Cuba, Her People & Culture, Day 14

Cuba, Day 14

The Famous Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón & a Return to the Malecón

We returned the second week to Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, the largest in Havana. The city has a population of over two million, and this cemetery alone, covering some 140 acres, is reputed to have over one million interred within its walls. It is also a place of history and of art.

Surrounded by an ocher wall with white crosses, such as the one shown here, and laid out like a city with wide avenues and cross streets, there is clearly class division here.

The Cuban government maintains the tombs and monuments … at least for the rich who imported Italian marble to show off their wealth along Avenida Cristóbal Colón, the main street. A good percentage of the other statues, monuments, and tombs, however, are crumbling, their families long gone, many probably now in Little Havana in Miami. It is sad to see the marked differences between the social strata in a country that supposedly did away with that during the revolution.

Money is money, and corruption happens in any country. Practicality also plays a large role. After all, visitors come to see the elegant and lavish monuments, so the government takes care of those first.

Many of the monuments have stories. Near the famous firefighters’ monument stands the lavish, art-deco tomb built for Catalina de Lasa by her second husband. In the early 1900s, they fell in love when both were married to others.

Cuba was then predominately Catholic with little tolerance for such circumstances, so they fled to France and ultimately got an annulment, enabling them to get married. Eventually, they returned to Cuba.

When Catalina died, her husband commissioned René Lalique to design and build her tomb. Made of marble, presumably Italian, and decorated with Lalique glass and sculpted black-granite doors, there is nothing else like it here.

There is a 75-foot-high monument to the firefighters who lost their lives in the great fire of May 17, 1890. Cuban law decrees that no monument may be higher. Catalina’s husband tried to get around this by planting two palm trees in the hope that some day, they would grow higher than the firefighter’s memorial seen in the background. They have not and at this point are unlikely to do so!

The streets and avenues, however, are well maintained. Here, a man slowly and carefully sweeps the leaves aside under a wide, tree-lined avenue.

Another legend goes with the much-visited

Cuba, Her People & Culture, Day 10

Cuba, Day 10

Roaming the Streets of Havana

Again, I am filling in the two missing days that got lost!

There is a lot of construction going on in Havana. New gas, water, and electrical lines are being laid, as shown here.

Buildings are being restored. Cobbled streets relaid. One has to watch where one steps.

Stacks of materials, mostly cobbles, line the erstwhile sidewalks, and we pick our way around them. It is good to see progress in this city, but we also look at it with mixed emotions.

We love that the beautiful old houses and buildings are being restored; it is excellent that the citizens will enjoy better utilities. But, we also love the peeling paint, faded colors, and textures that this city still provides.

When all is restored, will we be invited into people’s homes the way we are now? Will everyone be as open and welcoming? As it is, most people, including the workers, are friendly and don’t mind that we photograph them.

We visited a photography center that was quite interesting. Conceptual work was being shown. We didn’t photograph out of respect for the artists, but this stairway leading to the second-floor galleries held no such restrictions for me.

I loved the various angles. Blue on white. This is Cuban blue, by the way. Different from French blue or the blue found in the rest of the Caribbean.

We met two other photographers, quite well known in Cuba, and we really enjoyed our time studying their work and hearing about their projects.

Last week, we spent time with Nestor Marti, one of the better-known, professional photographers in Cuba. His exhibit of the Malecón was still up, and we wanted to show our group a different way of seeing. While our participants were asking questions about the various images, our photographer guide, never missing

Cuba, Her People & Culture, Day 09

Cuba, Day 09

Textures & People

Being without the Internet for the three official days of mourning for Chavez put me behind. So far so that I missed some days! So, we’ll backtrack to Day Nine.

First, a word about the Cubans we met. People are generous here, if you are open, and while they may not have much, they share. We tried to thank them with some hotel toothpaste, a travel shampoo (both in very short supply for over a month), lotion (hard to get) or a CUC, the Cuban convertible peso that is loosely worth $1. It means a lot where the average monthly wage is about $20. One needs to put things in perspective, however. In Cuba, there is a basic rationing system that provides everyone with enough food to survive on and the opportunity to earn more money to add to the larder. Housing is very inexpensive and almost free. Electricity and water might cost $2-3 per month.

Health care is not only free, but quite excellent. In face, people come from other countries to take advantage of the high level of medical care.

Education is also free, and school uniforms are paid for by the government, so there is no cost to the citizen there. So, while $20 seems like nothing to us, people were healthy looking and clean.

As with any country, there were beggars with sob stories of not enough food, but our guides, including our non-governmental photographer guides, all said this was not true. So, we gave where it seemed appropriate but did not encourage the “professional” beggars. We noticed when we said, “No,” to them, they straightened up, stopped looking helpless, and scooted off to find the next gullible tourist. Most of the people, however, were not like this, and we had so many wonderful encounters during our two weeks in Cuba.

As we were walking along one street, I was invited into one of the buildings. The light was soft, and the laundry blew gently in the breeze. (See photo above.)

When we returned to the same boxing gym we visited last week, we were warmly greeted with handshakes and hugs. The Cubans are a demonstrative people. The people there even remembered our names! More likely, they knew we were coming and looked at the business card we had given them last week. Still, they cared enough to refresh their memories, and that was very welcoming.

We were a little early, and the training had not yet begun for the morning. Our group went off to find some more photographs while we waited. I had an image in mind and waited. The gentleman in the door way is a former boxing champion. We had seen old photos of him inside on the wall when he was in his prime, in his teens. Even today, many, many decades later, he was a fit man.

As I waited, a woman he knew came by and sat down to shake a stone out of her sandal. It was just what I wanted.

While we waited, a group of school children came by. One little boy clearly wanted to be photographed, so I obliged, enchanted by his quirky,