Day 4

Today started with a visit to a Community Project with art, murals, and music. The community project is called Murleando. The artwork was incredible and the people were extremely friendly. The music that was performed was traditional Cuban music with the exception of a few selections from a gentleman who rapped in English. He told us a bit about his music, and told us that he made some poor decisions growing up that landed him in jail for 4 years. He told us that during this time, he learned to embrace his situation and work towards the future. He started exploring music in prison and worked with both the English and Spanish languages. He wrote raps in these languages that were about positive topics and that did not involve negative connotations, innuendos, or foul language. The rest of the group consisted of: Bongo, a Female Lead Vocalist, a Percussionist with his own rig made out of spare parts from cars and elsewhere, as well as an acoustic electric guitar. See the picture to the right for an example of the percussionist's rig.

            The lead vocalist is a music educator in Cuba and teaches choral music. We had a nice conversation (all in Spanish) and we shared information about the students and subjects that we teach. During the performance, I was sitting in the front row and she pulled me up to dance with her. I obliged, and had a great time! I am not a great dancer, but I did my best and had a blast!!! This experience at the Murleando community project was fantastic and a wonderful way to start our morning.

            After we parted ways with our good friends at this community project, we drove to a cigar factory that was close by and were able to get a tour. The building that the factor was housed in was built in 1902 and was originally home to an American Cigar company. It was only 3 floors, and each floor had a different step in the process. There were no machines; just rooms with many different workstations and an individual person at each station. What an incredible process!

            The smell of the factory was intense (tobacco), and the conditions were just okay. Only one of the rooms had air conditioning, and that was for the cigars themselves, not for the workers. There were fans blowing and some decent ventilation, but I surely wouldn’t want to work in those conditions for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. With that said, this is a source of employment for some Cubans and they make around the same amount of money as doctors, lawyers, etc. I won’t get into the economic system quite yet, but I’ll talk about that later!

            After our visit to the cigar factory, we went to Habana Vieja to have lunch on the water (right on the Malecón at a seafood restaurant. The food was all right, and actually rather salty. All in all though, it was a nice restaurant, good company, and all right food. After lunch, we went to the ICAIC Animation studio, which is a state-run animation studio in Cuba. They produce all of the cartoons for the island as well as some longer animation presentations. We had the privilege of touring the facilities, meeting animators, seeing the technology that they utilize, see a preview of an upcoming project being worked on, as well as see a thirty minute video presentation of a variety of things that the studio has produced. They make three main types of animations: 1) cartoons for state television; educational for children as well as entertaining material for all ages, 2) one minute clips that have no dialogue; often utilizing American characters that are trademarked (Batman, Terminator, etc.), 3) longer animation type presentations such as Veinte Años (http://dai.ly/ayUWCB). Veinte Años incorporates a traditional Cuban song by the same name sung by Omara Portuondo (from Buena Vista Social Club). The animation itself portrays a marriage that has not sustained itself after 20 years time. The scenes depicted relate to the music being heard. What incredible talent in all of these presentations!

            After our tour, we were able to go to the roof of the building (one of the taller ones in Havana), and look out onto the city. A block away from the animation studio was the Cristobal Colón Cemetery, which is the main cemetery in Havana. It is a magnificent cemetery in terms of architecture and it is home to the graves of Rubén Gonzalez and Ibrahim Ferrer, two of the legendary musicians from the Buena Vista Social Club.

            I thought I would take advantage of being this close to the cemetery. I opted to not go with the rest of the group on the bus, but to stay where we were and head over to the cemetery to walk around a bit. I would gladly have walked around the cemetery myself, but I was glad that one of the other members of the group, Margaret, was interested as well. We walked over, paid our entry fee of $5CUC’s each, and went in search of Ibrahim Ferrer and Rubén Gonzalez’s graves. We asked the person at the front of the cemetery, and he directed us to Ibrahim Ferrer’s grave. He told us that Rubén’s was very far away and not practical to get to in the time we had before the cemetery closed. This was a bummer for me because Rubén has been my idol for many years, but I was glad to at least be able to see Ibrahim’s final resting place.

            It was about 5PM when Margaret and I left the cemetery. We searched for a taxi, but had no success. So, we started to walk further down the street we were on in order to find one. We still had not success. We kept walking and walking and finally we were able to hail a taxi. It was nice to be able to walk through a part of the city without the rest of the group, without a bus, and without anyone else except us. For the first time since arriving in Havana, I felt like I was seeing what the daily life of a Cuban was like. Not a single person bothered us, and we just walked down the street until we found a taxi. It was nice to blend in (or appear to blend in) and just observe. The one thing I noticed was that the smog was very intense just by hanging out on the street and walking. I can only imagine what it is like to inhale and experience this every day for your entire life.

            When Margaret and I returned to the Meliá (our hotel), I decided to walk over to the Hotel Riviera, which was right next door to our hotel. This is a hotel that was built by Meyer Lansky in the 1950’s and was a huge source of income for the mob prior to the revolution. When I walked inside this structure, I was blown away at the architecture and the ambience. I truly felt I was stepping into the 1950’s.

            After this visit to the Melia, I spent some time relaxing in my hotel room and then decided to go downstairs to meet the group. Our dinner this particular evening was at the historic Hotel Nacional. This was very exciting for me because this is one of the most historic hotels in Havana, built in the 1920’s up on a hill overlooking the city and the Malecón. This was one of the most important hotels during the 1940’s and 1950’s People like Winston Churcill, Frank Sinatra, etc. stayed here and Frank Sinatra performed here numerous times. The amount of history, culture, and architecture present in this location is simply incredible. The grounds of the hotel property are vast. We ate at an open-air restaurant that was underneath a straw type roof and very close to the magnificent view of the city. There was live music from a traditional Cuban son group, and classic Cuban cuisine. We had chicken, pork, plantains, and arroz congrí (rice and black beans mixed together).

            We enjoyed the food and the music for a while, and then we started to hear a loud noise coming from the distance; it was a rainstorm moving our way from out in the ocean! It was wild, we heard the storm before we felt or saw any rain. I was sitting towards the end of the rooftop, and had to move towards the inner portion of the restaurant in order to avoid getting wet. After we finished eating, we walked out in the rainstorm in order to get back into the hotel. We had about 15 minutes or so before we left for our next event for the evening. I took this time to walk around the hotel and take a few photos.

            Next, we got on the bus and left for the jazz club La Zorra y El Cuervo. This is one of the prominent jazz clubs in Havana. It is very small and resembles a small jazz club in NYC where you have to walk down a flight of stairs into a basement to get to the club. The vibe, sound quality, and overall atmosphere of the club was wonderful. We were able to sit right in front of the stage.

            The show was incredible. Roberto Fonseca (a wonderful piano player) performed with his group. They played “Cuban Jazz”, which is a mixture between regular jazz music and Afro-Cuban rhythms. The level of musical talent and technical facility was simply incredible. I have very rarely seen such high technical facility. It felt like and looked like they could do anything! The piano player was on a complete other level. He is in his 40’s, and when he was much younger, had the pleasure of performing with the Buena Vista Social Club ensemble and also recorded a few albums with Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo. Our entire tour group stayed until Midnight, but about 7 of us decided to stay for the next set, which ended at about 1AM.

            When we left the club, I hailed a taxi with a few other members from my group (we took two cabs in total because there were so many of us). The driver was young (probably younger than I am…20?). He told us he knew where our hotel was, but after we started driving he didn’t seem like he knew exactly where he was going. I tried to give him directions in Spanish, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to get there myself based on where we were at the given moment. I told him to take the Malecón because that leads right to the hotel. This worked fine until a section of the Malecón was closed and he had to take alternate streets. After driving for a few minutes, the cab driver stopped the car on the side of the road, got out of the car, and went up to a random person on the street and asked directions to the Meliá Cohíba hotel. The person he asked knew how to get to the hotel, and were on our way again. Only in Cuba could this happen! I was amazed at how our driver just stopped and asked the first person he saw on the street. The Cuban people are so friendly and helpful and this example proves this point. We finally arrived at our hotel, paid for our trip, and went to bed. What an experience! I got to practice my Spanish and go on a little adventure in the process. I was sitting in the front seat so I was able to direct him. When we got close to the hotel, I directed him how to turn into the road that leads him directly to the front door of the hotel. I couldn’t remember how to say “to turn” in Spanish and struggled a bit. The driver understood what I was talking about and everything was all right. Now I know that dolar is the very “to turn” in Spanish. Also, I want to just quickly mention that the car itself had 400,000 km on it an the gas tank was completely at Empty.

            Tomorrow we are off to Matanzas, which is the province directly next to Havana. It should be a good day!

            What a surreal experience….Cuba is a beautiful and run-down, culturally rich and economically poor, full of smiles but full of despair, and full of wonderful history but lacking in resources to preserve it. As a musician told me earlier today: “we have a lot of problems.” I appreciated his honesty and he is exactly right. With that said, Cuba is still memorable place and there is nowhere else on the planet quite like it. I feel like I’ve fulfilled a lifelong dream and I’m so grateful and happy to be here. Cuban music/culture/history has become very important and close to me…I am hungry for knowledge about everything that Cuba has to offer, not just the music, but everything! There is so much to learn, and I love every minute of it. Cuba is an island rich with strife, but even richer with love and friendship. ¡Buena Noche!