Events of Last Few Days

Friday:
After class I decided that I didn’t want to hang around our house or neighborhood so Celine, Anna, and I walked to the bus stop to catch the P-1 to Miramar. After waiting almost an hour and having two full buses passed us, we decided to try our luck at catching a fixed route peso taxi.

Ok… here is a quick rundown of the transportation system as I know it here in Cuba. There are 7 (probably more) public transportation options, the bus (guaguas), fixed route peso taxis (boteros), peso taxies, CUC taxis, coco taxis, horse drawn carriage, and the bed of a utility pickup truck. The buses are Chinese hand-me-downs that cost $0.40 pesos (about $0.02 USD). Riding the bus is always a trip since they fit as many people as possible onto the buses. When a bus arrives at the stop everyone runs to the entrance to secure a spot. Usually it pulls away with people literally hanging out the still open doors. I like the bus. Fixed route peso taxis are the old American cars everyone associates with Cuba that run along designated streets. They pull over, you ask the driver where they are headed, then if it’s headed to where you want and there is room you jump in with other people and pay $10 pesos. When I looked down at the clutch in the fixed route taxi we took to Miramar, I could see the road moving below us. Another time, the car continued to run when the driver took the key out of the ignition. Peso taxis are just taxis that you take where you pay in pesos not CUC. They are usually difficult to find and we have to fight to be allowed in because they are legally only for Cubans. With our University of Havana student ID cards, we are allowed to ride in peso taxis. CUC taxis are the same as peso taxis, but you have to pay in CUC. Coco taxis are these very odd three wheeled egg shaped vehicles that fit two or three in the open back seat. These are also in CUC and are for tourist. I don’t know much about the horse drawn carriages, but they are also for tourists. Riding in the back of a pickup truck I assume is in pesos but I will report back on that later since it is on my list of things to do in Cuba.

I suppose I should also say something about the money system. There are two currencies, Cuban pesos and CUC. The exchange rate between USD and CUC is technically 1:1 but the government takes out a %20 tax. The exchange rate between CUC and pesos is 1:24. Any and all things related to tourism are priced in CUC. Most museums have a CUC and student peso price which is why having University IDs is so wonderful. Pesos are so much cheaper. For the most part street food and all other “Cuban things” are priced in pesos. The dual currency system makes no sense to me at all. When there are actually things to buy, they seem to be priced completely haphazardly.

Now back to Miramar… there was nothing on our agenda except for exploring. After randomly picking a corner to get out of the taxi, we found the National Aquarium of Cuba. The combination of the cloudy dark weather, the lack of visitors, and the fact that half the tanks were empty made it seem like we had entered the twilight zone. This was one of those instances where being able to pay the peso price made a huge difference. I paid $7 pesos instead of $10 CUC. The ticket price included the sea lion show and dolphin show. Both were very entertaining. Yet another testament to Cubas passion for dancing, the sea lions could salsa and move to the always present reggaeton beats. Despite it feeling like a ghost town, the aquarium was quite professional. They had educational information scattered about, and it seemed like the animals were kept in good condition. There was one exception… in the exhibit with the pelicans and turtles, there were stray cats just chillin next to them. There are cats everywhere here. I love it.

Saturday:
Our entire group of nine extranjeros went to the Feria Internacional del Libro. Two buses later we were across the Bay of Havana in El Morro at the book fair with what seemed like every other person in Havana. The book fair is an annual event that brings in exhibits from countries around the world (I even found a Merck Manual in Spanish). It’s a big deal. Being in the sun all day and constantly elbowing people for position in line was all part of the experience. Everyone bought a few books and I managed to secure (semi-steal) an awesome (free) poster of the fair that was hanging in an unoccupied booth.

After a nap and dinner we all headed out to the Union of Writers and Artists. Before leaving for Cuba I had in my head that nights would be spent in classy summer dresses, sitting outside on an ornate patio surrounded by palm trees, sipping mojitos, and listening to a handsome Cuban man sing son and bolero. That exact scene went down Saturday night.

Sunday:
To continue to educate myself about traditional Cuban music, I took a stroll to Callejon de Hamel. This is a community of artists and musicians in an awesome ally decorated with colorful murals, statues, poems, and other art. It’s based around Santeria (a religion that combines traditional African beliefs and Catholicism) and is known as one of ‘the’ places to go for Rumba. Despite the heat and humidity intense chanting, drumming, and dancing ensued. Very fun. Very sweaty.

Monday:
Spanish class was full of laughing at funny situations based on cultural and language confusion... as usual. There is a group of Puerto Ricans living with us. They are also here studying at the University of Havana. Gina, one of the Puerto Ricans, joined a soccer team and extended the invitation to us. Of course I’m now on the team. This is the club sports equivalent. Each faculty in the university have a team and they compete against one another. Right now I am double booked, playing for the philosophy team and the biology team. This is Cuba… I don’t think anyone will care. Monday afternoon we (the Philosophy team) had practice. Our “coach,” a grad student, was a little ADD and had us switch drills about every 2 minutes but the scrimmage for the second half of practice had me huffing and puffing. It was great to play. Soccer is such a wonderful sport. The facilities were a little lacking… ruts, puddles, dry grass, no nets, a single duck-taped soccer ball, and fashion sneakers instead of cleats. This is a perfect example of Cuba. Here, they use what they have, work (in this case play) hard, and are always in good spirits. I am lucky to be a part of the team.

Tuesday:
My only class of the day was canceled so…BEACH! The above picture is proof I have been wearing sunscreen (mom and dad). I am so pale. Ha!

Sorry for the diary style entry… I am getting lazy (I know… my life is so hard). This weekend the group is off to Pinar del Rio, the province to the west of Havana. I’m so excited to get out of the city again… especially because this time there is mountains and rock climbing!

Classes

I have been here for almost three weeks now, and my class schedule is finally finished. I am taking four classes. Three classes are at the University of Havana and all are in Spanish.

Spanish – Thank god for formal Spanish lecture and review! So far my accent and vocabulary have improved drastically, but I doubt I will ever sound Cuban... they talk so fast.

Film – Every Wednesday I head to the Cuban Chapter of the Fundacion del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano located in a gorgeous complex in La Lissa, Mirimar (the next neighborhood over from where I live in Vedado). We watch Cuban films and chat about it. I love this class.

Cuban Society – This is a “core class” that surveys a series of overarching themes in the context of the history of Cuba and contemporary Cuba. We have specialists from different departments within the University come to class each week and lecture. Our grade in this class is based on an independent project of our choosing. I’ll be doing something concerning the environment : )

Cuban Political Thought – This is the elective class I chose. I just had the first class today, since the professor is in Guatemala. For now there is a different professor standing in. I don’t have much to say about this class after only one meeting with a substitute professor, but it should be interesting.

The process of registering for classes follows no logical system at all. Really, almost all things here seem illogical to me. I tend to be a very logical person and like to puzzle things out… I can’t do that here. I suppose in some ways that’s a good thing since it forces me to practice my Spanish because I need to ask people questions constantly.

Baseball

I knew we were getting close to the stadium when every single person on the street was headed the same direction. In Cuba, baseball is life. Outside the stadium there were people scalping tickets, selling hats, and tons of sweet treats up for grabs. To buy your ticket you wait in a “line” in front of a floor to ceiling rusted blue rod-iron fence. Luckily it was easy to make it to the front without much pushing. I reached my hand in behind the fence adding yet another peso to the already 20 or so being waved in front of the ticket ladies face. She went to grab my peso and exchange it for a ticket, but before doing so looked up and saw that I was clearly not Cuban, bringing the transaction to a halting stop. This is when I whipped out my University of Havana student ID. I paid $0.04 USD for the equivalent of an MLB game. Crazy.

In Cuba there are 16 teams who make up the national league, one from each province and two from the city of Havana. Like the Yankees (yay) and Red Sox (boo) saga in the US, in Cuba rivalries run deep. Los Industriales and Santiago de Cuba have been battling it out as favorites for the national title in a grudge that dates back to the early 1600’s when the capital was moved from Santiago to Havana. In an exciting first inning, Los Industriales took a 5 to 1 lead. They stayed up the whole game eventually winning 8 to 3.

Complete with cheering, chants, booing, horns, yelling, cowbells, posters, people fighting for homerun balls, food vendors roaming the isles, oddly proportioned dancing mascots, bouts of ‘the wave’, and people wearing Yankees hats, in many ways it was like a baseball game in the States. There were some differences… the seating was sets of unmarked benches on raised concrete slabs, the food was cheap (but more expensive than a ticket in), there were no jumbo trons, a sixth inning stretch, no announcers giving play by play updates, instead of balloons blown up condoms were floating throughout the crowd, and in the outfield there in the place of advertisements were signs that read “for peace and friendship” and “The Cuban sport for the road to victory.” Another huge difference is the players’ salaries. Many Cuban players are good enough to play in the MLB but choose to stay in Cuba and earn on average $20 USD a month. Even more so than baseball, patriotism is in the blood of every single Cuban.

The season runs until April, when the playoffs start. I’ll be going to more games for sure, but next time I’ll be wearing my new Industriales hat.

Matanzas

This past weekend was my first excursion outside of Havana. All things considered, the trip was a success. We (Anna, Celine, Gloria, and I) decided on Matanzas because of the allure of taking the old electric Hersey train and because it is only 100km from the city, a manageable distance to navigate back in time for Mondays class pending disaster.

Mr. Hershey (of Hershey PA… home to one of my favorite childhood amusement parks since it was based on entirely chocolate) built the railway to connect Havana, his massive estate and sugar plantation, and Matanzas. Our 5 hour ride lived up to the description in the Lonely Planet Cuba guidebook: “It’s a scenic trip if you are not in a hurry.” As soon as we left Havana the landscape morphed into the picture I have had in my head of Cuba, lush palm littered valleys interrupted with small towns. Looking out the window I finally saw the barefoot kids running down dusty dirt roads, stretches of patchwork farmland, and colorful laundry hanging from lines stretched between sets of thatched roof huts. There are an innumerable amount of small towns along the way with simple concrete slab train stations patriotically decorated with murals of Che and Jose Marti. I couldn’t figure out any sort of logical system that would explain why we blew by some stops and stopped at others. I suppose that doesn’t matter since our stop was the end of the line. Most of the other passengers were Cubans who all got a kick out of me snapping pictures out the window almost constantly. The 2.80 Cuban Pesos (or 11 cents USD) I paid for my ticket was a great investment. Each bum busting bump, mechanical breakdown, and delay due to goat crossings added more of the Cuban character I was hoping to find.

Matanzas was once the cultural center of Cuba. Built with money from a booming sugar and coffee industry communities of white intellectuals and freed slaves flourished. It is where the Cuban Danzon was first performed and also the “spiritual home” of rumba beats due to the large number of Santeria cabildos. Today, it is a city full of slowly crumbling but beautiful old buildings, museums, and historical parks. It’s situated halfway between Havana and Varadero (one of the largest resorts in the Caribbean) so most people just roll trough Matanzas on their air-conditioned tour buses. Two rivers run through the center of the city and others flank the boarders. It is known as the “city of bridges” of Cuba, yet another reason why it made sense for us Pittsburghers to visit. I am, however, still partial to the rivers in and around the ‘burgh.

After again consulting our handy dandy Lonely Planet guidebook, we settled on exploring the Rio Canimar. We walked to the base of one of the 21 bridges to a dock area where we were presented with an assortment of possible boats to rent. I immediately spotted a stack of kayaks. My overwhelming feeling of happiness immediately ended when I had a closer look at the boats and saw that there was no way any of the 7 brittle sun bleached boats would even float. After negotiating prices, we decided on a small motor boat which we rented for an hour. The four of us climbed aboard ignoring the XXXL PFD’s that would literally fall off as soon as any of us hit the water. Besides, who wants a PFD tan line? We assumed this was going to be a guided trip, but after 10 words of instruction, “clutch in push forward pull backwards stay in the middle” we were off on our own. It was magnificent to be surrounded by mangroves and birds instead of concrete and diesel fumes. After a hesitant first few minutes pulling away from the dock in front of an audience, I hit the gas full speed. Once we rounded the first corner and were out of eyeshot of the dock, the only other people we saw during our hour foray into the ‘Cuban wilderness’ were a group of fisherman on the shore and a guy on an obviously self made raft made from only half inflated inner tubes, wood scraps, and twine. The disproportionally loud roar of our 25 horsepower motor made it difficult to spot wildlife, but the scenery (and the truly Cuban style randomness of this adventure) was enough to keep an ear to ear smile plastered to my face.

Back in town it was time to appease the science nerd in me with a visit to the Museo Farmaceutico (Pharmacy Museum). Founded in 1882 by a frenchman named Triolett, this pharmacy was the first of its kind in Latin America. It was open for almost 100 years until 1964 when it closed and was turned into a museum. All of the original equipment is on display. Hand carved cabinets house labeled glass jars of various medications, cast iron molds used to make pills by hand, a stove area with copper vats and huge distillers, glass syringes (thank god for modern medicine), cases of hand written prescription receipts, marble mortar and pestles, and countless other interesting and odd things. We had an amazing tour guide who could explain almost every item in the museum. She was also incredibly patient, spoke slow enough for all of us to understand, and entertained all of our poorly articulated questions as we practiced our Spanish.

Navigating the bus back to Havana was not as smooth as the rest of the trip. Once we made it on the right bus the road followed the coast and it was quite pleasant. To say there was confusion during our attempt to purchase bus tickets is an understatement. The dual currency system, our status as students not tourists, the illogical bus route and pricing systems, and our obviously American accents made it impossible to get a straight answer out of anyone. This issue is a post (or more likely a rant) for another time…

It was extraordinarily refreshing to get out of Havana. There are so many other places I am planning to explore: Vinales, Pinar del Rio, Zapata Peninsula, Trinidad, Island of Youth, Santiago de Cuba, Baracoa, and hopefully some others.

My Address

Emily Pierson
Hotel Universitario
Calle 17, no. 111
Entre L y M
Vedado, Ciudad de La Habana
CUBA

DHL seems like your best bet if you are going to send me something. Keep in mind that it may not reach me... this is Cuba. Much like the internet, you never know if things are going to work.

I'm off to Matanzas via the old Hershey Electric Train tomorrow... should be an adventure... as always

Malecon

The Malecon is the walkway along the sea. The sidewalk is flanked by the ocean and the city of Havana. It’s lined with fisherman hoping to hook dinner, couples taking in the view, and groups of young kinds hanging out. The wall from the walkway to the water is about 15 feet high and the coast is often littered with jagged rocks. At high tide as the waves crash in some spray over the wall making it a game of chance if you will reach your destination with dry clothes.

The weather in Cuba right now is considered cold. Yeah right, not to me. After a short 2 mile walk down the Malecon from our house in the Vedado section of Havana you reach the next neighborhood of Mirimar. Here there is a bridge you can jump off with a way, albeit a difficult way, to climb back up. Of course I jumped, dove, and even once took a running start from across the street. According our fellow Cuban swimmers (who all agreed I needed to “tomar el sol”) this is an extremely popular spot in the “warm weather.” Besides being extremely fun I would much rather wait amongst the locals and take a dive in the ocean for free than to pay the $15 to use a pool at a tourist hotel. I’ll definitely be returning to this spot!