up until day 4something
sorry no photos—i transferred my library to my external and i didn’t have time to plug it in before coming to the Cohiba today. They’ll come soon.
On Wednesday as I was taking photos along the stretch of water near Plaza de Armas in Habana Vieja and two men approached me saying “¿Chino? ¿Chino?” (a daily occurrence). If I don’t feel like talking, I ignore people who do this (I’m not bothered by people asking if I’m Chino [I’m of Japanese decent], it’s more that I don’t always feel like stopping what I’m doing to talk to someone). If I do feel like starting a conversation I shake my head and say “no.” This inevitably starts a guessing game of “¿Yápan? ¿Kórea? ¿Bietna?” When I say “Los Angeles, California” a big smile appears, eyes widen, a finger is pointed and an “¡Ahhhh! ¡Americano!” is exclaimed with a little leaning back of the body. Sometimes followed by a very slowly-said “Mi cuñada vive en Miami” with lots of gesticulating. I started the nationality guessing game with the two men who looked to be in their early 40s. We ended up having a short conversation about my project and what they did (P.E. teachers). Suspiciously like the man on the street I had (a little less willingly) talked with the day before, the man who was doing most of the talking of the pair -also- had a 21 year old son named Robert. We had a semi-substantive conversation and just as we were about to part, the favor was asked. Just like the same man I had talked with the day before, he asked for milk for his younger child. However, unlike the man I had talked with before, right off the bat this man said we would go to the store so I could buy it for them. That way there was no denying the money would go towards milk. He said it would be 3 CUC. I figured that the conversation had been good enough that even if I was being taken (maybe if the milk wasn’t for his kid but was going to be resold), I was willing to spend 3 CUC. Of course, I’ll never know who the milk went to, but the whole interaction struck a chord with me. Up until today I had (naively) thought that all people who (cleverly or not so cleverly) asked me for a little change to buy X item saw me as a way to get a quick buck to go towards that night’s bottle of rum (or other nonessential item). In conjunction with a lengthy post-dinner conversation Becca and I had with Mary (who we’re renting from) about her thoughts on Cuban life (which was spurred on by me asking why money for milk seems to be so commonly asked for; and during which she said “Cuban life functions on love not money”), the milkbuying confronted me unlike anything else has with people’s need to survive in a place that doesn’t make it that easy. I definitely don’t mean for this to sound Romantic, cliché, revelatory, condescending, or othering. I have always been too skeptical of people’s intentions to realize they might not be surreptitiously taking advantage of me, but rather genuinely trying to put food on the table. Of course I have always realized this is the case for some people, but up until now I had tried to make myself believe this wasn’t the case for those like the two men that approached me. This isn’t to say that I’m going to become more generous—only that I will see people’s intentions through a more (or is it less?) critical eye.
Last weekend we took a trip to Santiago de Cuba on the other side of the island. We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday there sandwiched by two 14-hour driving days.
Margaret: everyone is eagerly awaiting your arrival.
Every week we have a seminar where a few people give updates on how their project is going, and the others give feedback. Last week I went. I explained that over the past six weeks I thought I had accumulated a good collection of photos and that I had made some good connections, but that I was still a little uncertain about how my final project would take shape. Kristina suggested that I design some ‘advertisements’ in the form of posters that show Cuba through various lenses (oh, Hampshire). It’s funny that she brought that idea up since that was one of the very first project ideas I had a year ago when I first started thinking seriously about what I could do here. The one idea I have is to play off of what some Canadian tourists said to me when I asked why they came: “There’s no McDonald’s or Burger King” Sure there’s no McDonalds or Burger King, but—even though one might not see them in Habana Vieja—there are plenty of other fast food places. From this tourist’s observation I plan on making a pair of posters that each say something like “Cuba: where you won’t find McDonalds or Burger King.” One poster would show one of the quaint eateries that cover Havana Vieja and the other would show a Pollo DiTu or Dino Pizza. In speaking with more people I hope to hear more things that make apparent Havana’s various faces.
People I’m becoming friends with who have been helping me understand my project: Nancy (printmaker and vendor at Feria San Jose); Félix (vendor at Feria San Jose who sells for his wife and son); Yomár (photographer in front of the Capitolio who takes pictures of tourists for 1 CUC with a 105 year old camera); Rumelia (70-something year old woman who cleans Plaza Vieja); Jaime (Kristina’s tutor who works as an architect in the Office of the Historian)
People I hope to know: the woman who sits near the Plaza de Armas dressed in bright colors with a giant cigar and has pictures taken of her in exchange for CUC; Orlando, one of the printmakers who Nancy sells for (he has work that is a mixture of what is, to me, touristy and non touristy—subject matter that is chosen by him and subject matter that is chosen by tourists, you could say); the dad of Antonio who is a book vendor’s helper at Plaza de Armas and who said his dad was the “fundador de turismo”; a driver of a refurbished car that advertises “Rent a Fantasy”
On Thursday I am going to meet Nancy at San Alejandro (art school where Eduardo teaches) for the (weekly?) printmaking talk. She also mentioned a 4-day long lithography workshop taught by a friend of hers through the Istituto Superior de Arte (ISA). The professor is sick now, if he gets better during a time when I’m free, I plan on taking it.
