Night in Old Havana: locals cling to culture, worry about change
HAVANA – Alexander Jimenez – call me guajiro – rides his 1949 Chevy through Old Havana, as we search for the man with the lovely voice that booms all the way to the Malecon, Havana’s waterfront.
It’s a great escape after a day of watching Texans – part of the first trade delegation since normalizations between Cuba and the United States began last December – talk trade with Cubans.
Along the way he introduces me to his colleagues and friends, people he’s known for more than three decades, many of them of African descent.
“Como esta la cosa, negro?” he asked. He thinks nothing of using the term “negro” and perks up when I tell him about the latest riots in Baltimore where protesters looted stores and police cars with rocks, hours after Freddie Gray, who became the latest symbol of police brutality, was laid to rest.
“That’s very sad, very troubling,” he said. “Fortunately you don’t have that here. We have other problems, va, but race is not one of them. We’re brothers here, me entiendes hermano?” Do you understand me, brother?
Cuba has a lot of issues, from economic to human rights, but race relations – overcoming racial divide and coexisting with descendants of Africa and Spain as one – is perhaps one of the greatest achievements of the Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. Race tensions, if they exist and some experts have long insisted they do, are buried deep underneath the skin.
That’s one of the many concerns on the mind of Jimenez and others as signs point to increase normal ties with the United States and an unknown outcome for the 11.5 million people on the island. We cruise old Havana on a muggy night, to the beat of pulsating salsa and the soulful music known as boleros – the immortal song of Sabor A Mi – in the distance. A seven-year Havana rum goes down that much more smoothly with boleros. We keep searching for that voice.
We talk about the increasing number of Americans visiting the island and whether the tiny island of Cuba, with infrastructure seemingly untouched since the 1940s and 1950s, can handle the onslaught of Americans, with their pesky cameras and cargo shorts.
“No, not right now,” Jimenez said. “But give us time. We adapt to anything, and everything with time.”
We ride around, tip-toeing around Plaza de las Armas, an area, like much of Havana, under construction. Jimenez is 39, married with three girls, two of them are mothers, one married with a Cuban African – “I’m a grandfather of three and two are mulatos,” he said. “I don’t even think of that, their skin color, because we’re all Cubans.”
Which gets to Jimenez’ concern: change and tomorrow. Sometimes, when Alexander is in bed, he says he stays up late at night while his wife, children and grandchildren sleep. He wonders about the future, the post-Castro era, whether Fidel or Raúl, and what will happen to his home, his country, his grandchildren. A native of Guantanamo, he graduated from high school and university with a degree in industrial engineering. He reads a book every two weeks and has lived in Havana for nearly 20-years, so many “that this is where I want to be buried. But I want to be able to recognize the place. Sometimes I fear investors will come and destroy these buildings and turn them into expensive condos, like Miami or New York City. We’re already seeing more greed in our society and I fear that will someday divide us even more between haves and have nots, white and black.”
“I kind of like who we are today,” he said. “We’re all poor, but we all have an education, access to free healthcare and we don’t worry about Baltimore, or Ferguson happening here. Not now.”
Despite popular perception that Cubans in the communist nation live in isolation – well they do and don’t. News that tarnished the U.S. image are quickly and widely broadcast here, or shared by relatives and friends just 90 miles away.
Such is the case with Ferguson, Charleston and now Baltimore. The cities have become hot topics of discussion. Cubans increasingly have smartphones, albeit with big restrictions, especially when it comes to social media.
I say goodbye to Alexander and walk a few blocks until I run into Nay Melgar, 30. She works at a souvenir shop. I ask about the voice now singing “Candela.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raRqgKqIM3M
She offers to walk me in exchange for a cafecito. A friend of hers takes over the shop for a few minutes. She’s learning English and sees me as an opportunity to practice. She pleads: “be patient. I’m learning, but very slowly.”
That’s the other change I see in Cuba: the end of the so-called “tourism apartheid” that once forbid Cubans from staying in hotels, or socializing in places reserved for foreigners. Under Raúl Castro, prohibitions on the sale of private homes, cars were lifted. More permissions have been granted for private taxis for people like Alexander and his 1949 Chevy, which he is fixing up to prepare for the arrival of more Americans in love with classic cars. Some Cubans have even opened private bars.
An expert on information technology, Melgar hasn’t seen so many tourists in her lifetime, so many she’s banking her future on tourism – “not many have computers here,” she said.
“But tourists are coming in bigger numbers. At times it’s overwhelming” she said. “Sometimes I feel we’re a museum. Everyone wants to take our picture.”
We walk into a restaurant bar and Nay waves at Reinero Proenza Geral, 30, the singer I’ve looked for all night. “Como estas negro,” she asks nonchalantly and takes a seat. “We have been friends for years. He has the best voice in la vieja Habana (Old Havana).”
Proenza finishes his song – Solamente Una Vez – and takes a seat, sips rum. Sweaty he gobbles down two bottles of water and smiles. “Take pictures, hermano,” he said. “Esto, hermano, es Cuba and will be Cuba for a long time.”
(From: The Scoop Blog)
