Thursday, June 30, 2016

Jose Marti International Airport, Black Lace Panty Hose, Heat, Havana, Keith Richards And Zipper Cream Peas

When I was a child, The Threat was Communism. Of course. The Russians, the Soviets, were going to take over the world and make it Communist. I had but a vague idea of what that meant and certainly no context for where Communism had come from except for...well, Russia!... and our job as Americans was to find and root out Communism wherever it was to be found, whether in Hollywood or Congress or eventually, a tiny country no one had ever heard of called Viet Nam. Anything that was evil or scary or threatening was Communist. And Communism was so bad. Everything in Communist countries was gray and all of the artwork was about the glory of the state and its leaders and there was no religion, no personal freedom, no sweet bounty of food or joy like we Americans had here in such abundance.
I grew up thinking that Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of Russia, the United Soviet Socialist Republic, was the devil. The first rooster I ever knew belonged to my best friend's family and he was a red rooster and he was mean as fuck and his name was Khrushchev.
Like that.
And then- somehow- Cuba, which I was only vaguely aware of even though I moved to Florida when I was five years old, became Communist and was aligned with that red, evil devil and there was a guy named Fidel Castro who wore green army stuff and had a beard and smoked a cigar and he was like Devil, Jr. but an even bigger threat because he was so close to us, geographically, and Khrushchev was going to use Fidel's country as a place from which to bomb us.

This is all overly and vastly simplified and told from a child's perspective and not to be taken as actual history and to be quite honest- I still don't understand how Cuba came to be under the protection of the USSR. And I actually asked that question of Ruben, our own personal historian on the trip. Ruben has two master's degrees and speaks very good English and took us on our tour of old Havana and to the art museum and answered questions one day over lunch right before all of the waitresses sang and danced for us and he got the phone number of one of them with whom he'd been flirting.


Best history lecture ever and that's Ruben on the right.

I now understand a little bit more about the Revolution. Cuba had become a complete money cow for America. American Fruit Company, AT&T, American sugar companies, etc., etc. Not to mention the mafia. And so a very, very few people were very, very rich and everyone else (the workers) were basically starving to death and being bled dry.
Again- vastly simplified, I am sure.
And so Fidel Castro and some other folks (Che Guevara being one of them, I am certain) started a revolution and kicked out the big fat American blood-suckers and ended capitalism entirely (Ruben's grandfather had a small milkshake business and after the Revolution, it was taken from him) and somehow, the USSR became Cuba's ally.
But I'm still very, very hazy about all of this.
And I never really got a good answer from Ruben.
I should read some damn history.

But the point of this story is, that any child growing up in the sixties had an impression of Cuba as being a Communist country (and hell- it may have been Socialist for all I know- how embarrassing to admit all of this) and as such, it had to be a sad, sorrowful, GRAY, serious, ungodly place completely without humor or joy where nobody had the courage to speak out against the government at all for fear of being thrown into a horrible prison and tortured. And of course, where all the Soviet bombs were waiting to be dropped on us.

And then over the years, I grew up and Fidel became old and more avuncular than demonic and the images which came back from that closed country were those of beautiful old buildings and cars from the forties and fifties and of a population which consisted of people of all colors and I read Cuban fiction and THEN, Ry Cooder came out with the amazing and brave and incredible album which he recorded in Cuba, Buena Vista Social Club. 
Which I listened to about five thousand times and cried to approximately four times per listening and then I saw the documentary and wept my way through that and I realized that I did not know shit about Cuba.

Hey. Guess what?
I still don't.

But.
When we got to the airport in Havana (and the plane ride was like this: achieve elevation/prepare for landing) it reminded me greatly of Cozumel's airport back in the nineties. Very utilitarian. Very, very hot. We deplaned via steps and walked across the tarmac to the building and went in and got in line to get our passports and visas checked. In Cozumel this is all very open and the officials who stamp your passport are right there and you wait with all of the other tourists and when it becomes your turn to hand over your passport and documents, it's simply a matter of "Hola," a brief stare from the official and then stamp, stamp, here's your visa, off you go to collect your bag which may or may not be searched determined by some mysterious process I've never understood, but mostly not.
But in Cuba, we had been given all of these instructions of what to say if they asked why we were visiting Cuba (cultural exchange) and to not speak Spanish to the officials because they might think you are, well, something, something, and to just be ignorant Americans and if there were any questions AT ALL, to summon Yosi or Soledad. So. Waiting in line. To go into a tiny room. The door opens and you go in. To your left is a woman behind a counter at a desk. A stern looking woman. There is a scary camera hanging from the ceiling. You hand over your passport and your documents. She looks at them. She does some things on a computer.
"Have you been to Africa in the last three months?" she asks.
"No," you say.
She does a few more things on the computer.
"Take off your glasses and look into the camera."
You do this. A picture is taken. More computer stuff. Eventually, she hits a buzzer which unlocks the door in front of you. You are free to walk through it.
And this is what I saw- a huge, very, very gray room with horrible and inadequate florescent lighting and no seats and no amenities and two baggage claim conveyer belts.
No "Bienvenida a Cuba!" banners. No music. No one selling mojitos or cuba libres or trying to get you to rent a moped or buy a time share.
Just gray. Floor, ceiling, walls. And heat. Heat. Heat.
And I walked through that little door and I thought, "Jesus Christ. This IS what Communism looks like. Holy fuck."

But then I noticed something. All of the security guard women had obviously been issued a uniform shirt but whatever they wanted to wear below that was up to them. And that meant skirts barely longer than the shirts and often black lace patterned panty hose and high heels below those.
Well. This was definitely a different sort of Communism than what I'd been told about.
I took a breath. I felt much better.

We waited and waited and waited for our flight's baggage to appear and hell- how many flights a day come in to that airport? And we were supposed to be at the club for a sound check so very soon and weren't we supposed to change our dollars into CUP's at the airport? Of course, my bag came in last and by the time I grabbed it and Lis had her guitar, her banjo and her luggage and Sole raced us out to the bus to meet Sobe and get our seats and get on the way to FAC, we were completely culture shocked, heat exhausted, hungry, and penniless in the sense that even being in possession of an American dollar is a punishable offense for Cubans.

But. Sole and Yosi were calm and cool and Sobe was awesome and uniformed and flirting with Sole and greeting each of us with a huge smile and the bus was air-conditioned and Sole just handed out 100 CUPS to everyone and said, "We'll tally it up later," and off we went, our eyes boggling and bugging out at everything and Sole on the mic trying to explain to us what we were seeing.




And then, we were at the club and Sobe opened the door and the heat poured in and everyone loaded out, instruments in hand, and ushered in to a place that used to be a peanut processing factory but which now is a huge government sponsored art club with stages for music and acting and dancing and film showings and art installations.
The musicians did their ancient and familiar musician rituals with the sound man and the stage and instruments of wood and strings and human voice



 and the rest of us wandered around. One of the first things I saw was this.


Art on walls. I zoomed in.



And further.


My spirit totem animal.
Keith.

I knew all was well.
And so it was.

Do you realize that it's going to take me longer to share this story, this dream, this journey, than it did to live it?

Ah well. I am having the time of my life. And I've had a beautiful day, doing laundry and messing about with plants and in the garden and I got to have a long, long conversation with my oldest friend from childhood on the phone and this is what we're having for supper.


Zipper cream peas with a little ham and a lot of onions. I was going to make a fancy Jamaican recipe with coconut milk and so forth with them but then I decided that for our first picking (and Mr. Moon shelled most of these while I was gone) we would have them as god intended with some onions, a little pig meat, and salt and pepper. Rice is cooking and I'm about to make a salad.

More tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon


11 comments:

  1. I'm really enjoying reading about it. It's a beautiful place and I love the food and culture. I had a really good friend when I worked in television years ago whose entire family had fled from Cuba, some during the Mariel boat lift and some later on. When they visited from Miami, which was often, he always had us over for food and drinks. They spoke very fondly of it, but really disliked what Castro had done to it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am rarely speechless but you leave me so in a most profound way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. beautiful, Mary. Like a good book........riveting.....can't wait to turn onto the next page of this!!!!
    Susan M

    ReplyDelete




  4. 0h Mary, what a fabulous dream you are describing,,,I read this post aloud to John and we were both enthralled.
    You described my feelings as a child, not knowing at the time that we were being brainwashed in our innocence.
    And then Keith was there reassuring you that you were in the right place!!! More, please!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am loving this!!
    It's a little bit like being there myself - I love the wonder of travel and all the new people you meet. There's a kind of joy in that meeting that you don't get from everyday life here. You are conveying that so well.

    Dinner looks so good - I can smell it from here :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jon- The food was delicious. I don't know enough about the culture to truly comment. It seems like a vast subject and one which is as multi-layered as everything else I observed in my very short visit.

    Rebecca- You have no idea what those words mean to me. Thank you.

    Susan M- Oh. There is more to come. Trust me. Thank you so much for coming along!

    Lulumarie- Propaganda was certainly not just a product of the Soviets, was it? Another reason that I realize more and more that I know nothing about anything.
    And yes. My spirit totem animal was right there. Silly how comforting that was to me. And yet- it was.

    Liv- Yep. Say what you will about the joys of home life, getting up and out into the world is something we should all do now and then.
    And honey- that supper was AWESOME!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your reporting and photos are so enthralling. Thank you so much for letting us in on your trip. Amazing!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I am enthralled by your sharing. Can't wait to hear more.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks so much for sharing your trip! I also had that us/them style of thinking instilled as a child... Your story of the trip could be your next book! Hugs from Vermont where Summer has arrived!

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's interesting to hear about the ways in which the anti-communist propaganda about Cuba that we grew up with were accurate (gray, authoritarian public spaces) and the ways it was inaccurate (high heels and lacy stockings). I think those of us who grew up in Florida had a special relationship with Cuba. I always thought of it as an impenetrable, backward island, threatening and yet mysterious and possibly beautiful, with missiles pointed at us -- and a place where no one I knew would ever, ever be able to go. I'm so glad that latter point is no longer true!

    ReplyDelete
  11. One of the best books I have read is a biography of Che in which the entire process of the Cuban Revolution is explained. The book is Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson. I have also read Fidel's book which is rather boring. Definitely some place I want to go soon.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.