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| the New Cuba |
After the initial blast of humid air, the first thing I noticed about Cuba was rhythm, beat every where. People stopped to move their hips with a smile. Music abounded. Drums, horns, pianos, cow bells. You just wanted to stay up all night and dance.
Then there was the color. Bright hues wallpapered all over the city. You can’t help but feel alive in Cuba.
I sat mesmerized as I watched this woman salsa dance. She looked all her partners dead in their eyes (captured in the above photo). The confidence, the control. I was in awe. At last, a place where sensuality is way of life. Everyone expresses it. In the US, we are so reserved. I wanted to jump right in and buy a hot pink spandex dress and dance and connect.
I remember the first time I hung out with a bunch of Cubans. I was in Grenoble, France visiting my love at the time. It was dead of winter. All the French were grumpy, drenched in black clothes and downing espressos. Christophe takes me to visit the Cuban bar that his Cuban friends owned. Immediately, it was like walking into a vat of happiness. Everyone was salsa dancing. His friends were warm and friendly, hugging me and teaching me to dance. Now looking back, that warmth, happiness and affection- that is Cuba.
Elizabeth brought me to Cuba as her photographer for her first international farm tour. She leads food and farm tours in our West Marin community. I found the meadery through one of her tours, in fact.
We were in Cuba to tour the organic farms because Cuba is organic, you know? Because of the embargo and soviet withdrawal they couldn’t afford pesticides and GMO’s and even fuel to run tractors. They are leaders in sustainable agriculture being organic as a default of their circumstances.
I could write an entirely different essay about the farms, too much for a little blog post. But I will tell you what struck me was the health of one particular farmers (Fernando Funes, a PhD in agroecology) honey bee’s. He claimed to have no colony collapse and harvested two tons of honey in a year and when I asked what he attributes it to he told me “no pesticides, no gmo’s and diversity in the crop (no monoculture).”
Cuba has 98% literacy rate, free education up to the PhD level. The entire country is highly educated. Everyone has a home, there is no homelessness. There are are no guns, no drugs, not really any internet. It’s unlike an tropical island I have ever been too.
The average monthly salary for a Cuban is $30. Now here’s the interesting new twist, now that we have made better relations, tourism is booming. AirBnB is in the country and now people who made $30 a month are making $30 a day renting out rooms in their house. This is why there is a rush to see “Cuba before it changes.”
Cuba’s food may have been organic but their cuisine was plain and simple. But now, there is a new Cuba emerging. There are hip new restaurants popping up in Havana. We found a few.
There was the restaurant owned by a sommelier, which had some good Spanish wines (mostly it’s all Spanish and Chilean). There was the French inspired restaurant and then Hanna and I went to this one restaurant touted by Bourdain as part of the New Cuba, O’Reilly 304, with fresh cocktails and good looking staff. After three rounds of cocktails made from fresh, organic fruits and local rum our bartender gives us each a pink gladiolus. It’s true, it’s cliche, it’s simple but there is nothing like giving a woman a flower. We walked out of the restaurant and floated along the busy, sultry streets of Havana with a smiles on our face. Everyone stopped to compliment our flowers. Men declared their love. Babies smiled and pointed. Ahhh…what a city!
What a time to go to Cuba. To see how it has been and tell tale signs of what’s to come. But, what I loved most was the happiness and warmth of the people.