Vive la revelacion! - my short trip to Cuba
After working non-stop with back to back projects since January, I finally got myself out of Chicago for a proper vacation. A good friend of mine and I had talked of all sorts of fancy trips for years but never ever sorted anything out. So in typical fashion, with only two weeks planning, I booked my flights to Havana.
Since the US has a number of issues of Castro and the Cuban government, we had to fly from a non-US point of origin, namely Cancun, which we stayed in for one day and night.
Our whole trip was only six days with only really four days of being on the ground. There’s plenty of reasons for hyperbole about Cuba as it is, but walking through Havana and being on tours in the countryside left me completely hypersensitive to taking images. I took almost as many photographs in those six days as I had taken for my entire five week vacation to Burma and Asia in February 2004. By the end of it, I was frankly a little sick of taking photographs but its really easy to go nuts there. It’s simply a country unlike any other.
One aspect of Cuban life that may potentially change after Fidel’s death is the distinct lack of commercialisation. Beyond the chromed letters of the vintage cars churning smoke around town, there was simply zero brand messaging anywhere. No logos, no icons, no overt imagery that makes most of the world sensitive to corporations and their ‘public facing’ messaging. We are bourgeois capitalist pigs after all.
Walking through Havana was very exciting for me, photographically, as I got to see a level of city-wide neglect and faded beauty that I’ve only seen in a few other cities: Beijing and Rangoon. Coincidentally they too share an oppressive governmental presence. There’s simply no other way to reproduce the effects of sun bleached discolouration, grime, smog and rain damage, unless you dedicate decades of governmental neglect. The 50s and 60s architecture of the time have become so faded that it has a patina that gives it a unique, aged beauty all of its own.
On this trip, a technique that I’ve been practicing for a few years now came into fruition here: “blind shooting from the hip”. I’ve become really good (and by good, 1 in 5 are in focus and on target) at taking street photography with my camera hanging from the strap around my hip. With your camera down by your waist and your face pointing in the opposite direction, you can get away with a few shots before anyone’s noticed. Just point the camera in the general direction and with lots of practice you’ll get the hang of it. The trick is in reviewing the photos on the back of the LCD without your unsuspecting subject noticing!
The most remarkable experience for me on this trip happened as my friend and I covered the city by foot. We heard as we walked a strong live drum rhythm (not dissimilar to a Fela Kuti afro beat) and we realize that it was coming from an open window of a second floor balcony. We looked around and saw someone else on the street point to the window. They pointed and said ‘party’ and encouraged us to go have a look. We looked at each other again, then back to the window and then decided to walk through the open door. As we entered this complete stranger’s house, we saw that this was place is packed to the gills with people all at the top of the staircase. We immediately got the sense that we were not really meant to be here.
After a few awkward seconds of standing with a dozen Cubans in this cramped corridor we soon established that no one was overtly offended by our presence. In fact we asked sheepishly, “OK?” and we got a thumbs up, even if the looks on their faces was a little incredulous. We had a short conversation with a young man in English and worked out that this was a semi religious ceremony cum house party and all these sixty-odd people were family, related to each other in some way. Everyone, except us.
From this narrow corridor we could see two rooms; one to the side was full of colourful fruits and decorations and the other was dead ahead bursting with vibrancy. Between us and that room were people craning their necks to peer at the dancing that was basically going off in someone’s living room.
From my vantage point of the corridor I realized that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t get myself in that room! So after almost an hour of patiently ingratiating ourselves with the group, I start my slow advance through the threshold to see a performance that will stay with me for as long as I live.
Five bongo drum players were lining the perimeter at one end of the room and in the centre was a singer in his fifties. Surrounding the musicians are three generations of about forty Cubans. The singer’s voice was incredibly loud and it manages to stay clear and true above the incessant drumming and a room full of people singing with him. His song carried a simple “call and response” format; he’d sing a few words and then be greeted with his words amplified a hundred fold by the room who knew the lyrics by heart. I got the impression that these Cubans had heard these songs ever since they were children.
The beat, the chanting, the deep rooted culture of this experience all added to a heady mix of mystique and music. Twice during our two hour, mid afternoon adventure, we saw a young woman and an elderly woman in her sixties both dance themselves into a hazy, hypnotic, trance-like state. At times their spinning and singing would produce a freakish, startled look on their faces. We saw both woman collapse into the arms of those around them, while everyone else continued the tradition. The beat would play for long, twenty minutes lengths, through complex, improvised rhythms. But when the song finished, it finished dead. The music, the drumming, the singing, all ending together, perfectly in sync. All on one beat.
After several more songs, we slowly make our way out of the room not wanting to push our luck. On our departure we saw something that gave us a clear insight into what kind of ‘party’ we just experienced. On the back of the front door (which is way we didn’t see when we came in) was a white dove, breathing calmly, tied upside down with its feet bound together. We’d heard of something called Santería, a religion practiced by some Afro-Cubans before this day but never thought we’d see it up close and personal. I found this entry on Santería on Wikipedia. An excerpt is here: “Drum music and dancing are a form of prayer and will sometimes induce a trance state in initiated priest, who become “possessed” and will channel the Orisha, giving the community and individuals information, perform healing etc.”
I’ll tell you now, if the dove had been dead, or bleeding, I would have run like hell.
Despite the trade embargos, try to find yourself in Cuba one day. I highly recommend it.
Please enjoy the photos, they’re in three parts.
Walking through Havana, August 2006
Callejon De Hamel, Havana, August 2006
Tour of Playa Del Rio, Cuba, August
