We realized that we hadn’t taken a group selfie yet.
Remember how I broke my glasses when I fell on the Malecón?
Well, the glasses hung on until we were able to find a place where I who could fix them, which turned out to be just around the corner from our apartment. When we walked into the store we saw fish aquariums, children’s clothing, and beauty products, but no glasses. One of the store clerks pointed to a little bench in the corner when we said we wanted my glasses repaired and called the guy who repaired them. He cut the shank and used it to build an entirely new hinge. Because of the U.S. embargo, Cubans have to make things out of whatever materials they have on hand. Below are photos of the repaired hinge and the unbroken hinge.
Judy was feeling better, so she and Ken did their own trip to the Artesanias marketplace. They made some major purchases.
For dinner, we went to Topoly, a Cuban-Iranian fusion restaurant. I remember liking what I ordered, which was more toward the Iranian end of the spectrum, but what really impressed me was the interior decorating.
On the left there is a Gabriel Garcia Marquez quotation, “You can be just a person [word obscured], but to some people, you are the world.” To its right, Polo Montañes’ quote translates as, “I was able to go up to heaven to bring down a lot of stars.” (Probably loses something in the translation. The quote by John Lennon is in English.
In the next panel, Pablo Picasso says, ” Everyone wants to understand the painting. Why don’t we try to understand the song of birds?” José Martí weighs in with “Exaggerated (grandiose? pompous?”) friends are worse than enemies.” And Bob Marley reminds us, “Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny.”
The final panel is a verse from a poem or song: Where are you my friend? Exactly where are you? Where are you without me? Without me where are you? Come to heal my wound…
To Fernando and Ramón Friends forever
That evening, Michael, Ken, Judy, and Camila attended a performance of the Hermanos Abreu, who had played earlier in the week at the Colombian Embassy.
The next day, we visited the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Memorial. Dayamí told us at breakfast that all Cubans learned in school about their execution for espionage during the Cold War.
The writing on their memorial reads, “For peace, bread, and roses, let us face the executioner. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg/ Assassinated 19-6-1953.” We observed the Jewish custom of putting stones on the memorial.
After the Rosenberg Memorial, and a pause to admire a couple of skilled police officers directing traffic at the difficult intersection near the Memorial, we made our way to the Plaza of the Revolution. Fidel Castro and other political figures held rallies with more than a million Cubans attending, particularly on May 1—Labor Day for everywhere else in the world besides the United States. Popes John Paul II and Francis also led huge outdoor masses there. The sculpture on the side of the Ministry of Communications is Camilo Cienfuegos, possibly the most popular figure of the Cuban revolution after Castro. The words on the sculpture translate to “You’re doing well, Fidel.”
The sculpture of Che Guevara on the Ministry of the Interior bears the quotation, “Until victory, always.”
The monument to José MartÍ was erected under the regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Significantly larger in scale than the memorial to Martí in Manhattan’s Central Park, shown on the bottom right, the monument generated a number of controversies. Batista displaced people in a neighborhood bordering the plaza to build it and tore down a chapel erected by Catalonian immigrants in 1921. Seems on brand for Batista. Also, I don’t think Martí would have approved.
I think I mentioned that Cuba’s famous antique cars park at tourist destinations. We decided we would splurge and ride back to our apartment in one for Ken’s sake. Turns out every single one of them was booked by what appeared to be a German tour group. So it was a cocotaxi for us, once more.
Since cars have the same impact on me as sports do (aside from Ravi, my Toyota hybrid, who does his best to keep me safe while I’m driving), I wandered across the street. On the top left is the view from where the cars were parked. To the right of that picture, is a closeup of Cuba’s National Library and a billboard with a cut-out of Fidel Castro saying, “Faithful to your ideology, teaching, and example.” The bottom left gives a clearer view of the library’s sign: “José Marti National Library of Cuba.” While he might not have appreciated Fulgencio Batista’s monument, I think having a library name after him would have pleased Martí.
The tree with different colored flowers in three of the bottom photos intrigued me. An internet search revealed its identity as Hibiscus Elatus, or Blue Mahoe. The flowers change color as they mature, from yellow, to orange, to red, to crimson. Artisans prize the wood for cabinet making and carvings.
Later we went to the Doña Alicia Restaurant, which, while recommended in travel guides, served us piña coladas with bad milk. We also had to order using QR codes, which was annoying.
In the evening, Ken, Judy, Michael and Camila went to the Cuba Vive gala at the Karl Marx Theater which featured Cuban musicians performing the best of Cuban music. Afterwards, they went to the National Theater to attend a performance of a Buena Vista Social Club cover band.
The next day we flew home. We got up early, but the flight was quite late. The airline served passengers lunch in the airport restaurant, but instead of sandwiches or something simple, they cooked full meals, which meant half of the passengers got nothing. On the plus side, the restaurant used compostable eating utensils. The final photo shows a book rack at the Havana airport.
Reflection
As I look back at the January-February trip, I realize I had shut down emotionally for much of it. The meds I am on do a good job of stabilizing my mood, so I haven’t experienced despair or anxiety attacks for a long time. But I also realized recently that it’s been a long time since I experienced joy.
Certainly seeing Cuba deteriorate because of my country’s inhumane policies toward the country and its people is enough to depress anyone. I couldn’t forget my country’s continuing slide into fascism, although part of the reason we came to Cuba included skipping all the nonsense that we knew would occur after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Forgetting my computer at the TSA checkpoint probably didn’t help.
In the coming months, as we resist the evils our government is inflicting on vulnerable people, perhaps we would do well to remember the Cubans we met who, in spite of increasing deprivation, manage to enjoy each other, remain proud of their history, and who always, always, remember to keep dancing.
In the morning, we visited the birthplace of José Marti, which, if we are going to keep up the analogy, is a considerably more modest place than the plantation house where George Washington was born. The sign reads “José Martí was born in this house (on) the day (of) 28th of January 1853. A tribute of the emigration (to) Cayo Hueso –literally, “Island of Bones,” aka Key West. In other words, Cuban emigrants to Key West paid for the refurbishment of Martí’s home. (Those who live there are largely descendants of those who fled the Cuban uprising against the Spanish in the 19th century. Their attitude toward the Cuba is different from that of more recent immigrants. Because of Border Patrol harassment, they seceded from the U.S. in 1983 and became the Conch Republic.
This is the famous picture of Martí dying in battle—usually shown in black and white. Two things that caught my eye: Martí appears to be wearing a suit, and the guy on the other horse holding onto the reins has lost his hat.
Starting at the top left, are photos of Martí’s mother and father. He had seven younger sisters, two of whom died when he was a child. I’m assuming the middle shows the five who survived. If you look at the genealogy tree, you will see that four of them had a lot of descendants. Martí had one, possibly two, children
Bottom left shows Martí as a schoolboy with his teacher. At the San Acleto school he met Fermín Valdés Domínguez, who would become his colleague in revolutionary enterprises. To its right is a photo of María García Granados y Saborío, known as the “Girl from Guatemala” in Martí’s poem. The two met after Martí was already engaged to Carmen Zayas Bazán, whom he compares unfavorably to the Girl from Guatemala in his poems. María died young of a lung disease—or heartbreak—as some would prefer to believe.
Carmen did not approve of Martí’s political activities, chiefly because they didn’t bring in money. She also did not want to live in New York, where Martí was living in exile, so she took their son back to Cuba, raised him to pledge loyalty to Spain, and to despise his father. In my slapdash research, I did not find whether she knew about Martí’s other mistresses. The frame to the right of the “Girl from Guatemala” has a picture of Martí’s son, José “Pepito” Martí Zayas Bazán and his father, when he came to visit Martí in New York.
The last frame shows Carmen with a grown up Pepito. The document shows that he outgrew any sympathies for Spain and fought for Cuba’s liberation. Note the signature of General Calixto Garcia Íñiguez, who fought in three wars for Cuba’s independence from Spain, promoting him to Second Lieutenant. The last photo on the right show refers to his time serving as Secretary of War and Navy.
I was playing around with the edit feature because I wanted to remove some of the glare on the glass. Trouble is, I removed Pepito’s face in the process: sort of like that woman in Borja, Spain, who wanted to improve the “Ecce Homo” fresco.
All in all, most of the museum was photos relevant to Marti’s life. It reminded me of the small civil rights museums we visited in the southern United States, that kept running solely because they had a staff of dedicated volunteers that kept it running.
From the top left, the first photos show the church where Jose Martí was baptized, his baptismal certificate, and a plaque installed at the church by an organization that brings to mind the Knights of Columbus in the U.S. The information on the plaque reads.
In this church of the Holy Guardian Angel on Saturday, February 12, in the year of our Lord 1853, the priest D. Tomas Sala y Figuerola, Cabellan by His Majesty of the Regiment of the Royal Artillery Corps of this Plaza of Havana, solemnly baptized a child – whom he named Jose Julian – who was born on January 28 of that year, legitimate son of D. Mariano Martí, First Sergeant of the Real Perez, native of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, paternal grandparents: D. Vicente Martí and Mrs. Manuela Navarro maternal: Mr. Antonio Perez and Mrs. Rita Cabrera. His godparents were: Mr. Jose María Vazques, and Mrs. Marcelina Aguirre.
In memory of this Christian ceremony, the Association of Catholic Knights of Cuba, a branch of Cuban Catholic Action, place this bronze plaque on the 96th anniversary of the birth of the Great Apostle of Cuba
La Habana, January 28, 1949
To the right of the church frame, is a frame showing the region around the town of Jagüey, where Martí’s father took him when he was nine. The museum doesn’t say whether the parents were having marital problems. Black and white photos, and photocopies of black and white photos have their limits. Check out the handwriting on the letter MartÍ sent to his mother when he was nine! Underneath the Jagüey frame are an article and poem that the periodical, La Patria Libre, published when he was 15.
The frames to the right of the Jagüey frame and below the Cathedral frame represent Martí’s 1870 sojourn in prison when he was 16. He had written a letter criticizing a friend for joining the Spanish army. Accused of treason, Martí was sentenced to six years hard labor. His parents appealed to the authorities, and they banished him to Spain instead.
In Spain and Mexico, he studied and wrote. He taught French, English, Italian and German literature and History of Philosophy at the Central School of Guatemala. He married and returned to Cuba in 1879. After the second “Little War” for Cuban Liberation broke out, the Spanish Government deported him again. From Spain, he traveled to Paris and then to New York, where he would live for the next 15 years. The frame to the left of the large picture of Patria and below the picture of Marti as a teenage prisoner, displays pictures of his time in New York. The labels were hard to read and photograph, but the picture of the Catskills is significant. Martí’s health in New York deteriorated the longer he stayed there. A doctor recommended a retreat to the Catskill Mountains. In that beautiful environment, he wrote his poetry collection, Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses), the most famous of which became the song “Guantanamera.” When I looked at the picture, I immediately thought of the line, “The streams of the mountain please me more than the sea.” Below that frame is one of the only pieces of furniture in the museum: his writing desk in New York.
Martí, along, with other Cuban exiles, put out the newspaper Patria while he was living in New York. They printed it there and sent the copies down to Cuba, where it was distributed furtively. Cubans under Spanish colonial rule often did not receive news of the outside world; they often didn’t know what was happening in Cuba. Patria helped fill that vacuum.
The frame below on the right has pictures of places in Tampa, Florida, where Martí and other Cuban leaders developed their strategy for the third and final war of Cuban independence from Spain. Who knew Tampa, FL was an integral part of Cuban history? In the middle are pictures of his trip to Jamaica, where he was gathering support for the Cuban revolution and the writing desk he used in New York. In the same year, 1892, he founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
The final frame shows the route Martí took for the final Cuban War of Independence, from his disembarkation at Playitas Cojobabo to Dos Rios where he died.
So to complete my José Martí/George Washington analogy, imagine George Washington, except as an abolitionist, poet, journalist, diplomat, who had never fought in a battle and died in the first one he did.
After Martí’s childhood home, we went to the Artisans market, where I bought two skirts. I could have spent all day there. They had great food places and all sorts of handmade goods. Judy was still sick, and Ken said the market was just the type place she liked to visit, as well.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a teenager with a spray can must add penises to figurative street art.
One mode of transportation you see in tourist areas is the Cocotaxi. As you can see, Ken and I enjoyed our ride a great deal. However, the middle seat is extremely uncomfortable unless you are a small child.
In another Cocotaxi trip our driver was a musician in a group that had toured Europe. Having visited Miami, she told us she strongly preferred Cuba. She confirmed our growing understanding that those who are still in Cuba really want to be in Cuba.
We had lunch at an Italian restaurant, Marechiaro, with Camila’s friend, Laura Segura, the music producer and another Colombian friend. I found the photo of the baby at the entrance disturbing.
“Marechiaro” means “clear sea” in Italian, and as you can see from the view through the window, the name is appropriate, or “adeguato.”
Ken and I walked back to our apartment after lunch. Michael went listen to Myrlla Muniz again at the Cuban music museum in Old Havana. In a conversation following the concert, she told him she was excited that someone had come to see her twice. They talked about why someone had come from U.S. to Cuba, politics, and her music. A Brazilian TV reporter who had come to interview Muniz asked Michael some questions in Spanish.
Then Michael went to the Teatro Nacional to hear Brazilian Gaucho (cowboy) music. He and Camila went to a second performance of Los Van Van, who came on stage at 1:30 a.m.
Top picture is a street view of Viñales by David Shankbone. Bottom is a view of Viñales Valley by Fran Hogan. The colors are richer on the Wikimedia pages.
I’ve been writing these blogs based on the photos I took, with Michael helping me fill in details after he reads them. I happened to take no pictures on January 30, but luckily, Dawn took pictures of the trip she, Jose, and Camila took to Viñales.
Michael and I very much enjoyed our trip there nine years ago. I’m more of a small town person, and we loved the artesanias made from what scraps people had available. Below is a camera made of beer cans that we picked up. If you press a lever in back, the lens cap pops off.
Here are some pictures of Dawn, Jose, Camila and the good time they had there. Viñales Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because of its “outstanding karst landscape encircled by mountains and dotted with spectacular dome-like limestone outcrops (mogotes) that rise as high as 300 m.” (See top picture.) According to Wikipedia, “Karst (/kɑːrst/) is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite.” Note Camila and Jose with their cigars in the bottom right picture. We also visited a tobacco farm nine years ago, and bought some freshly-rolled cigars for friends back home. Today, under the embargo, that would be illegal.
Judy had a terrible cold, and I stayed in most of the day—listening to a book, I assume. In the afternoon, Michael went to a couple afternoon Jazz Festival discussion panels. One about K-pop and jazz included a Korean woman talking about women in K-pop. The next panel—about the impact of women in the music industry—included Laura Segura, the Colombian friend who made it possible for Danielle to come to the Jazz Festival.
For dinner, Michael, Ken and I went to Algarabia, which shows up in travel guides as a place for good, cheap food. Also, the guides say it’s an Italian and Chinese restaurant, which is not how we would have described it.
That evening Michael, Ken and I went to the Bertolt Brecht Theater. They listened to a Portuguese jazz pianist while I enjoyed a piña colada (which was meh). Then I joined them for a performance of the Sacred Funk Quartet, which roots its music in “the ancient sounds of the Yorùbá people of West Africa,” and “honours the rich traditions of West African music, reimagining these timeless melodies for contemporary audiences.” I enjoyed their performance. Ken, a woodwinds specialist, identified an instrument that I thought was a weird-looking saxophone as a bass clarinet.
Just for kicks, I googled “January 30, 2025 Havana” and found the following news item in Cibercuba:
The Cuban regime has strongly rejected the proposal by the United States government to expand the Naval Base at Guantánamo to accommodate 30,000 migrants. In a statement, Havana warned of the “serious consequences” of this measure, emphasizing that it could affect regional stability. Both Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez have vehemently condemned this initiative, describing it as “brutality” and a “disregard for human dignity.”
Spontaneous dancing in the streets is one of my favorite things about Havana
We started the morning with a visit to the museum of the Sitial Moncada, or the Moncada Seat of Honor. The museum pays tribute to the 153 fighters who, along with Fidel Castro, launched the attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. A 2014 Al Jazeera article profiles the 93-year-old man who started the museum, using whatever scraps he could find. Unfortunately, it was closed when we got there. I hope they found someone to continue running it. I appreciated that he tried to lift the profile of women in the revolution.
The in clear red letters beneath the middle portrait says something like, “Shame on money.”
Across the street from the museum was the bar where part of the satirical movie, Guantanamera, was shot. We met our friends from the AfroCubano neighborhood there and had some drink the bar specialized in—non-alcoholic for us. Carlos told us that Che Guevara used to have an office in the museum across the street.
Below, Michael is asking pertinent questions.
One of the nicest places to walk in Cuba is the Malecon, a five-mile seawall constructed around the Havana Harbor. I’m glad that nine years ago I didn’t know that the U.S. built it after Spain ceded its colonial power over Cuba to U.S. colonial power.
We did pick a lovely day for the walk.
On the walls of the derelict buildings across from the Malecón, some of which contained good restaurants, we saw interesting street art.
Maybe I should not have paid so much attention to the buildings on the other side of the street because I ended up tripping, falling, and nearly breaking my glasses. Major falls seem to be a motif for me on vacations. I was proud of myself for not picking at my blood blister for the rest of the trip.
Below the walls lay craggy rocks with channels of seawater running in between. Cubans were fishing on them and recreating in other ways. I knew that I did not have the physical coordination to make the drop to the rocks (the stairways ended before they met the rocks) and hop over the channels. Ken and Judy decided they would investigate ways of getting down to the shore, but also decided it was too dangerous.
We finished our walk at the Mirador de la Bahia La Habana (Havana Bay Lookout). The fortress in the distance, El Castillo de Los Tres Reyes del Morro (Castle of the Three Kings of Morro) was built between 1547 and 1616. UNESCO includes it as part of Old Havana’s World Heritage site. The bronze map shows a layout the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, a fortress in Havana, Cuba, which was supposed to help guard Havana from pirates but was set too far back in the harbor to do any good.
The first bronze plaque says the the Malecon was constructed in 1901 under the auspices of the [U.S. Imperialist] Governor General of Cuba, Leonard Wood. The second I translated with AI as follows:
On this esplanade, the artistic lighting of the Castle of the Three Kings of Morro was inaugurated on November 16, 1997, in celebration of the 473rd anniversary of the Villa San Cristóbal de La Habana [The town established in 1519 that became the city of Havana]. The project was executed by the Lyon City Hall and various French companies, under the auspices of: Metropolitan Electricity Company Led by Engineer Serge Ussorio Office of the Historian of Havana Dr. Eusebio Leal Spengler, General Coordinator The project was named Margarita – Morro – Gaban in honor of the memory of Mme. Marguerite Ussorio. 1913-1992 Mother of Engineer Ussorio
Back in Old Havana, we came across this monument honoring the barbers and hairdressers of the world. December 27 is the “Day of the Barber.” Hairdressers in Old Havana come out to Barbers’ Alley, where the monument is located, and give free haircuts to people who ask for them.
On the same day, some lucky hairdresser receives the Juan Gomez award. It honors the first barber and surgeon to receive a license to practice the trade in the Villa de San Cristóbal de La Habana in 1552.
Tonsorialists from all over the world have sent in scissors to decorate the giant shears. One of the signs has the email, proyectoartecorte@gmail.com, for people who want to help with the project, which means, I assume, sending in more scissors.
This is part of a mural that was also in the Barber’s Alley. I think I wanted the picture because of the line from a Jose Martí poem: “I have two homelands—Cuba and the night.” Here’s a link to the entire poem, written when he was in exile.
From the square, we walked into the Old City to get some lunch. Instead we got ice cream. I remember my cone had some sherbet made of fruit I had never heard of. Turned out to be mamey, which I highly recommend.
We passed by Cathedral square, where Havana’s Main Cathedral is located. Consecrated in 1782, the Cathedral still holds 10 masses a week.
The last time we visited the Plaza de Armas, it was full of booksellers and sellers of other Cuban tchotchkes. I bought some political buttons and a Havana Freemason’s pin. This time, we saw only some Cuban dancers, dressed in brightly-colored satin, conversing quietly in the shade of a tree. No one could tell us what happened to the booksellers.
After that, we passed Havana’s mosque. Cuba has between 9000-10,000 Muslims, and a lot of them are recent converts.
Outside of one of Hemingway’s three favorite Havana Bars—La Bodeguita del Medio—we saw one of my favorite Cuban things: people dancing spontaneously in the street. I’m guessing the young woman was a tourist.
We ended up at the plaza of Plaza de San Francisco de Asís (Francis of Assisi) famous for all the birds who hang out there—which is a little weird. I mean, how could they know about his affinity for birds?
We also observed some notable statues in the Plaza, including “El Caballero de Paris.”
José María López Lledín was an elegant vagabond known as El Caballero de París (“The Gentleman From Paris”) who wandered the streets of Havana. According to Malanga, “El Caballero de París” was a cult figure in Havana in the 40s and 50s. He was of medium height, disheveled hair with some gray hair and a beard. He always wore black, with a long coat of the same color, even during the summer. He used to carry a folder full of papers. He was a gentle and educated man who roamed the streets and traveled by bus all over the city, greeting people and discussing philosophy, religion and politics. He never asked for alms or said bad words, he only accepted money from people he knew or liked.
People had various theories as to why he lost his sanity, but most trace it back to his imprisonment in 1920 for a crime he did not commit.
People rub the beard on his statue for luck.
A less auspicious statue in the Plaza is the one honoring Junipero Serra, whom some remember as a dedicated missionary whom Pope Francis has beatified, and whom Indigenous people consider an agent of the whole settler-colonial enterprise.
Then at the edge of the plaza, we found some more art. Etienne is French sculptor who just recently died in January 2025. The plaque says,
ETIENNE “THE CONVERSATION” SCULPTURE DONATED TO THE OFFICE OF THE HISTORIAN OF THE CITY OF HAVANA BY VITTORIO PERROTTA 25 MAY 2012
We had an awkward time getting home. The driver of the taxi we hailed was called over by the police in the square, who wanted to see his papers. Something was wrong with them. He kept assuring us that he was going to clear things up shortly, but eventually, we got another taxi.
That evening, Ken, Judy, and Michael attended a performance of Argentinean and Cuban musicians at open air venue called Pabellón Cuba. Camila went to a concert at the Fabrica de Arte Cubano. For Rochesterians, that venue is similar to Artisan Works, which profiles both musical and visual artists.
Then the three of them walked over to Bertolt Brecht Theater to hear Brazilian singer Myrlla Muñiz.
Afterwards, they met up with Jose and Dawn. They had a late dinner at Cafeteria Loretta, where personal pan pizzas cost the equivalent of 67 cents, or $1.00 with ham.
They brought extra pizzas home, and I enjoyed them for the next couple days.
The next day, we visited El Patronato, Havana’s Jewish Community Center and one of the three Havana synagogues. In the library were an embossed portrait and a bust honoring Max Stone, both of which I thought were Jose Martí. I have included a bust of Jose Marti from the foyer of the center, which is one is which?* Max Stone helped found the the Patronato.
Stone was instrumental in helping Jews from Europe immigrate in the 1930s and 40s. Below is a summary of minutes taken by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in the 1930s. Note that Stone reported on the Cuba’s denial of entry to passengers on the S.S. St. Louis, who were fleeing Nazi Germany. Canada and the U.S. also refused to give the passengers asylum and the ship ultimately had to return to Europe.
Minutes, 1939:3/28/1939, 4/25/1939, 5/16/1939, 6/5/1939, 6/20/1939, 7/25/1939, 8/15/1939, 9/19/1939, 10/19/1939, 11/21/1939, 12/26/1939, 1/23/1940, 2/20/1940Included are: Appointment of committee to ascertain the possibilities of obtaining from the federal authorities diplomatic immunity for HIAS representatives to be stationed in Germany. Discussion of fate of 104 refugees on S.S. Flandre denied entry into Mexico. Commitment to continue transport funds for immigrants to Central and South America. Report by Dr. Max Stone, President of the Centro Israelita de Cuba regarding passengers on the S.S. St. Louis. Report on refugees in Shanghai. Text of cables regarding transport of refugees to the United States. Report on trip to Washington regarding missing person searches in Poland. Report on committee meeting to discuss HIAS participation in 1940 United Jewish Appeal. Appointment of Israel Bernstein as HIAS representative in Lithuania. Report on opening Miami office. Appointment of Milton Goldsmith, director of the Joint Relief Committee in Havana, as HIAS-ICA representative in South America. Report on meeting with Alexander Qumansky, Soviet ambassador to the United States.Minutes of the board of directors, January 21, 1936 – September 25, 1944, Reel: MKM 25.2, Folder: 9. HIAS Board of Directors and Steering Committees, RG 245.1. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Hella, the vice-president of the Jewish Community showed us around, and the President, David, also stopped by to talk to us. The community celebrated its 100th year anniversary in 2006. On the wall of the Center’s large, all-purpose room, were pictures of the hostages that Hamas kidnapped on October 7. There were also photos of their youth who had competed in Israel’s Maccabiah Games and who had worked on humanitarian projects with Proyecto Kesher.
We exempted ourselves from State Department’s travel ban by giving medical supplies to Hella. She was especially happy to see the thousand dollars worth of colostomy bags we brought from a generous Rochester donor, because some members of their congregation use them. Tourists? Not us!
In the foyer, we saw a framed display of multiple snapshots of famous people who had met with people from Havana’s Jewish community, including the Pope and Fidel Castro. But they obviously did not compare to the visit that Stephen Spielberg made to the Center.
I wasn’t sure why they had old newspaper ads framed on the walls of the foyer, but when I look at them closely now, I see they must have been businesses that members of Havana’s Jewish community had owned.
This picture wasn’t the right size to fit in the image gallery of the Jewish Community Center above. This stone was also in the foyer.
The sign says,
This is one of the stones of Clodno Street in the then Warsaw Ghetto. One of them remains in the Synagogue of the Hebrew Community of Cuba, and the other is in the Santa Clara Cemetery. Both pieces serve as a historical reminder of the time and place where the terrible events of the Holocaust occurred. This is a donation from the “Holocaust Memorial Museum” Washington DC.
In this way we share the commitment to education and remembrance of the Shoah.
After the Center we went over to the Beth Shalom synagogue, which belongs to the Conservative Jewish denomination tradition, and Hella answered more questions.
After leaving the synagogue, we went to Dawn and Jose’s rented B&B apartment to celebrate Jose’s birthday with cake. The U.S. Embassy lay directly across from their balcony. None of us reported Havana Syndrome at the end of the day. On the way to the Hotel Nacional we passed the Office of the Jose Martì Tribuna AntiImperialista Plaza (Pictures of the Plaza to come later.)
One sign of the Kingdom of God unveiling itself on earth will be when countries that colonized Africa, the Americas, and Asia also have anti-Imperialism monuments and plazas.
Hotel Nacional
The National Hotel wants you to know about ALL the famous people who have stayed there, including sports figures, celebrities, actors, musicians and and presidents. I didn’t see a real pattern to the notable persons, unless it was by date. For example, Paris Hilton is on the same framed display as Andrew Cuomo and the Prime Minister of Jamaica.
The room of photos was so crowded the establishment even hung some of the framed ensembles from the ceiling. I have outlined Pete Seeger in a yellow circle, because he was the only one I really cared about.
In the foyer of the hotel, they had a display of employees who had lived to the age of 100 or more, which I thought was cool. They also had a display of the rooms in which notable people had stayed. The establishment had decorated the outdoor area for Chinese New Year.
View of the Hotel from the outside and the classic cars parked across the street.
The graffiti we saw in Havana wasn’t quite as orchestrated as the street art we saw in Bogota, but these examples were still impressive.
Havana’s AfroCuban Neighborhood
After the hotel, we headed over to Calle Ejon de Hamel, the center of AfroCuban culture in Havana. On the way, we met an AfroCuban couple, who I’d say might have been in their 60s or 70s. It was hard to tell. Let’s just say they were a vigorous pair. When we told them we were heading to the AfroCuban neighborhood, they said they lived nearby and offered to show us around. This warmth and hospitality I should say, is not uncommon in Cuba.
It turns out that they run a little center for AfroCuban culture in the neighborhood. As we walked toward it, they pointed out what the art on the walls of the neighborhood—and ALL the walls were covered with art and poetry—signified.
The neighborhood demonstrates how much Cuba values the arts. Much of the visual art had to do with AfroCuban religions, the primary one being Santería, but Palo Monte, and Abakuá are also Cuban religions rooted in West African traditions and syncretized with Catholicism. I could have sworn I had a picture of Judy sitting in a chair specifically intended for menopausal women—there’s a god for that—but I can’t find it.-
One new thing I can do with this upgraded operating system is copy text in a photo, and then paste them into another application. You have to do some cleanup in the paste, but it’s useful. Here’s the first example of poetry on the wall of the AfroCuban neighborhood. An actual Spanish translator who understands poetry, of course, would do a better job
I want to mutilate you, black shade of the unknown, I want to laugh in your claws of intense blue, of distant sea. I want to sit in your shadow and continue onward, I want to describe you in spaces so that you may be known. You are the inert pace of distant time, You are the light and song that calls more, but I cannot describe you. Like my hand, you escape like water between small stones. What is your enigma at the far front? What is your back that smiles inertly? I know you return every night.[…] morning
After I’m dead I neither want an apology nor gifts. I come from a hidden reality to an open reality so that you know me
Anonymous
The top two ruminations by Salvador say,
“All that sell love are as miserable as They who buy it.”
Salvador
“The fish doesn’t know that water exists.”
Salvador
I actually was able to translate those myself! Here’s an AI translation the anonymous poet below Salvadors:
It is not my street It is not anyone’s street It is our street Compelling Spirit of a single mystery that emitted colors one morning to conquer With its old man it wins the battle At the door of your mantle I wrote your name As distant as history Distant land, stone, fire, and water here is the gift so that you Learn Because profane is the one who Hides the true word
Finally, I was haggling with this boy on the left about how much it would cost me for him to move away from the wall, when an older gentleman ordered him to get lost. The wall appears to be a tribute to the art in the neighborhood, and in particular, the artist Salvador. I realized that the problem with my comprehension toward the end wasn’t the fault of the AI translator. The author was using academic art jargon. I have linked some of the jargon-y words to definitions.
Don Fernando Ortiz To the neighborhood of Cayo Hueso To the people of Cuba In this alley of Centro Habana named Hamel, on April 21, 1990, the first mural was born in the public street dedicated to Afro-Cuban culture. Iremes, Orishas, legends of black gods in the great thicket of the jungle and the woods to say: Today I have my first public temple for everyone, where the branch covered the bare body to ward off the evil that suffers, the evil that ends. To fill with colors those mute and bare walls that waited so long, and with my time, which is mine, just as from yours you are the owner, To give through the sentiment of being to be a trace of the known without fragments of words. Songs of my drums, songs of my white garments. Without being a sentence, I am word by word. I am the one who painted walls and sent messages at dawn. Forgive me critics and intellectuals, I speak my word. I seat the beggar in the chair, I embrace the frank smile. I enjoy the juice of my blood, which is African blood, but I also breathe deeply to fill my life and soul with a Spanish smile that bore mixed-race blood. Spirits of the day and the consecrated night, may all be present to send messages at dawn. The coward flees from the truth because the lie is like him.
The work of Salvador González Escalona exposes the purist equation of a context that now, as a solitary fact, as a historical definition presented as an artistic assistant of a nation of our cultural reality, and as such, becomes a source of knowledge and expression of the social being. It is in this concept that his artistic work makes tangible demystifying aspects of an analogy and increases the gnoseological value. It’s worth noting that, as art, it also refers us to a form of knowledge that challenges to stretch its own boundaries in time.
Salvador’s art shows us not only all the techniques and styles of the old art of the Islanders, clear santero houses where the most elaborate and beautiful ceremonial pieces are crafted. Salvador, with intelligent function, has refined these techniques and created, on a protean platform, his own style. *Miguel Barnet The Afrocuban Spirit as It Is Called,” Miguel Barnet
Despite knowing other painters and visual artists in general who have ventured into this field, Salvador has not been influenced by the superficial and deceptive snobbery or by the aesthetic intellectualism of the West in approaching these topics from the outside. Or “from above,” that is, from the analogical picturesque view that might exist between Haitian voodoo and the rituals that occur in Cuba, treated from a European capital or from the morphological aspect of Dahomeyan cloth or the pictorial decoration of the Yoruba widely publicized through art books, to extrapolate to Cuba for the simple fact of being “African” and thus being in international fashion. Jesús Guanche 1986**
Although certain corners of Havana’s neighborhoods were heaped high with rotting piles of trash, if someone painted, “No Trash” or “Don’t throw trash” on a wall, Habaneros obey the order scrupulously. I was so intent on getting the trash warning, I didn’t notice that the gang graffitied next to it were holding band instruments until I prepared to upload the photo.
In the evening, we finally reached our Apex Event—Danielle singing at the Havana Jazz Festival. I’ve never seen her give a bad performance, and that night continued the streak. She got a ticket for our cook/cultural advisor Dayamí, and we had some time to sit in a place outside the concert hall that served drinks and snacks. I had a reasonably good 5 minute video of Danielle singing, “Poor Man’s Pain,” which followed two bad attempts of me learning the video feature on my phone. Turns out, WordPress can’t handle a 5 minute video. Anyway, here’s a video of Danielle singing “Poor Man’s Pain,” at NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.
While we were in the room where Danielle was singing, Dawn thought she saw Camila and motioned her over. Turns out it was a Turkish diplomat who wanted an introduction to Danielle, and they talked about Danielle coming to Turkey.
A pianist from Azerbaijan performed immediately after Danielle in the same room. A few peoplein our group decided to stay.
In the evening we went to a famous restaurant in Havana: San Cristobal Paladar. The Obamas ate here when they visited Cuba. The manager had a lot of their photos prominently displayed. Although we had made reservations, the manager made us stand for a long time while an empty table fitting the size of our party was clearly available. Then the wait for our food (at that very table} was also long. Truthfully, we were not all that impressed. The piña coladas were meh. I ordered fried lobster, an appetizer, for my entree, but they brought it out early anyway. However, it was delicious. Imagine eating a a basket of fried clams, but it’s lobster. Caribbean spiny lobsters are a lot smaller than Northern lobsters, but also cheaper.
Outside of San Cristóbal PaladarOne of its dining roomsCaribbean Spiny LobsterWhile we were waiting. There were more than a few pictures of Obama and his familywhile we were waitingWhile we were waiting
After a long day, we went home to sleep
*The one in the middle is Marti, who sits in the foyer of El Patronato.
The previous night, we all went out with Danielle to something resembling a diner with Cuban food. Think Denny’s with less decor. I just wanted something cold to drink. “Suero helado” was an item on the menu. We all knew the second word meant ice cream, but even Camila, a native Colombian Spanish speaker, didn’t know what “suero” was. The server behind the counter explained that it was a milkshake, which sounded good to me, even though the only ice cream they had was rum raisin. Later on, as I was running through Spanish flashcards, I found out that “suero” could also mean “saline solution.” I looked it up, and the Latin root of the word is “serum,” which also means “whey.” Dawn or Jose took the pictures below.
The next morning, Danielle came over to our place for breakfast and we had a leisurely conversation with Dayamí, our cook. She told us she had taken part in a torchlight parade to honor Jose Martí the previous evening, and has been doing so annually since she was a university student. Then Danielle, with Camila as her translator and erstwhile “manager” in Cuba, went to a press conference with local Cuban media.
The rest of us went to the Martin Luther King Center and the Ebenezer Baptist Church, which are located in the outlying neighborhood of Marianao. Pastor Rudiel ,who shepherds the church, met us at the Center and gave us a tour. He told us that both the church and the center were founded to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and purposely built in a poor, Afro-Cuban neighborhood. However almost everyone who attended in the beginning was white. So they looked for ways to engage with the community. They announced that people could fill their buckets with clean, filtered water every evening between 5:00 and 9:00. They also began offering milk for children, and opened a small pharmacy where they passed out medicine, bandages, and other basic First Aid supplies. Their church now reflects better the community in which they live.
Pastor Rudiel told us the minimum wage is $5 in Cuba, and the government no longer provides a basic food supply of rice, beans, flour, and oil as it used to. Cubans who work in the private sector earn much more. His own salary is $30/month. A lot of people get by, he said, because their workplaces offer breakfast and lunch. I thought, but what about their families?
Networking is a big part of the center’s work. They have contacts with peace and justice-promoting Evangelical organizations all over Latin America, including Justapaz , who first invited Christian Peacemaker Teams to work in Colombia.
In the room where we met, there was a wall hanging from The Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America (CEDEPCA) (in the picture with Gandhi) that offers God’s blessings to the center. The red sign says, “On the road home, I want to be free, not brave.”
After the meeting we gave the Center’s pharmacy the medicine and bandages we brought from Rochester. U.S. tourists cannot visit Cuba. they must have reasons. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration is implementing a new restriction that tells Cubans who have residency in the U.S. but not citizenship may go to Cuba, but will not be able to return. Bringing in the medical supplies counted as “support for the Cuban people.”
12 categories of authorized travel to Cuba are: family visits; official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations; journalistic activity; professional research and professional meetings; educational activities; religious activities; public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions; support for the Cuban people; humanitarian projects; activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes; exportation, importation, or transmission of information or informational materials; and certain authorized export transactions.
U.S. Embassy in Cuba https://cu.usembassy.gov/services/traveling-to-cuba/
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration is implementing a new restriction that tells Cubans who have residency in the U.S. but not citizenship may go to Cuba, but will not be able to return. When we visited the Center in 2016, one wall of the cafeteria was full of T-Shirts from solidarity groups. We added a red and black T-shirt from Metrojustice, a Rochester Non-Profit. Unfortunately, due to the Covid pandemic, they had to destroy the T-shirts.
Last four pictures taken by Dawn and/or Jose.
Some pictures from inside the Ebenezer Baptist Church
We had a restful afternoon at our apartment.
In the evening, we went to Antojos, a good, but pricey, restaurant in Old Havana. Danielle’s guitarist, Garrett, and photographer, Ray, joined us. The piña coladas were on point. Most of us went back to our apartments. But Ray, Danielle, and Michael went to Havana’s coolest Hip Hop place and then met Camila at an invitation-only performance of Los Van Van, Michael’s favorite Cuban musical group. Laura, a Colombian music promoter who had helped Danielle get the invitation to sing in Cuba, got tickets for Michael and Camila. Danielle and Ray got tickets because of Danielle’s status as a performer at the Jazz Festival. Los Van Van started their set at 1:45 a.m. When Michael, Ray, and Danielle left at 3:00 a.m., Camila was still dancing.
The next morning, we devoted ourselves to sightseeing. A straight 20-minute walk down San Rafael Street took us to the Old City of Havana, with the statue below at the end. Art permeates Havana. Cuba promotes music, visual art, and dance in schools from a young age. From what I have observed, artists appear to be more revered than sports heroes. In 2021, their call to the government for more freedom of expression caught the regime and much of the world by surprise. It also resulted in some of the artists serving prison sentences.
Our next stop was a visit to the former Presidential palace of Cuba that the government turned into the Museum of the Revolution in 1973 and a National Monument in 2010. But first, Ken got a chance to check out some of Cuba’s famous vintage cars:
The Plaza we crossed to get to the palace was the first place we encountered begging—she was an old, clearly malnourished woman. I don’t remember seeing people like her during our first trip to Cuba nine years ago.
The Presidential Palace
Presidential palace
Because one of Cuba’s frequent electrical blackouts had struck that day, the museum inside the the palace had no lights. Therefore, the following photos are dimmer than I would have liked, even with all the fancy adjustments on my iPhone. All the photos have English translations that you can read if you click on the photos, as do the next set of photos. To sum up the attitude of the museum toward these reminders of pre-revolutionary times, consider the comment on the office of the Presidents of Cuba between 1920-1965: “In this place, the most anti-popular, proimperialist (sic) and macabre decrees and laws that governed the national scene before 1959 were endorsed.”
Resistance
The next set of photos (below the picture of George Washington) chronicles the history of resistance in Cuba from the time of Indigenous people resisting Christopher Columbus and the conquistadors to the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s-60s. The three Indigenous groups who lived there at the time of Columbus’s arrival were the Taíno, Ciboney, and Guanajatabey. By 1544, Spaniards had decimated the native population from a conservative estimate of 112,000 people to 893 people, according to a count by Bishop Diego de Sarmiento. Criollo first referred to Spanish people born in Cuba, then to those who had intermarried with Indigenous and enslaved African people. They rebelled against the Colonial Government three times in the early 18th century, and resisted the English invasion during the Seven Years War or the First World War , as Churchill called it. And as long as we’re going to reframe things, it was a time when the English Crown authorized the British Navy and English privateers to be pirates and steal gold from Spanish ships that the Spanish had stolen from the New World.
From the time the Spaniards introduced slavery to the Island in the 16th century, enslaved people had probably rebelled against their enslavers, but from 1763 with the wealth coming in from sugarcane and coffee plantations, it had become a necessary cog in the capitalist enterprise, and insurrections became frequent. In the early 19th century social critics like Padre Felix Varela and Jose Saco spoke out against slavery and other social injustices.
Now we get to Jose Martí.
Imagine George Washington. If you can’t, I have provided Gilbert Stuart’s portrait to the left. Now, imagine that George Washington was a sickly abolitionist, journalist, poet and writer, who fought and died in the revolution that freed Cuba from colonial rule. If you can imagine George Washington comprising all these elements, you will understand what Jose Martí represents to the Cuban people.
Interestingly, a lot of of the Cuban intellectuals like Varela, Saco and Marti spent years in New York City, writing in exile.
The Ten Years’ War was an uprising was led by Cuban-born planters and other wealthy natives. On 10 October 1868, sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed independence. This was the first of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain, the other two being the Little War (1879–1880) and the Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898). The painting behind the velvet rope represents the Constitutional Assembly of Guáimaro, in which representatives of areas that joined the uprising met and decided what they wanted their government to look like. One decision that they overwhelmingly agreed upon was the separation of civil and military powers with the latter being subordinate to the former. They elected Céspedes as president of the assembly and reconstituted themselves as the House of Representatives.
From 1929 to 1933, the Cuban people rose up to resist the dictatorship of dictatorship imposed by Gerardo Machado, the “Donkey with Claws.”
In 1952, former president Fulgencio Batista overthrew the government in a coup. While some criticisms of the Cuban government’s human rights abuses since Castro took over in 1959 are legitimate,* we do not typically hear about the human rights abuses under the Batista’s regime. The death toll of dissidents killed under his regime ranges from hundreds up to 20,000—the uncertainty lying in the fact that many were disappeared by Batista’s security forces and never heard from again. Hundreds were tortured to death. Batista also had warm relations with U.S. organized crime personalities, like Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano. Together they turned Havana into what playwright Arthur Miller called, “”hopelessly corrupt, a Mafia playground, (and) a bordello for Americans and other foreigners.” For all these reasons, Castro’s rebels had broad popular support when they toppled Batista’s government. Some of those who fought with him and were hoping for democratic elections were later dismayed when the elections never took place. And of course, it did not matter to the Cuban elite that Castro’s reforms helped the great majority of Cuban people become better educated, healthier, and food-secure after these elites fled the country.
Amnesty International, in its reports on the state of human rights in Cuba, will describe the harassment and imprisonment of dissidents.† But it usually includes a paragraph on the U.S. embargo on Cuba:
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the US government to lift its embargo, as it is highly detrimental to Cubans’ enjoyment of a range of economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to food, health and sanitation. The World Health Organization, UNICEF and other UN agencies have reported on the negative impact of the embargo on the health and wellbeing of Cubans due to the lack of access to medical equipment, medicines and laboratory materials produced under US patents. Although the Cuban government is primarily responsible for respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights in Cuba, Amnesty International believes that the US embargo has helped to undermine the enjoyment of key civil and political rights in Cuba by fuelling a climate in which fundamental rights such as freedom of association, expression and assembly are routinely denied.
“Cuba: Human Rights at a Glance.” Amnesty International, 17 Sept. 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2015/09/cuba-human-rights-at-a-glance/
IIn other words, the embargo creates a siege mentality in Cuba. If the U.S. lifted the political and economic pressure, as it began to do under the Obama Administration, the government would feel more comfortable expanding some democratic structures that are already in place.
Also, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam are the only Communist countries left in the world. (China has vast wealth disparity amongst its citizens, which means it cannot be Communist, anda fascist monarchical clan rules North Korea.) The U.S. trades with both Laos and Vietnam. It punishes Cuba only because it can.
La Colmenita
In the evening we went to attend a performance of La Colmenita, which I mentioned in the last post. I probably should have looked up how to take pictures in the dark with my fancy iPhone camera, but these were the best I have, after a lot of editing. “La Colmenita,” means “the little beehive” which explains why the children dress in bee costumes. Founded by Carlos Alberto Cremata, this children’s theater group has traveled all over the world. When Michael and I were here with the Witness for Peace delegation nine years ago, we learned that on their one and only tour of the United States, La Colmenita performed at one of the most impoverished schools in Los Angeles. After seeing the dilapidated state of the building and learning that the school could not afford music or art programs, the children decided to donate the money they earned touring California to that school so the children there could have music and art again.
The performance we attended was dedicated to the ground-breaking Afro-Cuban jazz band, Irakere. It began with all the children singing and dancing on state, followed by a Teen Bee narrator explaining events that followed, with intermissions of Afro-Latin, and Latin Jazz music, including a tribute to Irakere. In the first play, a little girl in a Heidi dress appeared (circled in black below) and watched a procession of animals each claiming that they were the best dancers. After that, a Cuban version of Goldilocks unfolded, with the little girl eating the baby bear’s soup, instead of oatmeal, and lying in his bed. Predictably, the bears came home, a chase ensued, but the play ended with everyone dancing on the stage (the adults sitting on the stage behind music stands were the people who voiced the characters in animal costumes.)
After La Colmenita, we went to Danielle’s Bed and Breakfast to welcome her, and the eight of us had dinner. Judy, Ken, and I went back to sleep. Camila, Danielle, Dawn, Jose, and Michael went to El Floridita, so that a Danielle could listen to the live music—that night, the bar featured a female singer. Michael et al. were unsuccessful in their efforts to convince Danielle to sing
Miscellanea
Other important aspects of the day: A perfect cup of latte and a cart decorated with old newspapers. Roughly translated, the phrase written on the bottom ridge of the cart says, “What a tremendous source of pride it is to be Cuban!”
I’ll close with Jose Martí’s most famous poem, Guantanamera, later turned into a song made famous in the U.S by Pete Seeger.
*A lot are illegitimate. For example, in the first couple of years after overthrowing Batista’s dictatorship, Castro’s government practically eliminated illiteracy. His detractors claim this was a bad thing because the now-literate peasants could read the government’s propaganda.
†But compare this report to some of Amnesty’s reports on places where Community Peacemaker Teams (formerly Christian Peacemaker Teams) works: The West Bank, Colombia, Iraqi-Kurdistan, and the Aegean Islands.
Dancers at La Floridita, one of Hemingway’s favorite bars.
We had several reasons for vacationing in Cuba this year. We had always wanted to go back after our trip nine years ago. Last year, we had stayed at our friend Camila’s apartment in Bogota, and through her got our friend Danielle Ponder invited to the Havana International Jazz Festival. More on Danielle in a minute. We wanted to escape the U.S. the week after Trump’s inauguration, and then there was this factor:
At the time we flew out of Rochester, the Los Angeles fires were raging. I had read that theplot of the movie Chinatownexplained why LA had run out of water, so when I saw it was one of the selections available on Delta entertainment, I decided to watch it. Then I realized that Roman Polanski had directed and had a moment to decide whether my conscience would permit me to watch. I no longer watch media involving Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Johnny Depp, Bill Cosby or other abusers. But my curiosity about the politics of Los Angeles water got the better of me. The movie does do a good job of laying it out, but then Polanski adds this ick factor by revealing that Faye Dunaway’s character was raped and impregnated by her filthy rich father, who goes on to kidnap his daughter/granddaughter while the Los Angeles police (who are suitably racist) stand by.
Miami We were fortunate that Michael’s daughter, Beth, married into a family with whom we enjoy spending time and also run an Airbnb room in Coconut Grove. Martha and Rubens are the embodiment of hospitality. Visiting them, Beth, and Eric before we took the flight to Havana was a vacation in and of itself. In the picture below, Rubens is sitting at the end of the table and Martha is to his left. Eric is sitting between his mother and Beth, who is holding their niece. The children belong to Simonette, Eric’s sister, sitting beside Beth. I am sitting between Simonette’s husband and Michael. The owner of the restaurant, who is part of the extended family, took the picture in Medellin the day before Beth and Eric’s wedding.
Back to Danielle Danielle was a public defender here in Rochester who has been having a lot of success with her music lately, including a Grammy nomination for best new R&B artist. She shared about both arenas of her life in a Ted Talk: What music can teach us about justice. Check out her website to see if she might be appearing near you!
Here’s a song from her most recent album, Some of Us Are Brave. She mostly wrote it for black women, but when I heard the first stanza recently, I thought it could apply to the times we are facing in the U.S.
Arrival So my plan for the time in Havana involved working on this blog and getting some other writing done, while the rest of our group was attending concerts. Unfortunately, I left my laptop at a TSA checkpoint in Miami. I had asked for a wheelchair escort—not because I can’t walk, but because standing for any length of time is agony, and I think having two people minding my luggage through security meant the laptop didn’t get get picked up. Also, once I was through the line I focused on getting my money belt and back brace on.
When we arrived in Havana, I looked for the drug-sniffing mutts I had seen last time. Although I couldn’t see them, I heard them yapping away across the other side of the airport. Our fellow travelers, Ken and Judy said that the dogs they saw appeared to be beagles and beagle mixes. The picture to the left appeared in a 2014 issue of the Havana Times.
I’ve reflected on the difference it makes when Security is only interested in dogs for their sniffing abilities. I’ve come to believe that those who use German Shepherds want to intimidate people as well.
Below is our Bed and Breakfast in Havana. Our host had told us that we would have to go up 60 steps. Michael chose this instead of a high-rise with an elevator option because the electrical grid often fails in Cuba. Truthfully, I almost passed out every time I got to our apartment. Fortunately, on the first day, we only needed to get our suitcases up one floor. It was a beautiful old apartment—dense, dark wood floors and molding. Our rooms were comfortable and airy.
From the B&B, our airport driver took us to the Cuban Cultural Office to pick up our job festival passes, program booklets, and T-shirts. Because of the U.S. embargo we could not purchase these things in advance, but our friend Camila was able to put everything on her Colombian credit card before we traveled there.
From the ticket office, the driver took us to the La Paila Fonda. Many of its chairs were hanging swings. And here began the non-alcoholic piña colada quest for Michael and me. If I remember correctly, we got off to an auspicious start here.
Ken and Michael have known each other for 50 years, having met at the JCC summer camp–which did not make Jewishness a criterion for attendance. Ken is a musician of several wind instruments and recently retired from teaching music in the public schools for four decades. Judy retired two years ago from her job as Activities Coordinator at Jewish Senior Life in Rochester and, like me, is a gargoyle aficionado, among other things.
After lunch, the driver took us to the box office of the Karl Marx theatre to buy a ticket for me to a performance of La Colmenita. More about that later. I had to get a separate ticket, because I did not have a jazz festival pass. Yes, among my many flaws is not liking jazz. I respect it, in the same way I respect opera acknowledge the musicians are talented, but it kind of bores me. I like singers who incorporate jazz, like Steely Dan and Bruce Cockburn. And I like tuneful jazz from the thirties and forties, but well, a pass to the festival would have been wasted on me.
The cost of the ticket was 50 Cuban pesos, which was equivalent to U.S. 17 cents at the unofficial exchange rate. The great majority of people who attended the Jazz Festival were not Cuban because Cubans could never afford ticket to it, but La Colmenita was for the people.
Afterwards we rested at our B&B, Michael went to the airport to pick up Camila. We had stayed with Camila when we were in Bogota last year and thought we would return the favor by inviting her to stay with us in Havana and attend the Jazz Festival with us. Originally, Camila had planned to fly from Bogota to Colombia via Panama, which was cheaper than a direct flight. After Trump threatened to invade Panama, she made arrangements to fly directly to Havana.
El Floridita In the evening we walked around looking for something to eat and at the entrance of Old Havana saw El Floridita, which a 1953 issue of Esquire Magazine dubbed “one of the 7 most famous bars in the world.” The Catalan immigrant bartender Constantino Ribalaigua Vert invented the daiquiri there, but we also found the non-alcoholic piña coladas superb. Most of its fame comes from its association with Earnest Hemingway, who patronized it frequently. Even after he moved out of the city to the country (which Michael and I visited last time we were in Cuba), he would still drive into Havana to visit the bar often. Below is a picture of him with Fidel Castro.
We all agreed the band was stellar. The electric violin and guitar were miked, but the singer was not. He had an extraordinary voice. I wonder if he had studied opera. Adding to the entertainment were people who got up to dance in the meager space around their tables or just in front of the band. Most of them were very good. I later asked a Cuban whether men have hip problems there, given how fluid their dancing is. He said hip and back problems are rare. Camila would later join us at the bar. Dawn and Jose arrived after her. Dawn is an American Sign Language translator and has volunteered at the Gandhi Center in Rochester, where she met Camila when she worked there years ago. Jose works with a non-profit that advocates for the release of elderly prisoners and supports those who have left prison. Cuba was the first trip he had taken outside the country.
Danielle had not yet arrived in Cuba, but we thought we would walk by her B&B to see where she was staying. Jose took this picture so we could prove to Danielle we had shown up.
After our street art tour in Bogotá with Camilo, I kept my eyes open for street art in other places we visited. Santiago also has a notable street art community and now I kind of wish we had taken a graffiti tour there. The first street art we saw was actually an advertisement for an Amazon Prime program! The yellow owl was across the street from a cafe where we got some lunch. In my blog post on the ESMA Museum of Memory in Buenos Aires, I talked about the meaning of “Presente.” So when I saw the graffiti about Luisa Toledo, I looked her up. The Pinochet regime killed three of her children, and she became involved with liberation struggles against the dictatorship. She also advocated for the Mapuche Indigenous people, who were seeking territorial autonomy. Her family put out the following communique when she died.
To the national and international community To the women, the children, the elderly, and the honorable men of this land To the political prisoners To the clandestine ones who plow through rebellions To the Mapuche people To those who fight To the residents of Villa Fráncia To the combative youth: It is with deep sadness that we inform everyone of the death of our beloved comrade Luisa Toledo Sepúlveda. Surrounded by her most intimate family circle, she passed away peacefully in the privacy of her home on the morning on Tuesday, July 6. On this cold July morning, we were proud to be able to say goodbye to an unwavering, timeless, and essential woman. And although Luisa leaves us physically, her legacy has deeply penetrated the history of those who fight beyond the borders of this territory called Chile. With incalculable courage, Luisa fought for a justice that she never received after the murder of her children, Eduardo, Rafael, and Pablo, a pain that made her decision to fight unbreakable. Today will be marked as a before and after with the indelible mark of Luisa. Luisa, mother of the fighting youth, will continue to be an unfaltering beacon for those who fight. Let it be known to all the traitors, syncophants, and those who remain comfortable during moments of revolt, that her tenacity and consistency will remain the trailheads for new paths of struggles and rebellions in every poor corner of this world. Compañera Luisa Toledo Sepúlveda, Present Villa Francia, July 6, 2021 #FightlikeLuisa #MotherOfThecombatantYouth #LuisaLives #EveryDayAYoungCombatantisborn #VillaFrance #FreedomToThePrisonersoftherevolt
The graffiti “RP Global killed the black woman” probably refers to the death of Macarena Valdés, a Mapuche Indigenous woman. The Chilean authorities arrested her for trying to prevent the multinational company, RP Global, from stringing high voltage power cables through her community. The one beside it says “War to the state,” with an anarchist logo beside it. Below, we have poetry. The first, blue against a cream background, reads “Soul trash/We collect your fears/Old loves and bad luck/ Shake it off here.” Not sure of the poet’s last name, but the first is Pippi. The same poet (Pippi Morís?) wrote in white on blue, “Assembly of a whole being/I feel cold, never afraid/My soul is conscious/Vibrating along.“
Victor Jara was an internationally famous Chilean folksinger and university professor tortured and killed by Pinochet’s regime. Dragged into an indoor stadium, soldiers smashed his arms and systematically broke his fingers. Then they taunted him to play his guitar. The Spanish under his portrait reads, “With the force of song.” To his right, is a poster showing an indigenous person kicking a soldier, with the phrases, “Soldiers go back to your quarters.” On either side is the quotation, “So that memory does not exist only in September,” recalling the September 11, 1973 coup.
Below that, you’ll see a poster about Indigenous people that has been ripped off the wall. To its right, the poster says, “With death and torture, Democracy is still being built. Sowing terror to defend your interests and continuing to profit from our necessities. To 50 years of the coup. Self-organization,[obscured], and Direct Action. The encircled A and the star represent Anarchists and Communists. I don’t know what the third logo represents. It does not appear to be the flag of Chilean socialists. Because of its proximity to the Indigenous poster, and because of how governments treat Indigenous people in the Americas, I think the two posters may relate to each other. I don’t know what the three-eyed person means in the street art below that, but the words say, “State of Rebellion before the Oppressor State.”
In the last row, we see graffiti dedicated to the struggle of the Mapuche people. “Mapuche” means “people of the land” in their language, and “newen” means “force.” The small posters stuck on the painting of an arch call for justice in the murder of Annibal Villarroel, a working class protestor shot by police lieutenant Joaquin Muñoz Vasquez in 2020. Alex Nuñez was a 39-year-oold repairman who was trying to get home under military curfew. Police chased him and and beat him up. He died later in the hospital from his injuries. Under his image, someone has written, “They fell fighting for [human/civil] rights.” And below that, someone has written, “Arise those who fight (or struggle.”). The writer turned the tail of the q into a cross. On the picture to the right, the graffiti says, “For Communism, for Anarchy, let’s go on the offensive.”
I thought a couple of pieces were so striking I wanted to feature them. First up was the adaptation of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, which was his response to the 1937 bombing of the city of Guernica by fascist Italy and Germany. The artist of this mural used Picasso’s motif to describe the crackdowns on protests against inequality that began in 2019 and continued into 2020, until Covid-19 ended them. One demonstration on October 25, 2019 had more that 1 million people show up.
We stopped in at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center , which was closed for the day, and saw this mural. I would have loved to have had a Chilean historian or art expert explain it to me. I did a Google Lens search, and someone said this mural is called “Free Africa.”
I saw a mosaic on the side of the building—obviously installed when the center was built—that I initially thought was a picture of the Catholic Church bringing enlightenment to the savages. However, on closer inspection, I see that it’s a depiction of Gabriela Mistral, who herself received little standard education because she grew up in poverty. She advocated for Indigenous, poor, and working-class children to have the same right to education as other Chileans. Below are a couple of other murals from the center. The quotation above and below the frame in the picture to the right means, roughly, “As the streets expand over everything, the countryside shrinks. If the countryside dies, the city doesn’t eat.”
International Women’s Day Street Art
The evening we landed in Santiago, our driver told us he could take us only within three blocks of our rented room because of the International Women’s Day March. Dragging our luggage all that way was not fun, but participants in the March sure left a lot of interesting graffiti and posters behind. The top photo is slang that means, roughly. “Legal Abortion. Never with the police. Always with the whores.” The three unobscured graffiti postings below it read, “No is no,” “How many have to die in the name of false love,” and “Believe your daughter.” The posters give statistics:
In Chile, women work double the hours of men each day to take care of children and other dependents
At a global level, women work more than 76% of the unremunerated jobs.
1 out of 2 women of working age do not participate in the workforce, while 70% of men in the same position do.
Women in Chile receive $21.7 less that men do.
Did you know that only 7.5 public monuments are about women?
9 out of 10 women have been harassed on public transport.
Did you know that only 5.5% of the almost 100 million streets in Chile are named after women?
In Latin America, 49% of women have taken a break of 6 months or more from their work.
In Chile, 2 out of 5 women cancel trips within the city because the situation is too insecure for them to go there.
The posters in red depict the pictures of young women that the Pinochet junta regime kidnapped and who are still missing. The poster of the little girl in her school uniform jumping the turnstile reads, “Against the disposal and the violence of the colonial, capitalist, patriarchy. We resist for life. We march for transformation.” The final picture, bottom right, says, “I am the artist. NOT the muse.”
Palestinian Solidarity Street Art
As I’ve mentioned in earlier blog postings, we saw evidence of solidarity with Palestinians in all the countries we visited. In South America, only French Guiana does not recognize the State of Palestine. In Santiago, however, support for Palestinians seemed omnipresent. I remembered a friend in Bethlehem telling me in the 1990s that there were more Palestinian Christians from Bethlehem in Santiago, Chile than there were Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem. I also remember his taxi driver friend telling me he didn’t want to emigrate, but the Israeli closure of Bethlehem had tanked the economy, and he had family in Santiago who could help him start a new life there. Nearly half a million Palestinians live in Chile today.
From the top left: I took this picture from a car, so it’s not the greatest, but you can see the Palestinian woman wearing a keffiyeh (incidentally, some Palestinian Muslim women do wear keffiyehs—usually as a political statement, but it’s unusual. They prefer more fashionable headscarves. Keffiyehs are for working-class men.) On the top right, the posters say, “Together in the Struggle,” and feature an Indigenous woman, a Black woman and a Palestinian woman. Bottom left is a stencil showing a Palestinian woman holding a baby, with the statement: “Patriarchy equals genocide.” The next poster is a lithography saying, “Free Palestine.” (Below that is a poster saying “Milk is rape.”). Hanging on the same screen are posters saying, “No+Genocide,” with abstract figures in the colors of the Palestinian flag. On the bottom right, the top slogan says, “Palestinian Woman Resist.” (Below, in red, it says “Woman, light your fire” and, in black, “To abort is a right.”)
Valparaiso We have a friend in Rochester from Chile who encouraged us to go to Valparaiso, because she doesn’t like Santiago, and thinks Valparaiso presents a more beautiful side of Chile. Valparaiso is indeed a picturesque city. Valparaiso has Latin America’s oldest stock exchange, the continent’s first volunteer fire department, and Chile’s first public library. El Mercurio de Valparaiso is the world’s oldest Spanish language newspaper still in publication. UNESCO has called Valparaiso a World Heritage Site because of its historic importance as a seaport where ships stopped on their way to and from the Straits of Magellan before the Panama Canal was built.
Below is our lunchtime at a restaurant that our friend from Rochester recommended for the view. A driver in Santiago whom we liked agreed to take us to Valparaiso and then to the airport to catch our overnight flight. So of course, we invited him to eat with us. I ordered the dish our friend had recommended, the seafood soup. Good choice.
We took a walk into the center of the city before we went into its hills. This statue of the Greek god of justice, Themis, appealed to me. I think it was her swagger, with the hand on the hip. The plaque reads, “Themis, goddess of justice, ‘Figure and features of a young woman, a hard and fearsome look. Very vivid shine in her eyes, neither submissive or threatening, but with the dignity of a certain venerable sadness.'”
We then went up to the upper levels of Valparaiso on a funicular. The city has 17. Basically, they operate on the principle of counter weights. As one car goes down, it pulls the other one up. The pictures show the view from the top.
We thought we were seeing more Chilean street art in this hilly neighborhood, but the painter of both pictures has a Colombian Instagram address. I am not sure what the picture on the right signifies. The picture on the left shows Chile being drained of its resources. I am guessing the octopus pig is multinational corporations? Or other nations? The “Liberty of Chile” is one thing octopus pig is stealing.
Back to Reality
The flight from Santiago to Atlanta was very long, and my back was throbbing by the time we landed. You know how I complained in a previous blog post about Chile not having cheap espresso drinks? Well, a cup of IHOP coffee was a sad, sad way to end the trip.
However, we did have a lovely brief visit with Michael’s friend Maidie as we waited for our flight home in Atlanta.
As I write, we are halfway through June. I’ve been job hunting and tending the garden. When I reflect on the trip this spring, I would say my favorite part of the trip was visiting friends. I am glad that Sandra and Tuti feel safe in the countries they once fled, but I also think of all the students, intellectuals, dissidents, and ordinary people who simply wanted a better society and met terrible ends in their nations.
Learning the histories of these countries also left me with the conviction to never take democracy for granted. Some Colombians, Uruguayans, Argentinians and Chileans feel nostalgic for the times of dictatorship and political assassinations. There will always be privileged people who support governments that engage in unimaginable cruelties, as long as this tyranny results in the elites living comfortable lives, and as long as the government’s misinformation brainwashes enough people.
Those who have ears let them hear.
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On March 9-10, we made three short to very short visits to three more museums, the Gabriela Mistral Education Museum, which we visited on the afternoon after our visit to the Memory Museum, the Pre-Columbian Art museum, and Pablo Neruda’s House.
Gabriela Mistral had an impressive career. Famous for her poetry, she became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The government also appointed her to be a diplomatic consul to 10 different cities in Europe and the Americas.
But her first career was in education. She grew up in poverty and left school at 11 to support her family by sewing and then working as a teacher’s aide when she was 15. Her teaching career attracted notice and the Ministry of Education appointed her as director to several prestigious high schools in Santiago. Later she moved to Mexico to help reform the education system there.
The museum itself was mostly about the history of education in Chile.
Shortly before the Pinochet dictatorship fell, he handed over the education system to private corporations, who continually raised fees and reduced services. In 2006, students throughout the country rebelled. Called the Penguin’s Revolt, a reference to their black and white school uniforms, students demanded that the Chilean government stop allowing corporations to make a profit from their education. The signs below (clockwise from the top left) say, “It’s going to fall; it’s going to fall, the education of Pinochet.” “Let’s go, comrades. We have to put a little more effort into it. We quickly go out onto the street. Chilean education is not sold; it is defended.” “Education is a right.” “The rebel penguin doesn’t sleep.”
That evening we went to a Chinese-Venezuelan restaurant that included ham and cheese egg rolls on the menu. I will say no more.
The next day, we went to see the National Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. At first, the plaque commemorating the inauguration of the museum by General Pinochet put us off. Michael asked at the front desk why the plaque was there, but the guy at the desk had no answer.
Then, as we entered the second room, we realized all the pieces of art in that room had been looted from Indigenous burial sites, so we left after maybe 15 minutes.
We then visited Constitution Plaza, site of La Moneda, a combination of presidential palace and seat of government.
For Chileans September 11 will always refer to the day in 1973 that the Chilean military, with the support of the U.S., launched a coup against the democratically-elected president, Salvador Allende. And the most famous images from that day were the strafing of La Moneda by the Chilean Air Force, which used unguided rockets and cannon fire.
When we were visiting Sandra in Uruguay, she told us that Allende had arranged to go into exile, but he heard military radio communications indicating that his plane would never reach Cuba. So he delivered his final radio address, part of which is engraved on his statue in the plaza, and then committed suicide. The quotation on the plaque reads
[Go forward knowing that,] sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
Pablo Neruda’s home in Santiago, called La Chascona, after his mistress, was the third museum we visited that day.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but you can see some of the rooms here. Neruda, Chile’s most famous poet, also won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was friends with Gabriela Mistral. One of his most famous poems is “Ode to a Watermelon”:
ODE TO THE WATERMELON (Excerpt) by Pablo Neruda …the round, magnificent, star-filled watermelon. It’s a fruit from the thirst-tree. It’s the green whale of the summer. The dry universe all at once given dark stars by this firmament of coolness lets the swelling fruit come down: its hemispheres open showing a flag green, white, red, that dissolves into wild rivers, sugar, delight! Jewel box of water, phlegmatic queen of the fruitshops, warehouse of profundity, moon on earth! You are pure, rubies fall apart in your abundance, and we want to bite into you, to bury our face in you, and our hair, and the soul! When we’re thirsty we glimpse you like a mine or a mountain of fantastic food, but among our longings and our teeth you change simply into cool light that slips in turn into spring water that touched us once singing.
Currently, the watermelon has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance, because Israel punishes those who display the Palestinian flag. With its black seeds, green rind and red fruit, the watermelon serves as a stand-in. When we saw this apron, with a line of the poem in Spanish, Michael knew immediately that he wanted to give it to a Palestinian friend, who posted this picture on Facebook.
Finally, we encountered some beverages in Chile that we did not in any of the other countries we visited. I got spoiled by the cheap expresso drinks I was able to order in most of the places we ate. At this particular restaurant in Chile, I decided I would go for something simpler, and ordered cafe con leche, coffee with hot milk. Below is what I got. In Palestine, this type of coffee is a special drink that Palestinians serve to guests (despite the boycott), but for me, it symbolized a return to reality.
However, even though Chile doesn’t have cheap expresso drinks, it does have some interesting soft drinks. Top left is sugar cane juice with lime. Now, it didn’t even sound good to me, and it tasted just like it sounds: watered-down molasses with lime juice. I guess I just like trying new things.
Inca Cola is actually a Peruvian soda, with lemon verbena as the main flavor. Bilz, after Coca-Cola, is the most popular soda in Chile. The company describes the flavor as “fruit.” The pictures for Pap and Kem I downloaded from the internet. I didn’t actually see the former, and didn’t think to take a picture of the latter. One has the taste of papaya and the other the taste of pineapple. Guess which is which.
I believe next post will be the last of the trip.
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