beans and cabbage. It's hard for vegetarians in Cuba! It's amazing, but fresh fruit and vegetables are very limited. So is milk. Once, at a restaurant, I ordered coffee with milk, and I was told they were out of milk. But, a plate of Morros y Cristianos has all that you need: proteins from the beans and carbs from the rice. It's a national dish, and rather symbolic of the synergy between black and white people in Cuba (and elsewhere in the Caribbean). The dish is not called Moors and Christians for nothing.

Below is a typical country house, an updated bohio. Bohios are the homes built by indigenous people on the island. They were made of tree trunks, wooden posts and palm leaves. The dirt floors were compacted and brushed smooth. Today's bohios have tile roofs and cement floors, plus lots of windows and doors for the breeze to travel.
And, here's a picture of a doctor's house. Each municipality has one house exactly like it (that way everyone knows where the doctor can be found). The doctor and her/his family live upstairs; patients are seen downstairs. After the revolution appromimately half of all doctors left the country, so the government made huge efforts, and was successful, in training new doctors and sending them out to the countryside. Consequently, today Cuba has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the region, with the average citizen living to age 76, even though the blockade dramatically limits the availability of medicines.

We spent this Friday and Saturday nights at Rancho San Vicente Hotel in Viñales only 5 km from the center of town and on the banks of the Río San Vicente surrounded by flowers, palm, pine and fruit trees and the sounds of the country side.

Regla, Santería

This Thursday, we started by visiting another pre-school. Typically, such schools service working parents; they're open from 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM Monday through Saturday, and they serve snacks and lunch. The kids are from age 1 to 5 (or 6), and if needed they attend until they transfer to first grade.

I was really struck, again, by how much the teachers do with so very little, and, in this particular pre-school, I was glad to see many pictures and artifacts--sitting side-by-side--representing both the revolution (Che, Fidel and Raul) and Disney and capitalism--glad because to me that signals a deliberate attempt to foster critical thinking from the very start.

At another pre-school we visited (picture of kids in front of old computers by Vicky), I was saddened by the ancient computers available to kids--and, of course, by the fact that they don't have access to the internet.

Nonetheless, Cuba has the highest literacy rate for both females and males (99.8%) and highest number of highly educated professionals in all of Latin America.

Actually, Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the entire world, higher than in the United States (which stands at 99%).

(Check out the statistics from the UN's 2007/2008 Human Development Report.) Admittedly, Cuba has a long history of high literacy rates, even pre-revolution (when it was 76%), but to me, 99.8% is indeed a triumph of Castro's revolution.
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On the way to take the ferry across Havana Harbor from Habana Vieja to Regla, we saw this splendid building, the Russian Orthodox Church.

I really like this picture of the Harbor entrance/exit; the light at the moment I took the picture was perfect and all of my favorite blues show clearly. Havana Harbor is a major port and leading commercial center; it's been a key component of Cuba's long record as a trading center. Sugar and slaves passed through this harbor. Now there's still sugar, but trading is also dependent on tourism, the meat-packing and food-processing industry, production of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Fifty per cent of Cuban imports and exports go through Habana Harbor.

This harbor is where the USS Battleship Maine was blown up on 15 February 1898; 260 people died. The Maine had been sent to supposedly protect American citizens in Cuba during struggles between Cubans and Spaniards. It's not certain who did the blowing up, but that event served as the catalyst for American involvement in the struggle. That following 25 April the US Congress declared war on Spain. As a result, Spain lost all her possessions in the new world, and the US emerged as a world power. (Here's an old picture of the Maine.)

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We took the ferry across Havana Harbor to Regla, the town, and to the Afrocuban/Santería church of Regla, where the Virgen de Regla is the patron saint; she's syncretic with Yemayá, the goddess/deity of the sea, and mother of all living things, in Yoruba religion. Her number is seven (because of the 7 seas), and her colors blue and white. While there, I remembered that in the early 1990s, New Yorkricans Louie Vega and La India recorded a song called "Love & Happiness (Yemayá Y Ochún)" which includes an Afro-Cuban chant. It's now remixed as a housedance number. Listen to it. Okay, just one more song: this one's from the 1950s, I think; it's called "Yemayá" and it's sung by all-time salsera Celia Cruz.

The town of Regla, known for its rich colonial history, is fascinating. It's an industrial suburb with shipyards, docks, refineries and foundries. Nuestra Señora de Regla (aka Virgen the Regla), a Spanish import, has been the town's centerpiece since its official founding in 1765. (Interesting... Regla's sister city is Richmond, California, not far from where I live!)
While in Regla, we visited a museum dedicated to Santería. That was exciting to me, since I first heard of the religion while growing up in the Bronx. I remember once, when I was a teenager, going to a Santería ceremony, because my neighbor was being "crowned" as a high priest. Hmmm... crown is not the right word; maybe it's "annointed." There was a lot of conga and guiro playing, chanting, fierce dancing, animal sacrifices, eating and drinking--and running back and forth for supplies at the nearby Botanica. Check this out (you can find anything on youtube...): here's a video of one of those sorts of Santería ceremonies dedicated to Yemayá.

ELAM, Hemingway & Hamel

I am very impressed with the work being done at ELAM/the Latin American School of Medicine, the largest medical school in the world, established in 1999, and accepting 1,500 students per year. Those students, from over 29 countries, are given room, board, books and everything else that they need in order to complete an arduous 6 year program that focuses on general medicine. Once they graduate, they return to impoverished communities to provide healthcare. It amazed me to tour this school, and to see how much the Cuban government is doing--exponentially--with so very little resources. Imagine if we in the States were to imitate that altruism, and, for example, support 5 underprivileged students per year in each of the top 10 American medical schools! Health care in the world would change dramatically.
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After our inspiring visit to ELAM, we went to see Ernest Hemingway's house, which he called Finca Vigia, located in San Francisco de Paula. What a haven! He had 9,000 books in that house; they still line even the bathroom walls. It's a sunny and breezy house, but, I didn't like all the mounted animal heads, his hunting trophies. He lived there from 1939 to 1960; it's where he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and where he entertained guests such as Ava Gardner.

This house is deemed to contain the most important of his legacies, but unfortunately during the Bush administration it was caught in the middle of politics: it's in dire need of repair and the many Americans willing and able to help Cubans undertake the work are not allowed to do so because of the blockade. Some repairs have been done, and the house seems lovely to me, but it is sad that such a treasure can be affected so perversely.

The house was built in 1886 by a Spanish architect. At first Hemingway rented it, then, acknowledging how much he liked the location, the nearness to fishing, the bars he frequented, and the exquisite views from his windows, he bought it for $18,500. The tower, where he preferred to write--standing--was built just for him in 1947; it resembles the tower he had in his house on Key West, Florida. He kept an enormous number of cats in both houses.

When Hemingway left the house in 1961 after the revolution, he moved to Ketchum, Idaho, where, sadly, he killed himself.

We also stopped by several other Hemingway haunts, among them The Floridita and La Bodeguita del Medio, two of his favorite bars, and to the next town, Cojimar, where he met Gregorio Fuentes who became the captain of his yatch, Pilar, and where there is now a monument built to honor him.

(Here I am happy by the sea in Cojimar; this picture is for Nadia Marie, who calls me "wild haired woman." I miss you!)

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(A piece of a mural in Hamel) My friend on the east coast has a friend who lives in Cuba. Because of the blockade, she can't simply write her a letter and deposit it in a mailbox; American post offices don't deliver letters to Cuba. So, my friend sent the letter to me, and the plan was for me to buy a stamp in Havana and mail the letter. But, it turns out that our group would be in Cojimar, and so instead, I delivered the letter in person. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the day and she was not home, so I put the letter under her door.




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On the way back for lunch in Habana Vieja, we drove through the Habana Harbor Tunnel, built in 1958, that connects the shoe-horse ends of Havana Bay.

We visited Casa del Niño y la Niña, an after-school program, in the Central Havana neighborhood called Cayo Hueso.

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We also strolled through Callejon de Hamel, the alley where since 1990 buildings are covered with murals inspired by Afrocuban culture and religions done by Salvador Gonzales. Like Fuster's, this ongoing art project seems to reflect the Cuban emphasis on community (as opposed to on the individual).

We learned that Gonzales' idea was to create a cultural platform in the community. Every Sunday afternoon a rumba session is held and important groups, such as Clave y Guaguancó and Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, perform and interact with the neighbors. On the last Friday of each month there are recitals of ballads, poetry and traditional music. One Saturday each month there is entertainment for children, for instance, clowns and puppet shows.

Gonzales' project seems more activist than Fuster's. I was amazed by how he and his neighbors transformed discarded bathtubs into comfortable seats in a small park. That surely is about necessity being the mother of invention, but it's also about creativity and ingenuity!

Gonzales has said: "Here, the traditional comparsas (carnival street bands) of our barrio are very important. So too all the rumbas formerly played in Trillo Park. This is also a place steeped in popular religion. You can walk down the street and hear a 'toque'. Abakuá plants (for initiations) are found all over. The barrio has its own 'potencia' of the secret Abakuá religion, very important here."

"I am talking about the religion known as Santería, which comes from the Yorubas; Palo Monte, which comes from the Congo; Abakuá, which has to do with Calabar [the Cross River Delta in Nigeria]; and maybe some manifestations of spiritism, a cultural expression of working class people, the ordinary folks in our country."

"This barrio has a strong contingent of Black people. Of course, we don't have all of the Black people in the city here. Our country is a mixture of African, Spanish, and Asian presences. The barrio looks great, with many colors that shine even more now that there has been some remodeling. In one way or another, this work that we began here in Centro Habana has resulted in the same kind of color and magic that the barrio has to begin with."

Art and literacy

What a fabulous day, filled with arts and letters--and it was Vicky's birthday! Here she is cutting her cake during lunch at the whimsical home and studio (in Jaimanita, just outside Havana) of famous ceramist and painter José Fuster. More on that later; now I want to tell you about higher education and our visit to the University of Habana, the first university in Cuba, established in 1728.

UH consists of 16 faculties, 14 research centers and 25 majors; it now has over 6,000 students. Traditionally, the university has bred political activism, but after Fulgencio Batista's coup d'état, it became the center of anti-government activities until he closed it in 1956. It reopened in 1959 after the revolution. This past February UH inaugurated the Nanotechnologies College of the University of Havana; it will be nicknamed “NanoUH.” Major aims include educating Cuban students, promoting advances in nanoscale science, and developing the nanotechnology industry in Cuba. Advances in nanotechnology can be applied in sectors such as healthcare, energy and the environment. (Picture of the 88 steps and entrance columns at UH by Vicky.) It struck me that architecturally, the UH looks a lot like Columbia University in New York (where I grew up): the massive columns and the Alma Mater, especially, remind me of CU. It turns out, we learned during the visit, that CU's Alma Mater (which sits at the steps of the Low Library) was the gift of Mrs. Robert Goelet and Robert Goelet Jr. and was presented in 1903. (Picture of CU's Alma Mater with a book on her lap from the web.) The bronze Alma Mater at UH was inspired by Columbia’s Alma Mater and was created in 1919 by Czech sculptor Mario Korbel while he lived in New York City. Notably, the facial features of UH's Alma Mater resemble a Cuban criolla, since it was sculpted to look like the daughter of a faculty member at UH at the time.

We met with UH's professor of History and Law Dr. Delio Carrera to explore university level pedagogy, and to tour the university grounds. I especially enjoyed seeing the Aula Magna, built in 1906. It's a ceremony room where, most recently, people such as Hugo Chavez, Pope John Paul II, and Jimmy Carter have been received. I like the ceilings; they are covered with seven splendid frescos painted by Armando Menocal y Menocal, one of them pictured here. We saw his art again at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Presidential Palace/Museum of the Revolution.

Menocal y Menocal was an eminent painter of landscapes, portraits and historical scenes. He was born in Cuba in (debatedly) 1861 and died in Cuba in 1942. He studied art for a time in Spain, and returned to Cuba to teach art, but in 1895 he interrupted his painting and teaching to join the Cuban War for Independence from Spain as an assistant to Máximo Gómez Báez. (I have to say: Máximo Gómez Báez was a Dominican who fought in support of the Spaniards during the Dominican Annexation War of 1861-1865. When the Spaniards lost the battle, he self-exiled to Cuba, where he lived for the next 40 years until his death, and there he took up the Cuban struggle for freedom; he's famed for having implemented war tactics such as macheting whole troops and torching sugar cane fields and plantations.)
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After the visit to UH, we enjoyed a bus tour of modern Havana. we saw the Capitol building (a smaller replica of the Capitol building in Washington, DC), the Grand Theatre, Central Park, Prado Promenade, more of the Malecón seawall, Monument of the Battleship Maine, Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón (where Máximo Gómez Báez and other illustrious people are buried), Miramar, Central Havana, Revolution Square and the Jose Martí Memorial (pictured on the above).


Here I want to tell you just a little about José Martí. But for fun, check out the best known (some call it the Cuban national anthem) Cuban song, "Guantanamera," which has lyrics based on Martí's poetry (the video includes photos of him).

This video of Pete Seeger singing "Guantanamera" is interesting.

"Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect." José Martí

José Martí is the national hero of Cuba but he's also very important in all of Latin American literature and politics. He was an impressively prolific poet, essayist, journalist, children's writer, philosopher, theorist, translator, professor, publisher and political activist who fought fiercely against Spain and the United States and for Cuban independence; he was instrumental in forming the Cuban Revolutionary Party. Martí was born in Cuba in 1853 and was killed in battle with the Spanish troops in 1895 in Cuba. He lived in Europe and the Americas (including New York), and traveled widely, always speaking and writing in support of Cuban independence. He abhorred slavery anywhere for any reason. The most salient issue for me, as an American visiting Cuba, is the very different perspectives Martí's life and work evoke: Fidel Castro's Marxist ideology upholds Martí as inspiration, whereas many who are anti-Castro uphold Martí as a nuanced proponent of democracy. One has to read his work carefully to determine which side he might have supported.
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Then we visited the Museo de la Alfabetización/Museum of Literacy and met with its director, Susana Morejon, to review the 1961 literacy campaign in Cuba and how its practices are being employed in Latin America currently. The museum exhibits relics of the 1961 literacy campaign. This campaign brought tens of thousands of city youth into contact with the country people, breaking down racial barriers and instilling a spirit of national cohesion. I took way too many pictures of murals, books, posters and statues, but it was absolutely thrilling for me, as a literacy theorist, to visit the museum and see these artifacts first hand.
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And... José Fuster's home, studio and art... I thought I'd walked into a slice of Antoni Gaudi's Barcelona! Derivative! Ha! That was my first reaction, but then I thought about the Cuban psychological tradition (dangerous territory to say that, I know) which, rather than focus on the individual, emphasizes family, community and the social environment, and Fuster's work made sense to me. His aim has been to involve an entire neighborhood in re-envisioning their role in the making of art, in collaborating, in beautifying their living spaces with whatever they can find in times of scarcity. The picture below is of one tile, made by someone in the neighborhood, among hundreds covering houses, fences, and any surface imaginable. ________________________________
We also visited the Museum of Fine Arts where we examined the evolution of Cuba's visual arts over the last 300 years. The museum's collection traces the richness of Cuba's Spanish, French, Chinese and African cultural roots. The day ended with a walk through the open-air handicraft market in Old Havana, and a stroll past the public art exhibit of reproductions from great works in the Louvre. Havana is filled with art!

A poem and architecture

(Street scene in La Habana Vieja by Vicky)

I've always wanted to visit Cuba for personal reasons too--for instance, the history of my name, Dulce María, being rooted in my French ancestors' detour through Cuba, and in my poet grandmother's affinity for her contemporary, Cuban poet Dulce María Loynaz who was not as well known at the time. Growing up, I learned to revel in Loynaz's sensual and passionate work. I've also enjoyed the fact that Dulce María Loynaz, born on 10 December 1902, saw herself as a wanderer; she traveled through Europe, the Middle East, South America and the US. Her poem, "Viajero" ("Traveler"), is powerful. But, after the revolution she lived in Emily Dickinson-like seclusion until she died on 27 April 1997 at age 94. So, I want to start this entry with a poem I currently repeat as if in mantra.

Deseo
Que la vida no vaya más allá de tus brazos.
Que yo pueda caber con mi verso en tus brazos,
que tus brazos me ciñan entera y temblorosa
sin que afuera se queden ni mi sol ni mi sombra.
Que me sean tus brazos horizonte y camino,
camino breve y único horizonte de carne:
que la vida no vaya más allá... Que la muerte
se parezca a esta muerte caliente de tus brazos!

What I Want
To have life go no farther than your arms.
To hide with my poem in your arms.
To have your arms encircle me whole and trembling
leaving nothing outside, not my sun, not my shadow.
To have your arms my horizon and highway,
short highway and only horizon of flesh:
To have life go no farther... To have death
resemble this feverish death of your arms!

This poem is in Dulce María Loynaz: A Woman in Her Garden (Selected Poems), translated by Judith Kerman et al. White Pine, Buffalo, NY 2002.
(Street sign in Old Havana)

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It took nine years to build the Scale Model of the city of Havana (picture, below, by Vicky); it is the second largest scale model in the world after the one of New York. It encompasses the most important zones of Havana at a scale of 1 to 1000 and explains past, present and future developments within 4 sq km of the city center. The tiny buildings are made of recycled cedar wood cigar boxes, and they are painted in different colors to represent the three major phases of the city's development: the colonial period from 1519 to 1898; the post-independence period when there was rapid growth and technological development from 1898 to 1959; the revolutionary years from 1959 to the present, as well as future urban plans. The Model shows the city in all its magnitude and beauty.

We began the day by meeting with world-renowned architect, urban planner and professor Dr. Mario Coyula, who is in charge of the Scale Model and is also the director of the Grupo para el Desarrollo Integral de la Capital/Group for the Integrated Development of the City, a multidisciplinary team of experts that works as an advisor on urban policies for the city government. It promotes a comprehensive development of Havana, and helps to create awareness about all issues concerning the city.
It's amazing to think through Habana's history, from the inception of the city to now, and the factors that have impacted its architecture. It's true: generally, even though UNESCO declared Havana a World Heritage site in 1982 (and thus you might assume that world funds would be poured into it), the city is in dire need of fixing up. Though still beautiful and eclectic, after 40 years of neglect, worsened by the salty humidity of the ocean, most buildings are peeling and falling (see street scenes below). But there are signs of active revitalization, for example, the Hotel Los Frailes (musicians in the lobby pictured on the left) located in a narrow alley in Habana Vieja, just steps from Plaza San Francisco (pictured below), is impeccably restored. It was the former mansion of the fourth Marquis and Captain of the French Navy, Don Pedro Claudio Duquesne, and now, repurposed, it makes you feel as if you're in a medieval abbey. La Habana is visceral; 3 of its 11 million people live in the city; tourism and investments are expanding. And no matter its current condition, I agree with Christopher Columbus who (during his first voyage in the vessel Santa Maria) wrote, "I have never seen such a beautiful place." He spent five weeks in Cuba and liked it so much that he returned the following year to explore it again. By 1516 there were seven permanent settlements established on the island, including one he called El Puerto de Carenas. Later, it was renamed Batabano, then San Cristóbal de la Habana, and ultimately simply Habana. By 1519 when the city was fully established, it was described as "the jewel of the Spanish crown."
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The second of today's three highlights was visiting Museo de la Revolución y Granma Memorial/ Museum of the Revolution, located in the former Presidential Palace. There we learned about the history of the Cuban Revolution and examined documents and objects, among them the famous yacht Granma that returned Fidel and his 82 guerilla fighters from Mexico to Cuba to launch the struggle for liberation from the Batista dictatorship, and an SU 100 tank destroyer (pictured above).

Oh yes, and the third highlight was that we were scheduled to examine the teaching of music and dance--and it was my birthday! We actually danced on the rooftop of a private house in Habana Vieja, and I was given a bottle of Cuban rum, which, of course, I shared with the entire group. In one of these two pictures you see members of the band that played that night, Grupo Dulce María (think that name's popular in Cuba?), pouring the first and best bit of the rum in honor of all the Santos.