Beginning the Independent Study Project

                Here I am at the beginning of November which means in my SIT program: the start of the month long research project we all conduct independently. It also means no more classes. I guess I’ve basically been out of class for the past 3 weeks, but have been working on organizing my project which I’ll explain a bit further down.

                It’s been awhile since my last entry, but this program is jam packed of classes, excursions, trips, interactions, host family time, etc etc. But I should start with what’s been happening since I travelled to the Amazon.

Iquitos – city of rubber

                We arrived in Iquitos, eager to get out of Cusco for a bit and explore the Amazon. We arrived to the Iquitos airport and left the plane to meet an immense humidity and heat that no one was ready for—especially after living at 11,000ft in the mountains. We could breathe! We could also sweat… and we sweat a lot. We spent a few days in the city of Iquitos which began as a missionary post for the jungle. The city passed through a city of revivals and boosts through the rubber industry especially during the end of the 19^th century and during the world wars. The production of rubber in this region has ended, moved on to southern Asia and now the city is an oasis in the middle of the jungle.

                In Iquitos, we walked through the streets, enjoying wearing shorts and t-shirts for the first time since summer in the States. We went to a huge street market where we were bombarded with clothes, gizmos and gadgets aplenty, and places to buy chopped up turtle and cooked larvae. Yummy. It was weird going from the Andes Mountains to the Amazon Basin in only a few hours. Technology is magic!

                We found the favorite local bar ‘Margaritaville’ just kidding super touristy, but I laughed at the title. Apparently the owner of the bar bought out the copyright for the WHOLE country of Peru, so, I am very proud to say that I dined and drank at the one and only Peruvian Margaritaville. Sorry, Jimmy Buffett. We left Iquitos after a few days to head into the Amazon – legit.

Pacaya Samiria – the community of Veinte de Enero

                This is a community about 3 hours down the river from Iquitos. We rode in long narrow boats deeper and deeper into the Amazon. I couldn’t help but think about the Amazon Trail. We arrived to Veinte de Enero (20^th of January) a small, quaint campesino community that thrives off tourism and the production of aguaje, a crazy fruit that has a ton of weird capabilities and is currently being used for make-up production.

                Here we stayed in two different cabins and enjoyed the heat (I sweat a lot) and the nature. There were mosquitos galore, but luckily it isn’t a malaria zone (I didn’t take the pills). I got to hold a Boa constrictor that snuck into someone’s HOUSE in the community. Our guide was not fazed at all by it. He carried the snake in his backpack for about an hour hike then told us he was letting it go. Snake charming in the amazon.

                Here we were grouped into pairs to go do a series of interviews about our own personal topics. I stuck with tourism and effects on the community and set off to talk to some people. I got a lot of mixed reviews: tourism isn’t as strong as it was, tourism is great, and tourism is awful. It really depends on someone’s level of involvement in tourism. For instance, the man who said tourism isn’t as strong anymore, while he is a farmer, his family is involved in artisan crafts and souvenirs. Ultimately, the tourists that come do not buy as much as they used to because of the ever-growing tourist market in the surrounding communities as well as Iquitos. The lady who said tourism was great worked as a cook for a tourist organization for several years and made good money. She currently is unemployed and doesn’t necessarily thrive off tourism anymore, but remembered very fondly her time as a chef. The man who said tourism is awful owns a small store in the community and has little to no involvement in tourism; however, he explained that every member of the community is required to aid in maintaining the community clean and expecting tourism in the community. Being a tourist in his community, I felt very uncomfortable, but at the same time eager to listen to show him that tourism is multifaceted.

                We were there for a few days and headed back to Iquitos and spent my friend’s birthday in Margaritaville.

Lima – capital of el Peru

                We spent a few days in Lima getting to know basically Miraflores, a very bougie neighborhood in Lima. I got to enjoy how different the regions of Peru are: from quaint, small Cusco, to booming Amazonian city to rich and humongous capital city. We had classes in both Iquitos and Lima about all sorts of topics from Amazon family structure, history, indigenous rights, the terrorism from Sendero Luminoso, urban immigration, etc etc. I wish I could’ve spent more time in Lima, as of yet I know very little of the city and even the structure.

                We spent one day going to the oldest archaeological site in South America and is deemed to be the 4^th oldest in the world: Caral. We went with a friend of the director of the program who actually got his doctorate from Pitt. Small world. Caral was beautiful and I think I posted some pictures of them—be sure to always check my flickr or facebook.

Quechua – Noqaqa manan rumasimitachu rimani

                ‘I don’t speak Quechua’ but I think it’s wrong. We spent the next two weeks after Lima in Cusco learning Quechua and continuing lectures from professors and community members about all sorts of things. Quechua is a beautiful language, but an indigenous language to several parts of South America, therefore a bit of a learning curve happened.

                After the two weeks, we had a test in the country in a community called Ccorcca. It was a beautiful community, very magical and eerie at the same time. I loved it and wish I had brought my camera, but I wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

                I think it’s safe to say I passed my Quechua exam. We learned very little, but just enough to get me excited to speak it more and more. But that didn’t really happen.

Puno, Colca, Arequipa – the south of Peru

                I’m a bit bored of writing right now and I am leaving tomorrow morning for Ocongate a community two hours away to do a week of research and then coming back to work more on my research project:

                Basically my premise is tourism and utilizing as my medium: woven textiles from indigenous communities. I am looking at how certain factors such as: exoticism, the ‘other’, agency, power, manipulation and performance, searching for the ‘authentic’, and capitalism play into economic transactions of buying and selling of textiles in the tourist market.

                My brain is a little dead and I keep thinking in Spanish syntax, yikes, but I would like to have a more well-developed blog that sounds more intelligent, but things keep getting more and more busy and backed up.

Juan

Why and How I am in Peru – a tale of Prostitution, Dictatorship and the Incas

                In my sophomore year of college I studied abroad for a semester in La Habana, Cuba. While I was there I experienced rarities that can only come with a country plastered between a globalizing economy of capitalism and an idyllic past of communism. I saw contraptions made from scrap, buildings transformed to accommodate growing families or new businesses, people hustling to get by—the average monthly salary for 2011 in Cuba was $19. Yikes. But they do get a ration card with certain amounts of food, so hey, at least they’re getting something else. I met amazing friends and went to incredible places and all in all I fell in love with the place, aww shucks. I knew I wanted to study abroad as much as possible, because why not? I was throwing around ideas in my head about something extremely different like Tibet, or maybe something more similar to my experiences like Brazil. But a new program was announced with SIT that was going to be in Cuba. Mmm, I thought, I know the place, I know some people—why not just go back in a legal way and do an amazing research project that is the main component of SIT. I was set. I was ready to get back to my Cuban friends and just get away again from school where every semester seems to get more and more monotonous.

                I applied and was ready to be accepted. Duh, look at my experience. But really I had to go through some interviews and change a bit of my application before I was finally accepted into a group of 15 students from across the country. I was proud. I was happy. I was going back to that crazy country only 90 geographic miles from Florida, but 9 million miles away thanks to a rocky history and insane politics. This is when I was considering doing a summer research project to get me prepared for the fall. I applied through the Office of Undergraduate Research and, thankfully, I was accepted into an awesome community full of equally diverse and marvelous people and research projects.

                What was my project you ask? Oh, you didn’t ask?

                Cuba is a strange place, we’ve established this. Granted, however, it is strange when juxtaposed with our society. It is so strange in that a pizza maker or a hotel employee can earn more money than an engineer or a doctor. Imagine. It’s hard to, when it’s been drilled into our heads how much money doctors and engineers and specialists make—not the case in Cuba. Socialism and communism reign supreme on paper in Cuba and therefore paychecks are dealt out in almost equal amounts. This does not take into account money that is handled under the table, outside of the formal economy, cash, etc. Not a lot of doctors and engineers make tips or set their own prices, but those in the service industry do. It’s my pizza shop, I pay a certain amount of money every month to the government, I’ll just raise the price a little bit to give me a nice little cushion and the government won’t be the wiser. And the government won’t because the Cuban bureaucracy is notoriously known to work about as well as a DMV in slow-mo. There’s even a movie about it.

                So what do you do when you don’t know how to make pizza or you can’t get the job in the fancy hotel? What if you don’t want to or can’t be a doctor or an engineer? What do you do if you have almost nothing? Well you can utilize the only resource you have, and most times than not, that resource is one’s body.

                Cuban prostitution is a phenomenon unlike “hotspots” of prostitution, for lack of a better word, such as Thailand or the Netherlands. In Cuba, there are no “pimps” or organized prostitution—and it is definitely not legal. In the Netherlands prostitution is nearly regulated and Thailand is self-regulated by those in control of the industry. In Cuba, there is no regulation (ironic being a communist country) and because of this lack of regulation, prices and issues of safety are ever changing. Prices are set by the tourist most cases than not, therefore Cuban prostitutes can be often left with little to sometimes no money.

                However, certain agency takes place from the side of the prostitute: they elaborate and elevate the level of exoticism already preconceived by tourists of Cuba: a Caribbean island, fascinating history, and of course ethnically diverse from a majority white North America/Europe. From this perspective one could easily argue WHO has the power in the situation? Who is manipulating and who is manipulated? How much does exoticism and authenticity play into the tourist experience in Cuba? What do new waves of capitalism mean for this communist island country? These were a series of questions I set out to explore not only this past summer, but this fall semester abroad.

                However, the news came 2 and a half weeks before my departure that the Cuban government shut down our program. I was stunned and confused and lost and had no idea what to do next. Those commie bastards! Well, what I really did next was get my wisdom teeth removed—it was a good week… hah. I was waiting for something, anything and finally I made the decision to do another SIT program in Peru titled: Indigenous Peoples and Globalization. I looked at this program before with interest; indigenous peoples and globalization are two social components that fascinate me and go akin to my previous research on Cuba in terms of agency, authenticity, the exotic, the ‘other’, etc etc.

                I found myself buying winter clothes for the city of Cusco and completely reorganizing my mental state and erasing expectations: giving myself a tabula rasa. I fly from Houston to Lima in a surreal haze of confusion and excitement. I spent the night in a hotel and got ready to fly to 12,000 feet above sea level that is Cusco, the ancient great city of the Incas.

                I arrive and see my crew waiting for me and other students and quickly hopped on the bus and gulped down some coca tea waiting to alleviate the awkwardness that always accompanies new groups of people. We travel 2 hours to Urubamba where we would all stay for 5 days getting to know each other and the program and basically making friends and getting adjusted (and to see who was going to go crazy from altitude sickness).

                During this time we visited the ruins of Machu Picchu, a fascinating and humbling place that will always be a place of controversy, mystery, and beauty. Maybe I’ll do a post about the weirdness of Machu Picchu—but really I want to finish this one, it’s about 2 months old. Check my flickr for pictures of Machu Picchu! 

                When we got back to Cusco, my host family was out of town so I spent a few days in another family’s house. My host mom arrived and took me to my new crib which is a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment in the neighborhood of Magisterio.

                I will fill in later more about my school work, classes, other visits we have done and weird things I have learned and appreciated about Peru.

Until then, listo pues

John but here I am known as Juan -__-

LLEGUE AL PERU

Hey guys- yeah this site is a little wrong because I am currently in Cusco, Peru, having my original plan of going back to Cuba cancelled by the Cuban government... ¡Viva Fidel! Hahaha... Ass holes. Pardon my Spanish. So right now I am at an internet cafe.. it´s kind of like someone´s apartment that they turned a room of into the cafe. Super cheap to use the internet, like around 30 cents an hour versus the fffffuerte $6/hour Cuban internet...that´s definitely not as good. My host family is currently in a different city (Lima) because of an emergency, so I have yet to meet them. They should be back soon. Right noooow, I am living with another student in his house with that family and they are super cool. The host-mom is the family coordinator so she is a PRO. We didn't get to Cusco until last Thursday actually, but I've been been in Peru since last Saturday. We had an orientation week in Urubamba a little city like 2 hours outside of Cusco where we got to know each other, danced some salsa, hung out, braided each others hair and sang kumbaya, but not really. Just the first half. I´m trying to figure out a good internet strategy, so I am trying to upload pictures and take some more. There has been little free time except for this weekend when we hung out and partied woo! Friday we went to a swanky bar that one of the other student´s host brother owns. It was super swanky with a live band with a lead singer lady who sang some classic rock songs. I think my favorite was 'I Feel like a Woman' which isn't a classic ROCK song, but definitely a CLASSIC. Saturday we went to Club Groove that a group of indigenous-identifying students recommended to us. It's in the center of the city and lemmetellya Centro Cusco is sweet, dudes. I've only been there twice but it is full of tourism (super touristy) and bars, clubs, restaurants, shops, pretty stone work and buildings. But yeah Saturday at Groove was crazy and then after that we went to Mama Africa (haha) and that was fun also. A lot of dancing and singing songs from the US. My favorites of the night: Groove played some Grease songs, like the musical and Mama Africa played party in the USA, like miley cyrus. Today we started Spanish classes and I am in a literature class because I am soOooOoo good at spanish (lol, help) but it's about Andean Culture which is what this whole program is mostly about because we are in Cusco, super high up, like 12000ft. NO ALTITUDE SICKNESS, but sometimes breathing and stairs are a lot of work...... but I think that´s just an accurate reflection on my current shape. Okay this is just an update and I will let YINZ GUYS know more when I figure out WHAT IM DOING. I already have over 200 pages of reading due by Thursday, so this IS NOT A VACATION... but it is on the weekendssss HEYyyy! But seriously all in Spanish the readings are (yoda) so, hasta la proxima y que sea prontoo0o0o0. John, the crazy blog-master

Cuba, Cuba, Cuba

Wow it has been a long time since I have written an entry, so I’m hoping this one will fill in the gaps of what I’ve wanted to say/express over the past weeks/months/time doesn’t really exist here (plus I broke my phone which was my one and only portable clock so basically everything is a guess). Time flies when you’re having fun! Or something like that. I decided to call this entry “El Cubano Inventa Mucho” (in English it’s difficult to translate… it’s saying essentially the average Cuban person invents a lot) because it applies to pretty much every aspect of society and culture here. As for me, I am doing fine. I have read 1984 while being here and let me warn you if you’ve read the book you might find a lot of what I say eerily familiar, and if you haven’t, well I don’t want to spoil anything but IT’S JUST TOO WEIRD.

Just walking through the streets you notice just random things here and there that just don’t seem to actually fit the original design and architecture of the place, but any subtle adjustment and additional fixture flows almost flawlessly into any building as though it was some organic thing that grew from the building (I’m reading The Fountainhead right now so architecture is like rammed into my brain). But it’s true. A house turns into a museum, a pizza shop, a restaurant; most houses that were once simple houses have been turned into government agencies, schools, organizations (my favorite one is the governmental division for vegetable conservation). The mini-mansions of the early 20^th century became government agencies almost instantly after the revolution triumphed (whenever ANYONE literally anyone talks about the revolution they say “cuando triunfo la revolucion” = when the revolution triumphed… 1^st 1984 reference, more later). Most of the people that lived in these huge houses or had any wealth fled the country (mostly to the US) and took with them all their money, but leaving their country and belongings. There’s a building down the street from our hotel that a worker here joked about. He said the building was owned by a French man, who, after the revolution, said that the building was a gift to Fidel. The building nowadays is falling apart and they’re trying to do renovations, but since being here, it looks as if no progress has really been made. This story is “funny” because basically everything that was foreign-owned in Cuba was nationalized, so essentially the French man had no choice but to hand it over to Cuba. His last jest was calling it a present for the Cuban Revolution.

This same situation, less easily I assume, happened with a Hilton hotel here in Habana that was taken over by the revolution and was henceforth called the Habana Libre (the free Habana). It is a beautiful hotel and right up the street from me and it’s so bizarre to think that something like could happen so quickly, although definitely not easy (Bay of Pigs everyone). But after the revolution triumphed, Fidel used the upper floors of the Hilton hotel for his official offices; a bit of twisted irony or something of the sort: a revolutionary regime fighting to overthrow the deep roots of external-based capitalism in their country in turn use the building built by such roots as their base… but maybe it’s more of a middle-finger-esque gesture as such? Dumb connection. And of course nowadays the hotel functions as, well, a really fancy, tourist-based, capitalist hotel. While every employee earns probably $20 a month, with the amount of tips and gifts that flow from guests to employees, socialism basically ceases to exist. While a doctor is casting a broken leg or performing heart surgery for $15 a month, a maid in the Habana Libre could be blessed with $1 tip everyday from every room the maid cleans. If you work 4 days a week and have 4 rooms to clean you have $16 dollars right there, on top of your other salary. It’s literally the exact opposite of the US in this sense. How many pre-med people are in college right now and are hoping to earn a doctor’s salary? Hint: everyone it seems like. But here, if you study medicine, engineering, anything like that you’d be better off selling pizza out of your house or being a waiter. Where’s the motivation? Hint: missing. The people love to study and love what they do, but at the end of the day if you’re a doctor you don’t have a car or often not enough food, but the average waiter can live more comfortably than the a doctor in Cuba. Anyone can just as easily, if they invent.

Basically everyone is said to do “something” to get by; no one gets by on their government salary alone. What they “do” can range from selling cigars illegally on the street, baiting dumb tourists, selling something (pizza, jewelry, ice cream, etc.), stealing, getting remittances, whatever it may be. People complain/say that theft is fairly common, but everything here is bootleg, so if anyone can complain or talk about others stealing, they should look at their own consumption. Movies premiere here a week after they show in the US, whether they be filmed in the movie theater or gathered from whatever way, but haphazard subtitles are slung up on the screen and the DVD menu screen says something along the lines of: wWwXXBLACK.SWAN.2010SubsESP.DiVx and every time I’m just like mmm yeah that’s legal. But movies cost about 8 cents here so, I’m not going to complain/think that Hollywood is getting ripped off in any sort of way. Movies like that usually only show for 1-2 weeks, but Cuban movies usually show for weeks and weeks. Back to inventing. A friend of mine sells cigars on the street as her job while going to school. Another friend on the program explained she is a waitress and the Cuban friend explained she sells cigars illegally, but being a waiter is legal. Yes. Very legal. Cigars are so expensive here I just don’t understand how Cubans can even smoke them, but mostly old men smoke them. I think they might buy from illegal sellers on the street/they’re really crappy/they’re from a friend who works in a factory and gets a box to take home every month for free. Most of the people who get to take a box home usually sells the box for extra money. Cigars < disposable income… yes, even for a Cuban! Just kidding, dumb joke.

But yeah, everything is bootleg here. I met a family through the girl who did the program last year and they have two sons, both are computer whizzes. They have tons of games and programs loaded onto their communal laptop and a very dismal internet connection. They were playing Diablo II (Eugene Kim shout out) and I was like

AHH I USED TO PLAY THIS! One of the sons even asked me what it was like to play online and how it must be so much fun… I had horrible visions of the hours spent in front of my computer playing hours and hours of games; I responded with yes, yes, it’s a lot of fun. They had gameboy games, tons of books (especially Harry Potter), a plethora of games, programs, whatever all electronic. How it happens: someone downloads something/gets it from someone else then it just spreads from person to person from USB drive to USB drive from computer to computer. If you want a movie or music, don’t bother paying for it, just ask someone and bring a flash drive. Even the programs used in education are bootleg. I have a few friends who study/work in design and all their adobe programs are free/illegal. They can complain about the blockade but a free Photoshop program that is justified here under the government sounds like a perk. Also every bootleg CD/movie on the street is legal. They sell bootleg Cuban movies and CDs also… so I’m confused how this is justified when it just hurts the industry? But in reality, since it’s socialist I’m pretty sure the only perk to being an actor is the fame; the salary is just as dreary as anyone else’s. But of course with fame, comes several other perks so I’m sure they all live as kings here. Who knows!?

Fishermen are always lined up on the Malecon, another one of its famous qualities. The thousands of touristy pictures taken with men hunched over the wall fishing with a sunset in the background (yeah I got some of those pix); but really, to actually fish well, they use bobbers made out of condoms. They blow them up and tie them to their line and the wind carries them out further into the water. Two functions: as a bobber and pulls their line out deeper. Wonder who thought of that use and what they were doing when it came to mind…….. but what’s really odd is that the condoms look like the jellyfish here. They’re both: blue, clear, and plasticy looking. Super bizarre. When we first went to the beach, everyone just thought they were washed up condom-bobbers on the shore… but no, they were dead jellyfish carcasses. They dry up and become well, like little balloons… hence the confusion. Really weird.

About 20 years ago, with the fall of the USSR, came the “special period” in Cuba’s post-revolutionary history that consisted of an economy in shreds. They lost 80% of their GDP in a year. They lost the thousands of goods that were shipped to the island for cheap, cheap prices such as potatoes, building supplies, industrial things, etc. Fidel warned the Cuban people after the fall that they were about to head into a “special period”. Imagine if Barack Obama told us that an economic crisis/depression was going to be a “special period”… I would be fairly upset. It’s amazing the regime still headed on as strong as ever. As a Cuban in the special period, you would typically find a lack of food and a lack of… everything I suppose. Especially building materials, hence the amazing decay seen all over the country. What the period is especially known for is the crazy diets and dishes invented out of necessity and shortages. Some examples: grapefruit rind fried steaks, street cats and dogs, squirrels and rabbits, pets L, towels ground up into other meat to add more sustenance; all around, bellies were shrinking and the Cuban cuisine took a dive for the worst.

The inventing comes down to 1984 levels here with: their history! Literally I haven’t heard the same story twice from anyone. Details change and in turn the story becomes completely different. Our teacher was talking about the Bay of Pigs invasion and how it was “unfortunately” backed up by the US, which yes, it was an incredibly awful thing for us to do, but, and a large but, most of the soldier/guerrillas who were part of the invasion were Cuban exiles. When I brought this up to my teacher he was like yes that’s true, it completely changes the story. It wasn’t fully backed by just the US government, it was heavily perpetuated by Cuban exiles who wanted to recapture their country and several rich Cuban exiles backed them up. This changes the situation from a US attempt to install another dictator in Latin America to a joint effort from both the US government and Miami based hardliners. It’s unfair to not include every single detail; especially about something so decisive in Cuban history as Playa Giron/Bay of Pigs. With this same topic, the 50^th anniversary for the victory happened to be this year. We don’t really know the exact date because they celebrated the victory on Saturday, but I’m pretty sure the actual date is April 19, my birthday! But whenever we asked employees at the hotel… no one knew… it was very eerie and 1984-like. But really, I don’t know enough about the education system here to make any definitive statements, but when books, movies, etc are banned in a country, it tends to make education seem pretty censored and inadequate. However, with all the bootleg mania and the internet, Cuba is opening itself up stronger than any tourism jurisdictions would ever allow.

Well enough of this for now, I’m talking sort of in circles and a tad nonsensical. Anyway! The 1^st week of April we had our big excursion as part of the program. We went to three different cities in the middle of the island: Cienfuegos for 2 nights, Trinidad for 4, and Santa Clara for 1 night. Cienfuegos is a beautiful city, very clean and surrounded by water. Cuban singer Benny More (one of the most famous) who was born in Cienfuegos declared the city to be “la ciudad que mas me gusta a mi” the city I like most. So that is the city’s slogan. We stayed in a nice hotel kind of far from the actual city, but definitely walkable. Apparently where we stayed is the same place that Fidel Castro stays when he comes to Cienfuegos. Woah maybe I slept in the same bed as some random Cuban dignitary; the closest I can get to Cuban politics. This is where I broke my phone. It slipped off the balcony of my room and fell 3 stories…. So sad. We didn’t really do anything there… Lou and I went to a club the first night, but it wasn’t that good, it was a little awkward so we left. The next night we went to our friend Heriberto’s sister’s house. He came to visit her the same time we were coming so that was fun. We got to see a colonial-Cienfuegos-style house. It’s basically a long house with rooms behind rooms behind rooms. A Canadian bought the house a long time ago and was going to renovate it and turn it into a 2 story ordeal, but he didn’t finish so now the house has a very strange entry way. Heriberto’s sister has a son in Canada so whenever she can, she gets to leave the country and travel there to see him. She even visited Niagara Falls and kept the poncho as a souvenir. She is currently debating whether or not to move there or not, but I think she’ll try to stay in Cuba as long as possible just to keep both options always open. A house in Canada and a house in Cuba.

In Trinidad, we stayed in an all-inclusive hotel on the beach that was designed to be like a small colonial village… basically it was a pseudo-old folks home. There was a bar open 24-7 with food and drinks that were free (well, paid for already). It was crazy, I’ve never been at an all-inclusive resort. It was kind of ridiculous though. it was basically a giant tourist attack-trap. But it was worth it. I loved the city (even though we were like 20 minutes from the actual city). We went snorkeling and climbed a mountain/went to a natural pool (there should be a picture on facebook of the pool). And I chatted with a lot of the hotel staff/made friends… but not real friends. It’s hard to reason the positives and negatives of these places. They employee essentially a group of young women who can dance and they are basically the hosts for every activity such as pool aerobics, dance lessons, etc. that are always with old people. They also had performances almost every night and they had to dance and be dressed up (there should be 2 pictures on facebook of this also…), and it’s hard to reason if they actually like doing this or if they feel used or if they don’t care or what. I meant to talk to them about it, but they were always exhausted after the performance and booked it back to their rooms. We chatted the first night a bit and we explained what we’re doing here and all that, and then it turned into a singing circle and everyone started singing random songs. Normal.

In Santa Clara, the one day/night we were there, we walked around the city for a bit and then went to our weird hotel. All the rooms are built into a hut like larger building. All the rooms are also sort of curve shaped. Another tourist attack/trap. But Lou and I went to a club called Club Mejunje. A crazy, crazy club that hosts every Saturday Cuba’s only “official” drag show… I’m not sure what makes a drag show official or not, but it’s their claim to fame! That night was a concert and we met these two women who became our best friends for the night. We met them when Lou mistook an employee, who was getting change for us, as a random woman from the street who was possibly stealing from us. Lou in a rush of adrenaline ran after the woman and everyone there was just so confused. The two ladies then talked to us and we bonded the whole night. They knew the owner of the place so we got front row seats to the show of a group called: Trovulunitis… or something like that. It was fun, I was talking a lot; we met these two English people, well a muchacha from Germany who lives in a London and a guy from London in Trinidad and they were at the club so Lou and I called them over and we hung out with them all night. There was a dance party at the end of the performance and I got to practice my Cuban salsa: casino. Crazy night. People that I’ve emailed know how that night ended: holding one of the women who was passed out in my arms on a staircase. Normal.

We returned from the vacation fully rested and basically sick of each other. Cabin fever… or really: Cubin Fever… puns are so fun.

This past Saturday was my birthday party and I have to say it was one of the best birthday celebrations I’ve ever had in my life. All we did was talk and eat, but it was so much fun and I basically have a family here. It’s going to be really hard to leave; but asi es la vida! Less than a month left… :-/ lot’s of mixed emotions and confusion. It’s so hard to even remember what it was like at the beginning of the trip…. So much has changed physically, personally, emotionally for all of us that going back is for sure going to be an attack of return-culture shock which is definitely stronger and harder than culture shock of traveling to another country for me. It varies from person to person. Some people just miss home so much they can’t wait to get back and when they do they re-assimilate perfectly well. We’ll see what happens with me! I know after Nicaragua, I left a piece of me there that I wasn’t fully capable of understanding and still am not completely sure of what I left behind, but for sure when I came back I was different. Maybe I didn’t leave anything, but rather gained something. Reverse-culture shock is very strong and makes you question your reality, everything you’ve known and lived your whole life. You notice new things, you notice cars on the road, streets, buildings, people; everything is in a new light and it’s almost frightening and shocking to have this new perspective that you didn’t have before, but now it’s impossible to not overlook. Enough of reverse culture shock; travel everyone! And travel wisely.

With the return from the infamous “large excursion” the Pitt in Cuba program promises, the Ingleses were in Habana for a few days before the big return overseas. Lou and I decided to go out with them, but unfortunately Lou got a migraine attack so she had to stay home and I went on a very strange journey through a different side of Habana I’ve never seen before. I met them and a Belgian friend of theirs and then we went off to the Malecon to chill and enjoy the “outdoor living room” that the Malecon is apparently called (according to my guidebook). I met a random man who thought I was from Spain, but after hearing my English and my accent, he knew I was from North America somewhere. He started telling me basically his life story. It started out in English and then he was like wait you speak Spanish? And I was like si! So he continued to tell me about how his father is an Estadounidense who came to Habana to work in the US interests section which is down the street from our hotel. He met a young black Cuban woman who was working in the “embassy” and from this relationship came this random man who decided to talk to me on the Malecon. Unfortunately, this man who worked in the interests section returned back to the US to his actual family and left this poor woman pregnant and alone. This man didn’t meet his father until he was 15 and got the opportunity to travel to the US and he met his other “siblings” that were the same age as him or older.

Now he works in several places doing different things. He kind of, sort of illegally works for Non-governmental Organizations as a Cuban liaison and gets random amounts of money to then channel into social projects in Cuba, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. He does all this in conjunction with his official job in Cuba. He has only traveled to the Dominican Republic, but hopes to get to Guatemala to continue his work. I’m not exactly sure what he does, but he gets money from other countries and sort of oversees a bunch of NGOs in both those countries. He is extremely intelligent and we talked about US culture, movies, directors, art, everything; he said he never tires from speaking of culture. My other friends were kind of doing their own thing and I was like well it’s their last night so… if we see each other again woo! And he was like oh.. okay…. The hardest thing one might ever have to do in their life is end a conversation with a Cuban/interrupt them to say something. They have so much passion for everything they talk about, it’s unbelievable.

Anyway, so we continued to this little café called BimBom. It happens to be a hot-spot for gay culture in Habana where transvestites, pingueros (male prostitutes), jineteras (female prositutes), random people, and of course tourists come to experience this aspect of Cuban culture. We were there for a bit then went to a different club which was something else completely insane and then we came back to BimBom. Remember what I said: travel wisely. Well, there was a German man there: old, fat, wearing sweat pants, sweaty, and just overall bad news. He was talking to a friend of the Belgian guy and then 10 minutes later he was surrounded by boys who literally looked like they were 15 years old. They were smoking and assuring him they were “18”. He was buying whoever drinks, cigarettes, and was overall being an awful participant in the sex trade (essentially) of Cuba. He was taking pictures of the boys and being a disgusting creepy, old tourist. This issue is of course double-sided. The pingueros/jineteras basically play a role and see how far it gets them in the game of the sex-trade. Who can get what money, who can get what vacations, what jobs, whatever thing from a rich tourist. This overall issue is of course two-sided: there are tourists who come to find someone and they are genuine people trying to find someone compatible on a personal level and there are prostitutes who genuinely look for good people to entertain for the tourists’ vacation and are just trying to live a better life in a fun, almost carefree sort of way. It is joked that the one thing that Cuba can’t ration is sex.

Well today, as in April 20^th, the day after my birthday and a day infamous for various reasons, we took a ferry across the Bahia de Habana to a little neighborhood called Regla. Their claim to fame is a small, but beautiful church honoring the only black saint in the crazy Christian-african based religions of Cuba. I’m not exactly sure of the details, but this church was beautiful in such a profound sense. I couldn’t even take pictures because I felt like it was too… spiritual in a sense that I was invading in the thriving essence of religion that was this church. There were people praying to different saints, doing different customs; overall actually utilizing the church in a beautiful way. Every person part of this religion exited the church backwards; crossing themselves and walking backwards until they were a good 5 feet away. Outside, a woman called me over and we chatted and she wanted to read my palm. I said I didn’t have any money and she asked for a dollar, then 20 cuban pesos; and I said no, sorry. I asked her what she was going to tell me. Her answer was simple: the truth. I said no, no: about my past, my future, love, friendship—she said yes, yes all that and more. I was really intrigued, but I didn’t feel like spending a dollar, although next time I might….

And so my birthday has come and past and I am another year, officially, older. I have escaped the teenage years hardly scathed, but nonetheless all the more wiser. I have four looming projects to complete and a lifestyle I need to take advantage of, all in the next 20 y pico days. I want to live here; become integrated in the culture; know where to take a bus; get up and go to work; do real school work; have a purpose…. I would have loved to volunteer this whole time, joined a club, done something more productive and time consuming; but, things are literally always up in the air and when an opportunity falls into your lap, you gotta roll with it or not. Make up your mind fast, keep the journey flowing, keep learning, keep experiencing, keep up with the Johnsons.

Please, if you have any specific questions, ask me here and now! While I’m still here…. Email me: john.herse@gmail.com, comment here, facebook me, whatever! I would love to know what you want to hear about and I’ll investigate for you.

Con mucho amor y disculpeme por no haber escrito por mucho tiempo,

John

The Triad

Part I: here and there and bleh

So I’ve been to the beach twice. It’s a short 20 minute ride to the Playas Del Este (East Beaches), specifically the beach Santa Maria. The first time, five seconds after going into the water, I was attacked by a rogue jellyfish tentacle. Jellyfish are pretty rampant during this season, although when I went they were all washed up on shore and dead. They look like little blue plastic bubbles full of air. It’s really strange. But anyway, this tentacle latched onto the cool camera I told you about (underwater one) and then went up my arm leaving me with a burning sensation and bitterness. The easiest (and only, basically) cure is to get out of the water and rub sand on the sting. So I did that… definitely not the best option, but the pain went away after an hour, but it was still tender for a few days. Literally no jellyfish in the water, but ONE tentacle just floating…. Why me? Oh well, no pain no gain—do it for the story. It left a cool mark for a few days also.

But really the beach is awesome, albeit a tidbit windy, but the water is super blue and almost clear like all those beaches in Sandals, Jamaica commercials… just with rogue jellyfish tentacles. But no, it’s awesome and really close, although riddled with tourists of course, but also thoroughly enjoyed by Cubans. There is a ritual of partying and staying up all night then taking a cheap bus to the beach for the next day of passing out and swimming in the ocean. It’s like a year round MTV spring break special… but no, this privilege is of course 1000x cheaper than any adventure as such in the US, but for them, moderately priced. I still haven’t performed the ritual, but when I do, I’ll have better comments and probably a million times more accurate statements that make more sense.

The events of this blog may/may not be in any correct chronological order. Events/time is all warped here and it’s sometimes difficult distinguishing last week from the 3 weeks before. There is a huge event at the University that is an Olympics of sort, that I might have mentioned, but I, as in ME, was supposed to do a triathlon/biathlon… what?! Our friend/teacher/helper Jenni assigned us sporting events to do and I was apparently deemed qualified for the triathlon. Well, I didn’t get to attempt the feat, because I was getting my first real taste of the Cuban Bureaucracy or as they call it: burro-cracia (if you speak Spanish this will be funny). We went to the immigration office (which apparently moved, of course, to a new building in the last year so my advisor was really confused) to literally put a fingerprint on a piece of paper, have her judge our hair/eye color, and tell her our height… in meters which none of us knew. Another metaphor for Cuba—US—world relations??? Oh, and also our parents’ names? That’s apparently the most important part (I am John son of Mark and Kelle, 1.7 meters high, here to conquer Cuba with my new temporary residency card). A five second process for each of us that took, you know, over 2 hours. We get there at 8:15ish to be there for the opening at 8:30, but the first security guard/employee said it doesn’t open until 9. 5 minutes later, this was a lie, we’re waiting in the immigration office, that doesn’t seemed to have changed much from the 60s except for the few computers they had and the craziness the ladies add to their uniforms literally straight from the 60s. They were green and reminded me of what the peons of any old James Bond movie villain would wear. Very military-esque and very vintage. The ladies, to add any sort of flare, accessorize with intensely patterned fishnet stockings and any sort of makeup combination (our first helper was donning shiny blue-silver eye shadow).

Well the office did open at 8:30 so there we sat talking amongst ourselves while Anita, our advisor, tried to figure out what was happening. Well. The lady who is in charge of putting finger prints on the pieces of paper that then go into the immigration file with all our information couldn’t come into work until 9 because her child was sick. Which we all could empathize with, but as Anita said, you always need a plan B. This lady was the ONLY one in the office who was authorized to do this job amongst the several other employees and she also had the key, to unlock the files/get the fingerprinting gunk. Anita talked to the blue eye shadow woman about why/how this was happening and the lady was a little sassy. Next thing we know, a man donned in a straight up military suit came over and started a huge argument with Anita. Everyone in the office was just so confused/actually probably so used to it. But it was super intense. Eventually the woman came and our 5 second processes took place and then we left.

When this story was told to other Cubans, the response was generally unanimous: Bienvenidos a Cuba! But really, this experience is not too far off from experiences I’ve had in the US. Considered a socialist country, Cuba is notoriously recognized for having long lines and a teeming bureaucracy, but I’ve had my fair share of lines. Any DMV experience for example is a pretty pure example of how it felt here in the immigration office. You have to have the right documents at the right time in the right place with x, y, and z, just to get what? Something so miniscule in the grand scheme of life. I wonder how long the average wait/line length for the newest iPhone compared to the average wait/line length here for any sort of socialist rationing. Capitalism vs Socialism metaphor? I know I’ve waited in super long lines to see Harry Potter or buy things on their “release” day, but people here do it for basic necessities. Which system is worse? I don’t have the words or ability to grasp this comparison at the moment so I’ll leave it to you and continue documenting my experience.

Another interesting socialist(ish) event is the Festival de Libros (the Book Festival) that takes place during the month of February all over the country. It was in Habana for a week, and I got to go to one of the few places (the main one was held in a castle of course). You pay a small entrance fee and from there you check your bags (even my small camera bag), but it was full of food places, a stage with live music/random music just being played, games, other random things to buy, but most importantly: books. The selection was moderately large, but it was interesting to see what was available and for how much. There were a lot of history of the revolution books, about Che, about Fidel—most of them pretty in favor of Bolivarian-esque/Cuban revolution ideologies. Also a pretty big selection of children’s books (which the majority of my purchases were). Well, I bought a Che biography, The Brief and Marvelous life of Oscar Wao (which was on the Daily Show), random children’s books, revolutionary coloring books (hah), and whatever else looked cool at the time (it was hard to concentrate with dozens of Cubans all over the place and blaring music), but all of it was for under $3USD. Can you imagine buying any NEW, 2010 published book in the US for less than a dollar? Maybe a bootleg kindle version, but really, the government really promotes literacy and education here (what they’re learning is debatable, I know, I know). After the huge Cuban Literacy campaign that took place around 1961 in which the government sent trained teachers across the country to every inch, to every population basically, to teach them how to read, it worked with amazing results, illiteracy was basically eradicated. I love the idea of a national festival for books that are so CHEAP. Even for Cuban standards these books were cheap. I don’t know how much they were subsidized by the government, or how much publishers in the US jack up book prices, but looking at my childhood full of like 3 books and 3000 video games and TV shows, I kind of wish literature was a stronger component in my upbringing (I’m not blaming you mom and dad ;) ). But imagine a huge national festival in the US with Harry Potter books, history books, science books, whatever, for a fraction of the price? How many people choose to actually read the books is debatable, but a government that subsidizes such a huge campaign, something to think about.

Part II: El Bloqueo Social (the Social Blockade)

A Venezuelan grad student at the University here had been staying at our hotel for the past 2 years before he decided to move out and rent his own place. We became friends with him here and there, hanging out with him, so he invited us to his going away party! It was in the bar of our hotel and let’s just say DJJD came out (first debut in Cuba), but it was fun. Until the end. Juan Carlos is a server/employee here at the hotel and Lou, him, and I had a sort of heart-to-heart ordeal…. He told us how important it was to him and everyone that we are happy when they serve us, help us out, and that if they need to change anything we should let them know right away. We were so taken aback. We assured him everything is awesome and perfect and that it’s not that we don’t like the food, just sometimes we don’t want to eat something on our plate or a side dish, but that it’s not because we’re ungrateful it’s just our preference. He still wasn’t convinced and to this day (after hanging out with him more than once) still treats us as customers when he’s working, it’s depressing. I don’t want to feel like a distinguished guest here in the hotel, but that’s just how/who I am here. They take their jobs seriously (to an extent) and they want to make sure that we are always comfortable, no matter what. Every employee here is amazing and it’s sort of like a host family, just bigger and full of more drama. I just can’t be and won’t ever be Cuban, and it’s recognized that I am a guest estadounidense, but we’ll see what happens by the end of the trip.

On the Malecon, we met these two men passing by hoping to pick up a few pesos for playing some music. We declined their serenade, but then we started to talk and talk we did for a really long time. The Malecon, as mentioned previously, is the road that goes along the water with an amazing walk way and is full of the most interesting characters. Anyway, these men explained to us their political views (also another Malecon trait/Cuban trait). But they proposed to me a new idea. That the blockade hasn’t affected the governments anymore, it’s affected mostly the people. He described it as a social blockade. To keep up with the image of being the only surviving communist regime, sacrifices were made and rights were/are still debated on their level of actual freedom. They explained May 1^st, which is national workers day in Cuba, is a big hypocrisy. If you don’t go because you have to work/don’t want to participate and if you’re caught, you’re questioned why you aren’t there. It’s supposed to be a day to celebrate the hard workers of Cuba, but if you’re working during the festival, you look like a counterrevolutionary. Of course the situation isn’t as black and white as this, but the men explained it as such. In the book I’m reading (Without Fidel) the author does mention the government’s extremes to keep the regime the way it is, cycling through employees, firing them for any sort of reasons, to keep the regime focused on the socialist, revolutionary ideology.

Imagine the US being the only “capitalist”, or whatever your definition of the US is, country left in the world, how would the government/people react? What if our economy began to plunder because no one was willing to cooperate with us because some other superpower declared our system of economics/government a threat, a dictatorship, whatever, would you stay as dedicated to the system? What if you were the government would you fight as hard as possible to keep things the way they are, the government you fought to get to the place it is? What sacrifices/methods/means would you make/do to get your ends? After being here in Cuba and empathizing with Castro (in whatever manner I have), I can understand the pride he has in this country and why not fight as hard as possible to keep the country the way you dreamed it to be? Of course there have been failures. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba lost its $5 billion aid and had no back up plan (of course there is a very vague statement), but essentially, as someone else told me, Cuba lost its bubble of perfect socialism.

Many people fled to the US, many people stayed, but Cuba lost, I believe, about 10% of their population in the ultimate exodus to Miami, New Jersey, New York, wherever. Who knows if these people have found the “American Dream”, but they fled from what they saw as a lie, a failure, a breach on the Cuba they once knew; what’s ironic is that most of these people were for the revolution at first, but defected for whatever reason. What would happen if the same situation occurred in the US? Hypothetical situations are easier ways to empathize with things, although of course we can never know what it was like for Cuba when their economy was destroyed and people began to eat fried grapefruit rind steaks. True story. No government system is perfect, but the revolution brought Cuba to an interesting place and equality and nationalism were at an all time high. But slowly, as the US gained more power and Russia faltered, and pressure was put on Cuba from every which direction, obviously a country that’s main exports are sugar, coffee, and doctors, couldn’t self-sustain and plummeted. The economy here is now slowly getting better, but because (personal beliefs here) of the introduction of the dollar. Tourists can now come and stay in hotels across the country, take tours in brand new Chinese made buses with quirky phrases printed on the seats such as “Buest Guide!” or “Good Road!”. The tourism industry is booming, but few are reaping the benefits as the country is so profoundly socialist. The average monthly salary is still $10-$30USD, although capitalism exists here in Cuba. Now that US-Cubans can send as much money as they want, a reintroduction of classes has appeared that the revolution sought to eradicate. More on this later, it’s getting winded and I’m blah blah-ing.

Part III: This is NOT a Vacation

I know I’m living in a Caribbean country, with warm temperature, 4 day weekends, cheap rum; I’m not here on vacation. I’m not a tourist here, I’m a temporary resident here to learn about Cuba and Cuban culture, however hard that is for me, I still don’t know. But I’m in a place that I have no idea what I’m doing. Even going to a restaurant is a challenge sometimes. Using the internet has become an obstacle. Talking to someone I’ve seen everyday for a month here at the hotel is challenging. The classes are getting increasingly harder and more intense, and by the end of it, I will have to complete at least 3 projects. All of them, I believe have a paper and oral component, so by the end of this I will have researched 3 different things and written almost 30 pages of Spanish academic research writingish and given 3 however long presentations in a different language.

Talking with people is a challenge as they know very little about the US although they’d like to believe they are experts. I have to defend my country in surprising ways, sometimes things I don’t even agree with, but I have to get my message across. It’s not an easy process, but it’s what I signed up for. And it’s what I love. And it’s a challenge I accept full heartedly. But I don’t want anyone to think I’m here on a beach all the time drinking a mojito, or taking the easiest classes ever. Everything has become a challenge and I’m still learning everything here from the bottom up.

Meh, this is long and I’m antsy to just post whatever I’ve written.

But it’s so sunny and warm here, sorry

John

I’m alive, pero… ¿seguro?

Here I am rapidly approaching the one month mark of being here in the lovely city of La Habana. A lot has happened, but at the same time very little. My schedule is now perfect and very well situated, so I will explain my daily pattern as such.

From Friday to Monday, I have no school. However, this time may be filled with trips and adventures both mandatory from class and for personal experimentation. When Tuesday comes, basically the week begins. Normally I wake up at around 9ish, depends on when my biological clock wakes me (I’ve rarely had to use an alarm, it’s really strange). From there I usually just go straight down to breakfast for a diverse choice of egg styles: scrambled, with or without ham, or fried, also with or without ham. Accompanying the lovely eggs are bread, some fruit (oranges, grapefruit, pineapple, watermelon—varies, not all of this at once), some juice, and some coffee. It’s delicious, but literally the same everyday basically, but it really doesn’t bother me too much. I just have visions of coming back to the states and a doctor tells me I have the cholesterol of a 50 year old man… the incredible, edible egg so they say.
After this I come back upstairs and just get ready, you know, get my hair done, put on some cherry red lipstick and pick out my favorite stilettos for the day. But in reality, throwing on something that looks like an outfit from the strange array of clothes I decided to bring. Looking at my clothing option here I just wonder what I was thinking when I was packing. So much of it just doesn’t make sense, but either does waiting until the last minute to pack… there must be some correlating graph somewhere that represents this phenomenon.
I have one Spanish class on Tuesday that lasts from about 11:30 am to about 1 pm and this is the same as on Thursday. The professor is an awesome woman who prefers her nickname ‘Yare’, plus I can’t actually remember her real name. She is an older woman, but absolutely young at heart. We talk about the most random things and basically just practice Spanish, but it is by far the best Spanish class I’ve ever had. Everything is explained so clearly and by example, and my nose is never buried in a book memorizing patterns and arbitrary vocabulary. For example, in one class, we listened to a song and had to match up the verses and write down the verbs, but later we had to take turns doing certain activities with the song. We had to explain what was happening in the story in the present tense, the events of the story in the past, suggestions for the singer, what we liked in the pluscamperfecto-whatever-it-is tense. Just so different from listen to this song, write down what you hear, then we’ll talk about what it means. So different. She also asked me if I was part latino because I’m so tan (oh yeah, I’m getting real tan).
After class basically everyday I wander around and try to spend the least amount of money as possible. This is incredibly easy. There are so many ‘cafeterias’ around campus that sell most of their meals for less than one $1USD. I’m especially fond of a rather filling pizza that costs $0.50USD for just cheese, or you can add peppers and onions for another quarter. There are also plates of rice, vegetables, and some form of meat for less than a dollar, definitely easy to get decent quality food for less than a dollar a day. I get 2 meals provided through the program at the hotel.
On Wednesday, I have my anthropology class with Lyndsay (Lou) Kramer with Dr. Antonio Martinez. One word: AMAZING. We’ve literally only had like 2 classes, but this man is amazing. He is taking basically 2 hours out of his day to teach just Lou and me about Physical Anthropology in Cuba. Neither of us has taken the class at Pitt, as it is a requirement for the Anthro major, so we’re hopeful that this will maybe cover the requirement, but if not, meh, still 3 credits in Anthro. In the last class we discussed the importance of understanding how the human body develops and the issues facing the growing population of the elderly (deemed 60+ years of age, but don’t worry, you’re still young at heart you elderly readers). We went through a PowerPoint showing the different stages of human growth after birth and later a PowerPoint showing how much of the population in the future will be deemed elderly and what this will do for… well, everyone. It was so interesting and so relaxed and patient. I took absolutely zero notes, but because he explained it so well and it was more of a conversation, I took a legitimate interest in the subject. I think the University system (not just the US, but everywhere) needs a revolution of sorts. I’m not saying that Cuba has a perfect university system, because I am not taking a real Cuban class, but this style and the attitude this teacher takes towards us is by far what learning is and should be.
Also on Wednesdays, we have our class at the famous ICAIC. This is a government funded film institute that is responsible for the majority of Cuban movies. IT is based out of an old house that is huge and they have built a medium sized theater next to it also. I think their most famous movie (although I have not seen it) is Fresa y Chocolate or Strawberry and Chocolate. It is about two homosexual communist companeros and their life after the revolution. I really don’t know much about it, but I know it was nominated for an Oscar in the 90s sometime. At the ICAIC we discuss basically the history of Cuba as seen through cinema. Our professor is an amazing woman who is an art history director of sorts, I’m not exactly sure what she does, but she is very intelligent and very aware of Cuban cinema. The movies we’ve seen so far have been a little strange, they are all over 40 years old, but it’s interesting to see them and discuss how they relate to Cuban history. One movie we watched was “Memories of Underdevelopment” and it portrays an upper-class man and his struggles with life essentially, but also his concern with post-revolutionary Cuba and what it means for him and the bourgeoisie class. Another film we saw is titled “Lucia” and it portrays three different women in three different eras of Cuban history. The film is supposed to show the struggles of women in each of these periods, and I suppose it does, but we all couldn’t help but just feel as though it just perpetuated the weak female role in society instead of helping demonstrate the female struggle. I don’t know. It was a very long and strange movie. But the class is awesome! And 5 hours long basically….
We have yet to start our fourth class as our professor is in Italy doing some crazy academic thing. But it is titled Cuban Society, so I think it will be pretty interesting. Some people on the streets and friends we’ve met at the university joked that we’ve already started that class by talking with them. But it’s so true! The conversations on the street after only 3 weeks have already cracked my metaphorical blockade of basically zero knowledge on Cuba (not to blame the US education system, but I vaguely remember learning about hardly anything Cuba related that wasn’t terribly demonizing). While I am not too well educated in politics, I do have opinions, and it’s always interesting to discuss with anyone here on what we all believe. A lot of people believe in how powerful capitalism is, as seen in the US by working and earning x amount for how much you work etc, etc. Here, however, you have to fulfill a certain amount of hours per month and you still only receive an average of $10 - $30USD per month. Another apparent atrocity is that a doctor here earns less money than a janitor in a fancy hotel. What? Pretty crazy, right? But here everyone gets their allocation of rations (if available), free healthcare (they’ve recently enacted free sex-change operations, if one qualifies), seeing glasses that cost $1.25USD (although made of plastic, but still functional), and well, I just don’t know what else. It’s hard for me to argue that capitalism has its demons, being that I am a white, middle class, well-off person, but it’s hard to hear about people working overtime at McDonald’s and still barely getting by or the extreme amount of debt people have from student loans/everything, how the minimum wage is barely a livable wage. Both systems have their faults and advantages, but really all we’re doing is living and surviving. We all have our own struggles, so there’s no use comparing.
Again, a disclaimer: wrote this basically all in one go, so question my gaps, research your own, but I hate revising and my flow of consciousness is more accurate of me anyway!

John

Cuba is awesome... well for me

I got a little sick L. Kind of a cold mostly, but I’m always a snot monster so it doesn’t really matter. I’ve been sleeping really weirdly and having crazy dreams, but last night (Feb 9) I slept basically all night without any problems. Everyone says they’re having weird dreams and waking up several times, I think it’s the carbon monoxide in our systems and the scary AC units that randomly spur in the middle of the night and sound like a hurricane.

The weirdest dreams so far:1.I was like awake, but not really, but maybe?? And I thought my roommate was having a seizure, but then it switched and I couldn’t move my body I could only talk and I wasn’t awake and I could hear things. And I said I can’t move my body and my roommate was like yeah… that bus hit you pretty hard… and so I like forced myself awake and like pinched myself and did some Inception craziness and was freaked out for like an hour in bed. Like I dreamt I was in a COMA this is the second time this has happened in my life. Scary.

2.We were at an airport (I think in Pittsburgh but it was definitely not the Pittsburgh airport) and I was like you guys that went by so fast, like it just felt like a week, like… we didn’t do anything? And everyone was like I know, right? So weird. And I was like well maybe when I look through my pictures I’ll be like yeah I did stuff… then we tried to get our luggage but the baggage claim rotating belt thing was a spiral so all the bags just ended up in this big pile in the middle. Then I woke up and I was like yeah I have like 3 more months here. I had the same dream in Nicaragua. So weird.

A few days ago Lou (aka Lindsay Kramer) and I walked to Habana Vieja from our neighborhood of Vedado. If you walk along the Malecon (the famous highway that runs along the ocean, look it up online and you’ll probably recognize it) it only takes like 20 minutes to get to the middle of the super touristy center of Havana. We decided we wanted to walk deeper into Habana Vieja, outside of the super clean touristy areas into where people actual lived and worked. It was completely different. Walking just a few blocks outside of the tourist traps of restaurants and monuments we were met with the stereotypical decay of Havana’s colonial legacy and the general ‘poverty’ (I don’t know how to judge poverty here). The streets were narrow and then wide, brick and cement; there were little shops that sold sandwiches for $5 moneda nacional (which equates to about 20 cents); doors and buildings falling apart and built all on top of each other. It is truly beautiful in its decay, and yet terrible because people still need and want to live there. I can take pictures of fading paint, chipped stone, rotting doors, and still admire its beauty, but I can’t actually imagine living in that situation (although I really want to).

The communism here is an absolute mystery to our group and even the residents. We met two guys named Raizel and Julian and we’ve hung out a few times on the Malecon. We asked them questions about communism, youth culture, racial relations (they are both black Cubans), and about various Cuban terminology. When we said we didn’t understand communism here, they replied “we don’t either”. We were all a little taken aback (is that the right phrase?), but I can barely understand how the U.S. system works, I just play it as I go, so it’s basically the same here for Raizel and Julian.

If you have money here you can buy basically whatever you want, but the average wage is about $10 - $30 USD a month, so materialism definitely isn’t rampant for the majority of the population (again just speculating, I hate making definitive statements). Our tour guide told us about the ration booklets everyone gets and how it’s basically a book of coupons that you can use to get rice, beans, meat from government sponsored stores. She said most times it wasn’t enough for the average person, but at least it was a start. That struck me. In the U.S. we fight to the death to defend capitalism, but ignore those who are part of a capitalistic system and are screwed over. Here, capitalism exists. You can buy what you want basically whenever you want, if you have the money, so if you need more food, you can buy it, if you need more food and have no money, you can’t, but at least you have the rations. Here you get a little help, a little start, so even if your wages are too low to fill your stomach or your children’s, you get a head start. Although… there are shortages and most residents aren’t guaranteed the quantity allotted to them on the ration cards. Then again, nothing is ever perfect.

Everything is pretty regulated: there are basically two types of domestic beer and a few types of rum that are all state run and operated. You can buy Absolut vodka, wine from abroad, Jameson—for a hefty price—but you still can if you want. There’s also just a plethora of U.S. based products which is just so confusing. How far does this embargo go? We aren’t allowed to travel and visit a different culture, but U.S. companies are allowed to use this culture as another market? Again, just speculating, but I’m an impressionable 19 year old boy so… así es la vida.

Rai, Lou, and I talked the most on the Malecon. When we asked him about race and what it means in Cuba, he explained it definitely exists but in a psychological way. He said if he was Lou’s boyfriend and they wanted to go to a fancy club or restaurant, he would most likely not be allowed in. We told him about all the events that were happening in Pittsburgh and how most of them related to race in Cuba. He was impressed, but I don’t know how much was understood. Later in the night (or maybe a different night? The nights at the Malecon kind of blend together…), some police showed up, it was rumored because some tourist got too drunk… haha. Anyway, Rai affirmed with us that we are tourists and he is our friend and he is not causing us any trouble, just in case the police asked because he is a black Cuban/Cuban in general. It was really depressing, but the police didn’t bother us so it was less disturbing.

After my whole project on race in Cuba, it’s still hard for me to see any inequality (I mean, I have only been here a week) but listening to Rai and Julian it was interesting to hear that it definitely exists and in some cases is so prominent that it prevents him from entering a place. He assured us that the racism wasn’t institutional so much, he has the same freedoms as everyone else, but on the psychological level, who knows what could happen.

We asked him further about the 50+ regime of Castro and if he agreed with it. He shook his head and said not me, nor him, nor anyone on the street. I didn’t delve further—asking him what he wanted to see change or anything, and I sort of forgot what else we talked about after that. Whoops. Next time: plunge into the topic of Castrology (I coined it, I think it’s funny) and see what Rai or anyone would like to see change and what they think/know/anything about Cuban politics.

I am awaiting a plethora of people to talk with about life here in Cuba and I am hopeful to share it here, unless the Cuban government gets a hold of this and deports me… very possible. AAHHH! That would suck.

This is probably the most interesting so far. I am going to write more in the future about my classes and stuff. I’ve only had one week of classes so far (HAHA) so when I get a more regular feel for them/regular feel for what my actual life schedule is I’ll write about it. But I will give a few teasers:

1.I have a four day weekend starting at 1 pm on Thursday and lasting until Tuesday until 11:30 (until February 28^th when I actually start my 4^th class) HAH

2.I am doing an independent study (with Lou) with Dr. Antonio Martinez who was apparently president of the Ibero-American Council on Anthropology (I haven’t googled this or anything/it was said in Spanish so I’m still a little confused) BUT it’s an independent study for Physical Anthropology, so no Phys Anthro at Pitt HOPEFULLY.

3.The campus is actually beautiful and has a staircase/alma mater/entrance akin to Columbia University; has a shrunken version of University of Minnesota’s main area with all the buildings surrounding a common area; every building is beautiful and has columns basically which me gustan; just there is so much green and nature there and everywhere.

Until next time, my faithful readers (if you exist)!

Chau,

John