The Death Of Fidel

     Mixed images are surfacing after the death of the person that haunted Latin America's conscience, Fidel Castro. Ironically, he represented a kind of freedom of speech to many Latin American leaders who were compelled to think of him as a hero,, more because he was what they could never be,, that is, vocally anti-american. After Castro's death I read the praises that came from mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. Peña Nieto's eulogy seemed like a catharsis after his embarassing moment in the world spotlight with Donald Trump.
    Intellectuals of the world were forever fighting over Fidel,, but especially in Latin America. Castro was either a brutal dictator or a liberator depending on which writer tickled your personal prejudices.  In Latin America, unlike in the U.S., intellectuals possess political influence. Writers in Latin America give creedence to political movements. They constitute a moral voice that illuminates the many movements in the area. Writers provide the much needed romantic ideal, the latin element, that captures and motivates the people. 
    Mario Vargas Llosa, the peruvian nobel prize winning novelist, once asked, "Why is it that dictators of the left are not scorned in the same way as those of the right? Was General Augusto Pinochet, in his 17 years in power, crueller or bloodier than Fidel Castro has been in his decades ruling Cuba?"  An opposing voice, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, stated about his friend Fidel Castro, "His vision of Latin America for the future is the same as Bolivar and Martí, an integral and autonomous community, capable of moving the destiny of the world."  Prejudice is selective and affects perceptions on both ends of the political spectrum. However disparate the intellectual views on Fidel Castro, there is one view that the intellectuals of Latin America have in common, that is that the United States has been the biggest obstacle to change in Latin America. The US government prejudice against the people south of the Rio Grande has evidenced itself for two centuries. The US has tried and suceeded to control the region in order to preserve its resources for itself.
     Last week in Miami, after the death of Castro, there were jubilant yet macabre celebrations in the streets by young people who are two generations removed from the Cuban Revolution. And of course there were triumphant tweets from D.T's electronic pellet gun. It was inevitable too that fresh evaluations of more than 50 years of Castro's stern rule over this island nation are emerging. Did the Cuban Revolution succeed or was it corrupted by Fidel's stoic adherence to Communism, or was achievement forever placed on hold by U.S. hubris? Nothing chafes a superpower more than an errant next door neighbor. Since the revolution ended the U.S. has expressed nothing but intolerance for the tiny communist nation 50 miles from its shore yet ironically in the last 20 something years biggest trading partner for the U.S. is a country of a billion and a half communist Chinese.
     Since the Cuban Revolution the CIA in cahoots with the mafia, and the Cuban American community.  has tried to assasinate Fidel over 600 times. The attempts began in 1960 and finally ended in 2000. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot. Just one attempt on a US official would have brought on military action. Exploding baseballs, poison milkshakes, poisoned cigars, wetsuits infected with deadly fungus, and invasions all failed. Castro always seemed to know what was coming. It is said that he had spies in the Cuban Community in Florida and in other parts of the country.  
     Then there was the embargo designed to bring the nation to its economic knees. The cuban embargo was implemented in 1959 while Batista still reigned and is still in effect at this writing. We will never know how Castro's Cuba might have fared outside of such a hostile environment.

 

     I went to Cuba 16 years ago with my wife. I must admit that since I lost my notes about this trip I am relying on a 16 year old memory of events. If this travel log seems sketchy it is because I have forgotton so much. That is why it is imperative to write down everything with lots of nuances when it is still fresh. 
      At that time there were no direct flights from the U.S. to Cuba but there were regular flights from Mexico. The reason for our trip was a short news story we saw on Havana. What attracted us was a cheeky man who took pictures with an old box camera. He seemed like quite a character so consequently we made flight arrangements. It was a fickle reason I admit but it got us out of the house, and helped us to learn more about the region. At the time I could barely speak Spanish and the U.S. had implemented a travel restriction against North Americans traveling to Cuba. There would be no problem for my mexican wife. After all Fidel launched his revolutionary campaign from Mexico. We were told that the Cubans didn't mind too much from where you came as long as you spent some much needed money. We also heard  that Cuban customs wouldn't stamp a US passport. That travel evidence would raise flags if one returned to the States. At the airport in Havana, however, there was a tense moment for me. I was ushered into a special line with these men in army fatigues soberly looking me up and down and asking questions that I could not answer. My wife was not allowed to enter with me and for a little while I felt like an enemy presence. They did not stamp my passport which was a relief when finally we were allowed to enter.
     A taxi took us to the Melia Cohiba, a tall white spanish owned hotel  near the Malecon (boardwalk) that looked like it was lifted from Las Vegas. After the revolution U.S. investment in Cuba ceased The Island suffered various economic calamities, the U.S. embargo, and perhaps more devastating the withdrawal of Russian economic support, which is termed the "Special Period" in Cuba.  However, in the mid 1990's tourism, which had always been a staple of the older island economy was revived and different countries responded by entering collaborative ventures with the cuban government. Canadian and European companies were some of the major investors. At the time I thought it odd because the U.S. has always placed the dollar above anything else including God. Why hadn't the desire to "make a deal" surpassed politcal strategy? I began to feel the cloying voting power of the disenfranchized cuban community in Miami. 
      Enclaves dedicated to tourism were formed by the cuban government. The most popular categories were and are health, (much in the form of cures, especially cancer), cuban culture, (which is rich), sun 'n' fun, (because of the fortunate carribean climate), and sex (because prostitution is unofficially allowed). Since 1970 Canadians, who were not subjected to travel restrictions like people from the U.S., visited Cuba in great numbers for all of the above reasons.  
     We discovered quickly that there were two Cubas one for Cubans and the other for tourists. Some commentators have dubbed the industry "tourist apartheid".Cubans themselves could not partake of the "tourist net" except in the capacity of workers.There were tourist hotels, tourist restaurants,tourist tours, and tourist stores and all were off limits to Cubans.  Any transaction was paid in dollars. 
     
     The first thing on our list was to go to the Capitolio and find that photographer, the one that was the impulse to visit Cuba.  He was there, just like in the news story, feisty and funny. He took our picture on the steps of the Capitol Building. People ambled everywhere in small groups. They seemed flirty, smiling,, and it seemed like everyone except babies had a cigar in their mouth. And there were the cars, those Finned Steely Behemoths parading down the streets and broad boulevards like a fossilized marine menagerie. There are no North American vehicles after 1959.  The only "other" car I saw was imported from Russia, a boxey looking thing called a Lada. 

                                           Cubans in front of the Capitol Building

  1940's era vehicles next to a russian made Lada.  


  !950 Cadillac




Friends sharing a cigar break.

  Taxis

     We hired a 1949 dodge taxi. It felt like a hotel inside. After squishing my body into Nissan Tsuru taxis with 4 other people in Tenancingo this 49 dodge was exquisitely enormous. I think it even had an echo.The driver took us for a ride along the famous Malecon (boardwalk), the one with the seawall forever attacked by the agressive waves that explode high in the air and all over the boulevard. The taxi driver, after some coaxing told us that the taxis are all considered property of the State and he was obliged to turn over all that he made to the government. However, he had free medical care, and education,subsidized housing and was given a salary from the government that worked out to about $11.00 USD a month. Of course his wages  were augmented by tips which he did not report. He was only allowed to shop in State owned stores. He said most everyone in Cuba, in order to survive, participated in the black market. As we passed a State run store and he pointed out to us that the shelves as almost always were empty. I could enter one of those State Stores but he could not enter a better stocked "tourist only" store.

     The architecture of Old Havana is spanish colonial mixed with Moorish arches. It is impressive yet a little deteiorated. Tourism in Cuba was in its infancy at the time we visited. Except for the occaisional moorish touch, it reminded me of parts of Mexico City.

     

 

In this foto one can see the type of bus available to Cubans called a "Camello" or camel. It is sometimes referred to as a Gua Gua Gigante.

I forget where this photo was taken

 

Plaza de La Revolution, where Castro delivered his marathon speeches.

     The taxi driver dropped us off at the art market.This was a lively place filled with street vendors. Most of the art was afro-carribean colorful and jazzy. I found some unique pieces one of which I bought most likely because it reminded me of me, a whitish-gray guy with a belly and a big nose standing, waiting for something to happen. In the distance a group of dancers in african costumes swirled to the beat of drums. Music is inseparable from the air here. I tried to take a photo of a woman who was smoking a large cigar but she saw me, jumped up, and demanded a dollar for my effort. 

This cigar chomping lady jumped up after I took this  photo and demanded a dollar from me. I think I recognized her from an article on Cuba in National Geographic.

A young man tried obnoxiously to sell me cigars while I was digesting the art. I was already used to these tactics in Tenancingo. We wandered away to a restaurant and tried some mojitos.They know how to make mojitos,,,, and piña coladas. The bar possessed a lazy kind of informal attitude. There was a jazz group playing so smooth and delicious that the drinks turned to nectar. I was reminded of the first time that I traveled to the western U.S. by train. I mounted the train in Boston and didn't get off until it stopped in Flagstaff, Arizona 56 hours later.  As I exited onto the platform happy to leave the clickity-clack for a while I was struck by a pleasing aroma in the air. I later found out it was the bouquet of Ponderosa Pine forests that surround the city. There is a type of scent in the air of Cuba as well. It surrounds you. It is, I thought to myself, that the ambience here is a honeyed afro-carribean oyster set in a spanish shell. But there is another influence at work here, that from the USA. After the Spanish American War Spain practically turned over the Island to the U.S.. The States heavily invested in the economy of its tiny neighbor. The American mafia used Havana as a source of gambling income.  For fifty years after the Spanish-American War a great part of cuban culture has been affected by the USA. From the moment we arrived I felt more like I was in the U.S. than in some "other" Latin American country. Mexican culture is more foreign to me than that of Cuba. In Mexico the influence that regulates life is Spanish-Religious and Spiritual-Indigenous. They have their own unique culture and even though Walt Disney has penetrated the carapace it is still something apart from the USA. At this point in the trip I was thinking that in Cuba Afro-Caribean improvisation settles everywhere.The air has the aroma of caribe flavored jazz and salsa. Percussion always accompanies you and I think affects your gait. There is also an odd guitar sound called "The Cuban Tres Guitar. This is an exciting instrument that sets Cuban music aside from the rest of Latin music. A Tres has six strings but they are arranged as three pairs . What is very peculiar about this instrument is the way that it is tuned. Two strings closest to the floor are high and low E. The two strings in the middle  are C tuned exactly the same. The upper two strings are high and low G.  As you sweep down the strings, the sound they emit is magical. The sound is seems reverse of standard tuning. It goes up and down across the oddly tuned strings and whether you sweep down or up, the C strings in the middle act like an axis upon which spin the the E's and G's. 
     In the following linkyou can hear the guitar La Tres played by Pancho Amat:

 https://youtu.be/W4MTpS87hqM

      The traditional dress seems to be african or campesino flax. The african influence in the outfits I was seeing might have been seen in the southern U.S. as little as 65 years ago. Baseball seems to be the game of choice. I felt if I went up to someone on the street and started a conversation employing a reference to Babe Ruth, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or Dizzy Gillespie, the references would be recognizable to a Cuban,, as if U.S. culture still lingered here despite all that has passed. In Mexico those references rarely evoke a response. After two mojitos I began to think in the most humorous fashion,, that the most drastic difference between Cuba and the USA was that Che and Castro had replaced Johnny Appleseed. 

 https://youtu.be/wBL6gVqbXw0       Link to Cuban Street Music Familia Valera

https://youtu.be/SRqWF7MlRU4        Link to cuban street jazz

Dancer in the art market

Dancers in the art market

     
     In the evening we strolled in "Old Havana". People came out to promenade and partake of the cool evening and bars. Havana is very safe any time of day or night. During our promenade Omara Portuondo Pelaez passed us arm in arm with a man. She looked like an african queen and he, decked out in spatz, a powder blue shirt and suspendors cut an elegant figure in the warm night. The following are two links to her songs.

 https://youtu.be/Td3tMHs6pME

 https://youtu.be/xcKzSGyxars

Musician at the Mojito Bar


                          
              Cuban rest stop where a group was singing Guantanamera        

My favorite of the many cuban versions of the song Guantanamera can be heard here: 

 https://youtu.be/BoV4R0lnPXk      

     Guajira Guantanamera is a well-known Cuban popular song. The best known version, adapted by Julián Orbón is based on the first phrases of the "Simple Verses" by the Cuban poet José Martí. A Guajira is a campesina. Guantanamera refers to Guantanamo. The song is about the simple life told in passionate terms. It really has become a patriotic song evoking national pride in the simple life told in passionate phrases. Pete Seeger popularized this song in the U.S.. 
Pete Seeger's cover can be heard here            https://youtu.be/h0gg3-xvMB0





   This is the very polished finger of the statue of Jose Maria Lopez Lledin (30 december 1899- 11 July 1985).

           The statue of Jose Maria Lopez Lledin is in front of the former convent of St. Francis. Lledin was known as the Caballero de Paris (The Gentleman From Paris). He was a well recognized street person in Havana. He was born in Spain and arrived in Cuba around the age of 15. He may have lost his cookies when he was wrongfully imprisoned. Upon his release he began to wander the streets of Havana where he became recognized for his flare for conversation, exceptional manners,  and his knowledge of the world. His black coat, long hair, and beard made him a familiar character in Havana. 
     Because he lived "outside the world", his past shrouded in mystery, and due to his genial personality he became beloved. The Gentleman of Paris died on July 12, 1985, in Mazorra. A doctor diagnosed his condition as paraphrenia, considered as a form of schizophrenia, although he did not suffer from hallucinations.
     The next day we met a young cuban man in the art park who was friendly enough. Really  met us. He, Eumenio, was a talker. He started to follow us about pointing out this and then that. I didn't know what to make of him at first. It seemed he visited the art park looking for tourists for whom he could act as guide and at the same time reap some reward,, like food and tips. We spent the entire day with Eumenio. At one point, however, when we were crossing a street one of the guardianes del barrio, just one of the many state security guards pulled our young guide over, checked his papers, and gave him a stern warning. The guard, told Eumenio that he was watching him and no harm better come to us. It didn't seem to dampen our Eumenio's spirit, however it made both my wife and I uneasy,, yet this kid didn't seem like he was out to harm anyone, only to garner some U.S. coins. Eumenio took us to a bar where we tried cuban beer. It was truly awful. He told us that is was just another one of Fidel's experiments in local production. He showed us the stores for Cubans and told us about the Castillo de Los Tres Reyes de Morro and introduced us to some of the many surprising sun filled plazas in Havana. He took us into Restaurant open to Cubans. It was simple and specialized in Caribean lobsters.

  

     At the end of the day Eumenio accompanied us to our hotel yet because he was Cuban he was prevented from entering. At the door of the lobby, as he was ready to leave he surprised us both by inviting us to supper at his house the next night. He said his mother, who was a great cook, would prepare something special. Of course such an invitation would have a cost but I thought it was a great opportunity to know how a cuban family lived. My wife was nervous, but we accepted.  
     That night we were wandering around the hotel. Downstairs there was a room filled with cuban hotel employees. It was a class on the history of the Cuban Revolution. We asked if we could sit down and were welcomed. We found a couple of desks in the back and listened. It reminded me of catechism while studying for my first communion. The teacher asked a question, akin to "Where is God?"  Then students would raise their hand to answer. "God is everywhere." I admit I couldn't understand too much of what was said but what I could understand told me it was political re-enforcement class.
     The next night we went to our Eumenio's house on a dark street in Havana. We entered an obscure courtyard. There was a moss covered fountain filled with leaves and broken wood. Layers of paint were peeling off everywhere in plaques. Wooden slatted shutters sagged cockeyed from the windows.  It was evident that at one time this was a house for the well to do. It had been divided into apartments now that were upstairs off the balcony. We climbed the old creaky stairs. I know my wife wanted to leave but I urged her on. We came to their apartment and knocked on the door. All trepedation vaporized when the family greeted us like we were old friends. After introductions we sat down to eat what was a very simple meal for us but which was a special treat for them, rice with a premium, an egg on top. 
     After supper our Eumenio introduced us to the songs Polo Montanez, a campesino singer who had recently died in a car accident. They put on his cd and everyone started dancing. Eumenio was showing my wife how to salsa. It was quite festive. Six months after we returned to Mexico the song featured in the first link below could be heard everywhere.

https://youtu.be/1j3QHyBOyhg     Link to song by Polo Montanez Un Monton de Estrellas


https://youtu.be/AvbcdZ9nd3I        Another link to song Un Bolero



Cuban family. Our young guide has his arm around me. His grandfather looked like Uncle Remus. Dad is next to Remus, Mom next to him, sister and brother in the center. They all seemed quite happy.


  We met this couple in a park. We invited them out for a drink in a small cuban restaurant. They were pleasant enough yet there was a mild desperation about them. They told us stories of deprivation and hardship but in whispers as if someone might hear them.  Tourism is the # 1 source of funds in Cuba.. Many directly make money from tourism or gain indirectly when an opportunity arises. He kept looking at my shoes which were nothing special. It turned out he wanted me to give him my shoes which however stayed on my feet.


 
Colorful Park where we met the couple pictured above.

      On the day before we returned we went to the beach in Varadero by van. I remember noting people along the well kept palm and coco lined highway highway to Varadero were extending their arms holding what looked like little white bricks. Our driver told us they were trading blocks of cheese for a ride. Varedero is a 20 kilometer spit of land that extends out into the Carribean. Its white sandy beaches are beautiful. We swam a little but unfortunately the weather was cool. Later we took a catamaran tour to manglar grove. This was before they offered snorkling, delphine encounters, and diving. The Catamaran stopped in a narrow channel bordered in manglars. I dove into the water but when I emerged a chill in the air affected me a bit. The"cat" then  took us to Cayo Blanco with white flower sand where we ate under a palapa. After the food and drinks the restaurant workers picked up instruments and began to play. It was like the metamophosis of an edible catepillar into a fluttering butterfly. 
     In a another side trip to a cavern, I was in one boat and some other tourists in another. Each boat had a guide, one white and the other black. As we entered a narrow channel the boats touched. Here we were , a mixed group floating in this tight space looking up at a stalactite that supposedly resembled an alligator when a discussion began. I don't remember what prompted the guides to begin speaking about their country but I am sure it was the curiosity everyone seemed to have about the mysterious Cuba and its leader. Both guides had their own opinion. The white guide after talking mostly kindly about Fidel for a while concluded his oration with the statement that he would be shocked if Fidel Castro, like so many other Latin American leaders had a swiss bank filled with dollars extracted from Cuba. My gut reaction was to agree with him. The black guide however was frustrated in Cuba, as if his dreams had to be placed on hold in this old dinghy in a cave with us. He just wanted out of Cuba. He ended his mild tirade about Fidel's many sins by asking the tourists in the boat if they wanted to adopt him.
     Almost all tourism is contrived. It's an example of the Heisenberg Principle.What Heisenberg found was that the observation of a system disturbs the system enough that you are prevented from "knowing" that system. Tourism so often is a process of augmenting and embellishing what is already there,, or in he case of Disneyland and Las Vegas what was never there in the first place. The embellishment is what we end up seeing and akin to the "observation" in Heisenberg's Principle. In that way the original charm can't help but be contaminated a little. I had the feeling by the time we were in Cayo Blanco that tourism in Cuba was permeated by control,, perhaps more so than many other tourist mechanisms.Except our time with Eumenio and the meal with his family, the government had concocted all of it using other country's established models which made it the copy of a copy. Cuban culture was employed to give substance to the entire enterprise and of course they had a lot with which to work. Almost all the participants, except the Eumenios were employees of the  government,, and this does not mean that all the participants were glassy eyed as they crooned romantic tunes,, but there was a collective air about the whole scene and yet the solid presence of cuban cultural history has always been there.  Maybe that's just the Cuba in the song Guantanamera,, simple, happy, ready to improvise at any moment. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience but as for the tourist industry st the time there seemed little left to chance. One just always had this creepy feeling that Fidel was laughing at everybody.
     Traveling in a taxi to the airport on our last day I asked the driver why I hadn't seen any cuban money. He chuckled and reached into his pocket and pulled out some bills. Here take them he said, they are worthless. I still have those bills.