Friday, February 11, 2011

La Habana: primer impreción


I have made it to the land of sugar and coffee, and someone’s going to have to pry me out of here come May. I say that now, because it’s only February and the sun has stalled at a safe distance, so I’ll get back to you once that humid Caribbean summer rolls in. For now, though, while the snow falls on your capitalist nation, I’ll be bikini-clad by the pool, drink in hand, reading (translating) the poetry book I bought for a nickel.


That brings me to the first reason for my love of this island. Everything is so cheap here! Well, everything except internet and bar soap, but I’m always game for a little technology/hygiene detox. Sounds like a repeat of last summer, and I’m definitely not skimping on the veggies either. Not to price drop or anything, but I toted home my heavy-ass bag full o eggplant, tomatoes, beans, carrots, peppers, onions, beans, garlic, beans, pineapple, bananas, and a few beans for a grand total of $2.50. I even got a marriage proposal in the deal. At first I thought I was mishearing his heavy Cuban accent, but I quickly realized that he was in fact asking “¿estas casada?” followed by an invitation for coffee.

COFFEE. I swear, America will be a better place when the embargo is lifted if for no other reason than café cubano. It is a drug. That’s the cue into my next segment: Things Cubans Love. Cubans love sugar. There’s either sugar or rum in everything. Sometimes there’s both, and that’s a mojito. We’re on a city-wide quest for some mint plants to put on our balcony and nourish into muddled mint perfection. Then we will perhaps drink them by the pool behind our home whist tanning and reading Marti or Hemmingway.

Cubans also love not pronouncing their S’s, which, for a nonnative speaker, makes the whole Spanish immersion thing even harder than it already is. I’ll hear a sentence and think I have a few new vocab words to look up, when really I just have to figure out where the S’s are supposed to be. For example, a taxi driver was telling us he had heard that Florida’s beaches are prettier than Cuban beaches, but instead of “mas lindas” (prettier), he says “ma linda,” so we thought he was all of a sudden talking about his girlfriend, Malinda. And now I’ve started saying “grathia” instead of “gracias,” so perhaps I am making progress, poco a poco.

And finally, Cubans (and to an even greater extent, Americans) love their cars. I do see the occasional new Audi or Mercedes, but the majority of cars here are straight out of the 1950s, and as colorful as the Cubans themselves. Marci, our driver for long trips, has a (this is where I would insert some impressive year, type, and model if I knew anything whatsoever about cars) in mint condition, painted two-toned red and white. We took it to Hemmingway’s house right outside of the city. Most of the taxis here are that same 1950s style, which is just fun to see. Except it’s not very fun to see if you’re an assertive pedestrian like myself (and like most Americans who have been raised thinking cars must yield to us), because in Cuba, the cars have right-of-way.

Shelby, showing off Marci's car:




Here's Dillon and I, innocently walking along the seawall and becoming victims of high tide in Havana:



So, now that I’ve ranted about rum and tanning and how much money I’m not spending, you ask: has absolutely anything productive occurred in my brain since I arrived? In addition to the mojito muddling, you’ll be happy to hear that I have learned more Spanish in the past 2 weeks than I have in perhaps a whole year of classes. I go through phases: sometimes I’m completely frustrated with the language and think I will never actually be able to reach fluency. and sometimes I have those little magic moments of glory where I’m like, I just understood those two people’s entire conversation about me even though they thought I was a “gringo” (dumb tourist) who doesn’t speak Spanish.
Classes started on Monday, and we’re getting into the routine of life here. It’s a very slow-paced, simple routine but not at all void of surprises. Some days, for instance, I get a seat on the P-1 bus to the university, and some days the door won’t shut because I am literally hanging out of it, pressed against a stranger’s back….or front. Sometimes the bus doesn’t come at all, because schedules don’t exist. Neither do bus routes. Our motto of the trip is: “estamos en Cuba” **shrug shoulders and raise eyebrows. It means “we’re in Cuba,” and is a perfect testimonial to the amount of bizarre things that occur every day. Stay tuned.

Ok ok I digress…. Back to classes. Two of our classes – Havana Culture and Spanish Conversation – are at the university downtown. The culture class is just a lecture, which doesn’t help my speaking skills, but is doing wonders for my comprehension. We’ve been covering the psychological, social, and biological factors of Cuban identity. We discussed the usual merits of racism and how Cuba is a hodgepodge of African, Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian influences that live together as one race: the Cuban race. Although there are still issues of discrimination, mostly in the “machismo” male dominated culture, racism is absent in Cuba. In fact, a person of mixed race is viewed as a symbol of cultural union. It’s not that Americans are racist, but different cultural histories and current cultural mindsets often put a disapproving connotation on mixed races, or at least invite a second glance. That’s one of the things that really struck me initially. Our bus ride home from the university some days corresponds with the time that children are getting out of school. I was recently observing the middle-school aged girls interact with each other and comparing them to myself at that age. In a group of about 10, each one has a varying skin tone or is from a visibly distinct cultural origin, but this just did not seem to register with them. Every time one of them would get on or off, they would all kiss each other on the cheek. I saw a few of them fix each other’s wayward hair without being asked, and express a genuine love for their friends. I couldn’t help but smile to myself and think about how different my middle school years had been.
The U.S./Cuban relations course will probably be the most challenging for me. Despite my mother’s profession, I’ve always avoided government classes and political discussions. Now I’m being thrown into one taught in Spanish. On the bright side, I suppose my involvement in the matter is kind of inevitable, you know, being here and all. For the first time in my life I’m really excited to dive into some political theory. At least my copy of the Federalist 10 is in English. Rosa, our professor for this course, is a kind of grandmotherly figure, if my grandmother was Cuban, taught herself English by age 11, and lived through the revolution that she now teaches about.

We also have a class called “Roundtable” taught by Profe (our professor with us from UA), in which we get to travel around Havana (museums, theaters, etc) as well as the island (Trinidad, Viñales, Santa Clara). We meet once a week to discuss our perspectives on the culture, government, language, etc. One of the main components of that class are our final projects, which we work on weekly. Each of us get to choose a topic to research based on our own interests and then turn in a 15 page paper plus a 15 minute presentation at the end of the semester. I chose to research food security in Havana and will visit urban farms/organiponicos, investigate how much food Cuba imports, how much the U.S. embargo is affecting their food supply, why the country has trouble being self-sufficient, and how the government treats farmers. Very excited for that.

Here's a picture of Paul, the man who offered his hand in marriage.



So much more to say, but I have to stop being on my computer now and go explore. Cada dia un nuevo adventuro!

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