Even though we’ve found better spots to purchase wi-fi than the swankiest of all, the Melia Cohiba, a hotel chain where air gives way to smoke exhaled by white, self-important businessmen with the most unpleasant of half mouth grins, the internet still won’t let me log into blogspot in any sort of normal way.
Starting with the jolly man sitting on a chair and working my way up…
1. A testament to the strength of socialized healthcare. Hiking through Las Terrazas, a remote eco-village in the westernmost province of the country, Pinar del Rio, we emerged from a trail so steep my friend Megan couldn’t take more than three steps without sliding down at least a few feet, into a clearing with two simple one-room, scrapped together houses. At the second one, we spent a few minutes talking with this man who responded entirely in gestures due to the tracheotomy procedure he had recently experienced. Remarkable, how happy he was living solitarily in a small shack. Even more remarkable, how despite the extreme remoteness of his location and without the apparent means to afford cancer treatment and the tracheotomy, he had survived a battle many non-Cubans would have lacked access to.
2. An afternoon baseball game in the southernmost part of Havana.
3. The view from absurdly cool, Gaudi-influenced artist Fuster’s home. Part of a monument celebrating the Cuban five—five Cubans unjustly imprisoned in jails throughout the US for attempting to infiltrate anti-Castro terrorist organizations based in Miami. Of course I’d never heard a thing about their case before arriving in Havana. Like the majority of American news sources, the New York Times hasn’t published anything mentioning the case except for one paid advertisement. Once.
4. A woman in triumph, guarding her genitalia with her man on the floor. Winning the battle that is rumba dancing.
5. Another simple house off the trail we hiked in Las Terrazas. Passing the Cuban day, esperando, esperando.
6. A trombonist filling in for one member of a brass quartet we stumbled upon practicing in Santiago de Cuba.
No comments:
Post a Comment