VIVA CUBA
There is a life in Cuba you can feel as you walk the streets.
It has a beat and a heat that seeps into every word whispered and spoken to you as small espresso cups of coffee are dished out, glasses of rum are passed around with cigars and invitations of a night of love making are freely offered.
It resides in the hearts of its people and it is never dormant.
Music is heard to be playing every where.
Old smiling men on their trombones, saxophones, Congo drums and maracas.
The young and the old shuffle their feet to salsa steps as others sing into microphones.
Buena Vista literally means good view and the older generation performing is exactly that.
On our first night in Habana we had the pure luck of seeing the 94 yr old woman sing from the original Buena Vista Social Club that made it to international fame. Dressed to the nines in a full length sequenced dress, up to her elbow in black gloves and a huge glittering ring on her finger she belted out numbers into the microphone with a gusto you rarely see now a days. At one stage she proclaimed "Gente, todavia soy viva !"
People, I am still alive.
Behind her, fanning themselves against the thick warm air as there is no air conditioning in the places they sing was a 10 piece band that played all night. Men and women of all ages got up in three piece suits and elaborate dresses to sing their hearts out. They were performing in the true sense of a performance. One they had done many times before and one they will do many times to come.
This is their life.
A life of music in Habana.
Old cars, old buildings, old stories and old songs.
It is all still so very alive.
I have wanted to travel to Cuba for as long as I can remember. It is not as if I am completely up with the true line of events politically or even really listen to their music that much. The calling to go to Cuba is one deep within my physcy that is unexplainable.
I remember a very recent pass life that occurs here on this continent. I am a rebel fighting for the freedom of my country, caught by the army and interrogated. When I was in Cuba just now I wondered if it had been there that this lifetime took place.
My travel companion was my young friend from Argentina whom I had met and had a most delicious affair with in Peru over a year ago. We would spend the early hours of the chilly morning, fighting the need to fall asleep by drinking more coffee and listening to music on "YouTube" performed in Habana.
Over a year later Cuba s heat looked promising and so did the heat between us.
My first real holiday since the birth of my son nearly ten years before, I was so ready for Cuba.
Like with many countries in Central and South America, when I land nothing seems all that foreign to me. A familiarity settles on my skin and I drink it all in as if I am returning home.
Habana was no different.
By the end of breakfast on the first morning I was receiving hugs from the head lady of where we were staying as if I were her long lost grand daughter.
On arriving the night before just as the clock was about to turn midnight Gabriel had come racing down the stairs and we hugged for so long and so hard that I actually came away from that embrace with what felt like a cracked rib.
I spent the whole journey in Cuba in a lot of pain.
As it turned out my closest companions for Cuba were of the nearly and completely broken kind.
What seemed like a cracked rib, a broken heart and a credit card that did not work because of a linked bank relationship with the US.
Smelling of stale cigarettes and rum Gabi had stories of conversations and invitations from the men and families of these men that had fought along side of Che Chevara.
Six hours after landing onto the Island he had managed to form close relationships with the locals who had Cuba s history deep in their blood and half the neighborhood knew I was arriving.
Habana is a city lined with street after street thick with history of every grand stone laid in immense buildings that are falling down, crumbling with age and tiredness whilst playing our song.
Street corners, small bars, large bars, out of the way cafes all have music being played live at their entrances.
Washing hangs and drys from each balcony whilst young fit men loiter around their bike taxis hustling for a customer. Pretty girls are the ones they want to take for a ride. They do their best to lure you in with their sweet as honey words, well versed and repeated like a broken record all day and night. They hope that one, just one will be taken by their offer and ride off into the sun set or dusty city street with them. A ten peso ride for a few minutes or for a few hours, maybe even a night.
Life is full of hope in Habana.
In a country where the sentence in prison for killing a cow is up to forty years and that for murder is around seven the hospitality of the people whom are all in the danger of losing everything for hosting tourists if they don't have a permit is astounding. The education level of EVERY man woman and child is impressive. On a small beach on the carribean side we spent three days talking politics, life and escape with a local hat selling bordering alcoholic. Yet his knowledge of the world was impressive.
In fact we spent the whole two weeks talking politics. Education is high on the Cuban governments provision. A long with a list of rations per month that include rice, coffee, oil and sugar that Cubanos can get cheaper, the high education system in place means most of your waiters, taxi drivers and tourist hat sellers have actually studied some sort of medicine or law and are well versed in their knowledge of the other parts of the world. Every Cuban I met knew where Australia was wanted to know whom was our prime minister presently.
Education is king.
Competeing with sugar doctors are one of the highest most valuable exports of Cuba. Many are exported. The average wage for a doctor inside of Cuba is eight dollars a month. And although medical services are free for Cubans, the lines of waiting are long. So Doctors receive bribes of money, meat and cheese. In the end not much is free at all.
Everyone has a creative way of making ends meet. Although the monthly rations are designed to give locals a fairer chance of obtaining the basics, it is never enough. About half a kilo of sugar is to last two people in a house hold for a month. Seeing as how much sugar they put in their coffee, this is never enough, believe me.
Once they have gone through their allocated cheaper rations, all other food beyond that must be paid for at the higher rate. To receive your food allocation you must go to a Bodega in the area you are registered. For some this means returning to suburbs every month from where they may have moved to, just to get their supplies.
Cows belong to the state. Milk is given to children up to the age of seven and from the age of 8 to 11 some kind of yogurt is given out. Cubanos can buy powdered milk or milk in a plastic bag, but the expense is often out of the reach of most.
Chickens and goats don't belong to the state. Other small animles such as the guinea pig and rabbit also belong to the owner. But only for personal consumption. As with vegetables, you can raise these animals but they are not to be on sold to anyone unless the government has approved your household as a seller of such goods. Eggs are rationed at 11 per person per month and so is chicken meat.
Monsanto has no place in Cuba.
They have never arrived onto the Island.
Thank GOD
All fruit and vegetables are seasonal and grown nearly 100 percent organic. Super markets are not something you see. More like big open spaces with large long shelves containing bulk product on display. Items like bottled water go quickly bought up by tourists.
The biggest hope locals have of making any money is from the tourists. Yet to host tourists they need to apply to the government to open a "Casa Particular". A Cuban does not have the right to meet someone in the street, or in a cafe or on the beach and invite them back to their home. As we were catching the local buses and were amongst the locals, we were always given the front seats and if anyone was seen talking to us that looked as if they could be bothering us, they were asked to move or leave.
In a place like Trinidad where the buildings are from the Victorian era, grand and large and regal, the Cubans are not allowed to actually go inside any of the restaurants, cafes or lobbies of the hotel. The government has created a class system between the Cubans and Foreigners. I felt we had gone backwards nearly one hundred years. The only Cubans allowed to go inside these establishments were those delivering bags, pastries and ongoing tickets.
This did not stop many of the Cubans we met.
Taken in by people when we had no money and fed by families that gave us everything they had, we were shown hospitality from the rebels heart.
It is not just food that is rationed. So are the internet cards. Only a certain amount are sold per day and access to wifi was only introduced about four to five months ago. Once connected your one hour time limit is generally used up waiting for pages to load. It became more of a chore to do than a pleasure. So we gave up on spending frustrating hours sitting on a park bench attempting to write emails that never got sent.
A long with the petrol for cars, many products come from Venezuela. Clothes are bought in by family members that have in some way or another managed to fly out of Cuba due to family connections on the outside. Shops don't exist for the locals to go into and buy clothes.
Once a shipment has arrived word gets out with an address to visit and a mass scramble soon follows.
I met a man the other day here in San Jose who s cousin was imprisoned for selling blue jeans that he had managed to get into the country. By all accounts prison was not that bad. At least he had running water and three meals a day.
One of Habana s biggest problem is the lack of running water. It is only turned on in the afternoon and every bathroom has huge barrels which are filled to get through the next twenty four hours. Sometimes the water is not turned on and days go by with out it.
For those that don't have the luxury of barrels gather around taps in the streets and fill up what ever containers they have.
Those that have applied and received permission to sell vegetables, roam the streets pushing their wooden carts yelling out their presence and prices.
Local cafes are bascially holes in the walls. Many behind iron barred windows.
Little, and I mean tiny expresso cup sized servings of thick black sweet coffee are sold for 1 peso... about 5 cents. Price and size meant I would often drink about 3 or 4. Besides the conversation over coffee in the street was alwasy delightful. Most of my coffee was served by women and especially in Cuba women mostly talk about sex. Everyone wanted to know if I was getting enough, from who and did I need any help in obtaining more nights of passion.
Have I mentioned I Love Cuba yet?
As with every country I travel to it is with the women I fall in love with.
The spirit of the feminine that is wild and free no matter what life has thrown at them. Divorce, poverty, multiple children and homelessness. What I always see is the constant rise of love in the hearts of the women I meet.
Music is at the center of the heart of Cuba.
Sex is on every ones mind it seems all the time in Cuba
And the heart of Cuba beats with a sensual step that is everywhere.
When you live in a country where your life is controlled by what you can and cant do, where you are unable to leave the country unless you flee via a boat over the water or have a family member to sponsor you in another country. When you are controlled to the point that even talking to tourists is deemed not so safe depending on what you are talking about then what is left to enjoy is music and sex.
And the Cubans do both very well.
There is heat in the sun and heat in the Cubans blood.
What struck us both was the difference in attitude to almost everything between the older European tourists that have so much and the Cubans that have so little.
Whilst the Cubans were fanning themselves on stage, singing and dancing with all they had wearing the hugest grins and laughing all night, the pale tourist sat at the tables as if they were staring into space. Void of life in their bodies it was hard to even find someone smiling.
Coming from countries where they have choice. Where for all intense and purposes they have everything we would want as humans to live on this planet.. homes with running water, supermarkets to buy food from, choice of work, freedom to travel and freedom of speech. Yet these people we saw everyday were hard pressed to even smile. Dance they did not, laughter they shyed away from and their lives seemed to carry the air of depression.
Yet all around them the Cubans with no freedom of speech or travel, no supermarkets to choose their food from and no choice of work to do spent their days and nights filled with laughter, song and the promise of sensuality.
It is as if the whole country was born under the sun sign of Scorpio.
Maybe this is why I felt so at home.
Living life from a place of pure sensuality is to me the norm and the only reason worth getting out of ( or staying in ) bed for. Every time I sat to speak with a woman, especially the women over fifty, there was a recognition in our eyes for the yearning to just live for the sake of pure joy and love.
The Cubans move their bodies in a suggestive way as they talk, as they walk and most definitely as they dance. When you have nothing there is nothing left to do but live.
Gurus have been saying this for centuries.
Who needs a Guru when you have Cuba.
VIVA CUBA.
