SermonsRoman Polanski

Cuba trip 2025

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 the plot of the movie Chinatown explained 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.

Earnest Hemingway and Fidel Castro smiling at each other

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.

On sexual harassment, Yemen, and growing up a bullied child

A version of this article first appeared on Medium.   I invite you to go there and clap for it!

Recently a friend who works for a non-profit that seeks to reform U.S. foreign policy posted on Facebook a mild defense of comedian Louis C.K.’s “apology” to the women he had sexually harassed. I pointed out the deficits of his confession in the comments and linked to an article about the Old Boy’s network in comedy that enabled Louis C.K. to continue his harassment and which silenced his accusers. A LOT of other people offered up their opinions in the comments on my friend’s Facebook post.

In a subsequent posting, he wrote, “It’s so funny to me that if I post something about Louis C.K., some people get so exercised about it that they send me private messages about it. But if I post something about the U.S.-assisted Saudi genocide in Yemen, two or three of my closest people respond. Nobody else gives a shit. I need to figure out a way to force people to care about this.”

For that not following the famine in Yemen, and that includes the vast majority of people in the U.S., here is a recent article. U.S. policy is essentially supporting the Saudi blockade that is preventing aid from reaching millions of starving Yemeni civilians. Here is a petition you can sign to a support a current bipartisan resolution in congress: Save Yemen from famine & stop helping Al Qaeda. Use war powers to force a vote on ending U.S. participation in the unauthorized Saudi war in Yemen.

Most people would agree that genocide, military occupation, police brutality, political prisoners and other issues taking up my head space are more important that celebrity culture. But truthfully, I have never had much interest in celebrity culture. I have, however, found myself intensely engaged in the stories of victims coming forward and accusing powerful figures in the political and media communities of sexual abuse and silencing. I haven’t watched Woody Allen movies for years, nor would I watch anything by Roman Polanski.

My friend’s Yemen comment made me probe the depths of my interest. I have experienced mild sexual harassment, but I think the sore spot these stories touch don’t relate to these encounters as much as they do to my history with bullying.

I grew up socially awkward. I cried easily, and because I read several hours a day, I used a vocabulary that was not only beyond my peers but, I realized in later years, some of my teachers. In elementary school, I was always the last chosen for teams, an object of scorn and derision, the cootie girl. One of the worst insults a boy in my classes could hurl at another boy was to claim that I was his girlfriend.

In junior high and high school, the bullying stepped up a notch. It’s probably safe to say that almost every day I was the target of verbal or physical abuse. I was tripped; I had food thrown at me in the cafeteria; I was slammed into lockers and asked “Why are you even alive you ugly skank?”; I had my books ripped out my arms and thrown across the hall—always, always to the accompaniment of laughter by my fellow students. As I write these events—and my hands are trembling as I type—once again, I feel the old shame, shame more than anger, the wondering “what is there about me that is so inherently disgusting that would cause people to do this to me?”

Not once, did any adult intervene on my behalf. When I tried to tell what was going on, I was given some version of, “You need to buck up or you will always be victimized.” Kind girls who reached out to me, I repaid by becoming too attached and clingy, desperately wanting to hold onto their friendship and protection. I became depressed, withdrawn and suicidal, pleading with God to kill me during the night as I slept.

In college, I had a chance to reinvent myself. The sensitivity and passion that made me a loser in public school gained me friends and allies in college. I poured myself into Nuclear Disarmament and Central American solidarity work. Later in 1993, I joined Christian Peacemaker Teams, where I have spent the last twenty-four accompanying people in Haiti, Colombia, Palestine, Washington DC, and in Indigenous Communities who have lived far less privileged lives than I have—who, if we’re going to go for metaphors, have had to fight against state-sanctioned bullying on their entire populations.

Many of the people I know who go into human rights work have had difficult childhoods. I used to find redemption in this narrative. But I have become less enamored of the “wounded healer” trope lately. First of all, in human rights work, it has colonial overtones. Also, I have seen the damage done when the unhealed wounds end up bleeding all over tasks we need to do. But more importantly, in relationship to myself, I don’t think it sustains you for the long haul. If true healing never really happens, that bullied girl keeps getting in the way of adult Kathy, diverting focus from the acute needs of people I am supposed to be accompanying.

And currently that bullied girl, who experienced silencing and gaslighting from her peers and the adults who were supposed to protect her is celebrating that Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey (whom she liked in the film Beyond the Sea), Louis C.K. (whose TV series she enjoyed) and so many other celebrities are facing accountability for their silencing and gaslighting. She is ecstatic about the Washington Post story on Roy Moore. She wants Bill Clinton to face reckoning, finally, for rape, too.

Adult Kathy…well, I am watching as Roman Polanski and Woody Allen are still living as free men, even feted, and the woman who was fourteen when Roy Moore sexually molested her is already having her divorces and bankruptcies (Donald Trump’s divorces and bankruptcies being somehow irrelevant) displayed for public scrutiny. I am thinking that even if the victimizers du jour are finally held accountable, it won’t bring back the careers of so many of the people they victimized, nor will it un-traumatize the lives of their victims. I am thinking about famine in Yemen, the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and the current futility of either the two-state or one-state solution. I want be an ally to people of color and sits wordless in front of the Twitter feed and Facebook as I bear witness to the indignities they experience, how society both targets them and renders them invisible. I think I have no right to feel this paralyzed, this hopeless, given my life of privilege. I want to be like other activists I know, who approach the work with a certain joie du vivre, who draw energy from the struggle and from their association with other activists.

But before I get over the PTSD I am experiencing now from years of working in Palestine, I am probably going have to fix her—the girl with the glasses:

May healing come to all of us, who have tried, in our own muddled ways to hold people accountable and may the next generation—whatever gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or ethnicity—live free of silencing.