Category: Ivan Garcia

In an interview published on December 14, 2009 in El Mundo/América, Juan Juan Almeida García told me, “I don’t see the time when Raúl Castro will let me leave Cuba.”

Finally, his wish was fulfilled. On Thursday, August 24, he arrived at the Miami airport, where his wife Consuelo and their daughter Indira were waiting for him.

Cubans often leave the island dressed in white, the color of Obatalá, the Catholic Virgin of Merced, considered the patron saint of captives. But Juan Juan — JJ, henceforth — chose to leave in a red shirt, a symbol of Santa Bárbara and Bárbara, the warrior orisha.

It must have been because in order to travel to receive medical care abroad, he fought a true personal war. The son of the nurse Púbila Garcia and Juan Almeida Bosque, one of the historic figures of the revolution, who died in September 2009, J.J. was denied an exit permit from the immigration authorities for seven years.

A lawyer by profession, J.J. is a kind and cheerful. He belonged to the Cuban counterintelligence. And like other descendants of revolutionary leaders, Vladimiro Roca, son of Blas Roca, number one of Creole community, or Canek Sanchez Guevara, Che’s grandson, J.J. looks more and more like his father all the time.

I met him back in 1984, when we both did our military service in the same unit, in the Havana neighborhood of Lawton, near the Ali Bar, the legendary venue where Benny Moré sang in the 50’s.

We had no direct interaction. J.J. belonged then to the world of the ‘Mayimba’ (senior leaders) and I lived very modestly with my grandmother, my sister and my mother, at that time a Cuban television reporter.

Twenty years later, older and with excess pounds, J.J. and I met again. First in the apartment of the blogger Yoani Sánchez, and then during the presentation of a short film by writer and director Eduardo Del Llano.

Later, we ran into each other several times. We talked about his father and the memories he preserves of the countless occasions that he saw the Castros, together or separately. As much as anyone, J.J. believed in Fidel and his revolution.

Not anymore. Long ago he graduated from military life and became a critic who didn’t mince words about the epic to which his father devoted his life.

In 2009, the Spanish publisher Espuela de Plata published his book “Memories of an Unknown Cuban Guerrilla.” On the cover is a photo of him at age 5, dressed in olive green and with a rifle, standing between Raul Castro and a replica of the yacht Granma. But the most Juan of all the Almeidas still has much to tell.

September 3, 2010

“Until 1959, I went to the bank where I worked in a suit, collar and tie. But when the bearded ones came, it was frowned upon to walk around in a suit, because it was a “bourgeoise custom,” says Jesus, 77, who graduated as a public accountant from the defunct Professional School of Commerce in Havana.

In the ‘60s, the Revolutionary ranks divided themselves into two ideological camps: pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese. But the predominate dress was the Mao look: workers, employees and managers with shirts and work pants, rough cotton, in greys, made in Cuba. “It was warm clothing, but it went with the Russian boots,” remembers Ernesto, 65, a retired worker.

Carlos, 51, a former resident of the Havana neighborhood of La Vibora, doesn’t want to remember the Russian boots. “I put them on when I was awarded a scholarship, but they were crap, they hurt my feet like crazy. You know what we did? We took out the insoles and got them wet, some with water, other’s preferred to pee on them saying it made them softer. The next step was to hammer on them to get the fat out and put them in the sun.”

After Fidel Castro took a tour through the African countries, in 1972, the safari look became all the rage with the men. Nothing to do with anything you would use to go hunting. The safari suits consisted of gabardine pants and a jacket, in ugly boring colors. The jacket had four pockets and the sleeves could be short or long. The leaders tended to wear them at official events and receptions, but also journalists, lawyers, and other professionals adopted the safari suit.

The suit ended up an anachronism. In the end, when someone put one on — usually out-dated, even from before 1959 — people asked if he was going to get married or to get a passport photo taken. The job of tailor is one that almost disappeared after the Revolution.

The television announcers and presenters wear suits and ties, rarely fashionable. And even Fidel and Raul Castro appeared in suits at national events and on trips abroad. And theirs were well cut and designed. And with nice ties.

Since October 6, 2010, a decree signed by Chancellor Bruno Rodriguez establishes the guayabera as “official dress,” compulsory for diplomatic or state ceremonies. Men wear white guayaberas with long sleeves, while women can wear them in any color, in the form of blouses, or long, like a dress.

Although historians cannot agree on its parentage and date of birth, everything seems to point to the fact that the guayabera is a garment one hundred percent Cuban.

It arose in Sancti Spiritus, the sixth town founded by Diego Velázquez, and its creators could have been a potter José Pérez Rodríguez and the seamstress Encarnación Núñez García, a married couple from their native Granada who settled in that region in the early 18th century.

As the story goes, at that time the fabric received from Spain was not adapted to the hot climate of the island. And this couple from Andalusia had asked for some linen, with which Encarnacion styled a wide and comfortable shirt for her husband, with four front pockets to wear over pants.
Nor is their clarity with respect to the name, which could be derived from the word for guava, guayaba, one of the most popular fruits on the island, or it could be from Yayabo, the main river in Sancti Spiritus, because at some point it was called a yayabera.

Anecdotes aside, Cubans have always liked the guayabera and it is in popular use in Mexico, Panama, Colombia and the Philippines. In Cuba it was disappearing from shops available to the public. But it never ceased to be produced and sold in hard-currency stores.

The main brand of the Cuban guayabera is the Criolla. They are made in a workshop located in Old Havana, with a capacity of 100 thousand pieces per year, among them the exclusive Cohiba and Vega Robaina, which are exported to Italy, India and other countries. In Sancti Spiritus there is a Guayabera Museum, which displays examples used by Castro, Gabriel García Márquez and Hugo Chavez, among others.

Mario, an 80-year-old retiree, disagrees with the decree of the foreign minister. “My friend, the guayabera does not belong to any government, it belongs to all Cubans. It’s a shirt that can be worn daily or on special occasions, whatever style and color you prefer. We must not impose it on anyone, least of all by law. Look at this guayabera, you know where it’s from? Miami, my brother brought to me. It is pure linen, it cost $45. Those who have left, they have maintained the tradition.”

Of Mario, of course, his neighbors would say he is “en-guayabera-ed.”

November 5, 2010

It remains to be seen if, in the latest shuffling of the executive furniture by Spanish president José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, the new Foreign Minister, Trinidad Jiménez (Málaga, 1962), will continue the policies set by the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) since 1982, or try something else.

The cardinal sin of the Spanish politicians, as I see it, is to go from the sublime to the ridiculous. From double white to double nine. There are no nuances. The PP is committed to the style of the American west: point the six-shooters at the Castro and growl all the time like an angry neighbor.

The PSOE is blinded by the idea that they are going to court the brothers and turning their backs on the opposition will return better results. From Felipe González, the only thing the Spanish socialist have done that has worked out is the release of the political prisoners. That’s all. But it’s not enough.

In his long period of governing — and no doubt with the best of intentions — González has tried to act as a politician, a friend, and a psychologist to the single comandante. He’s tied to Fidel. And is almost always deceived.

When, in the wee hours of the Havana nights, with their Cohiba cigars and sugar cane rum, Felipe talked to him of openings, reforms, and not adopting Numantian positions, while Castro listened slyly. Then he would take as his motto, that the Cuban Revolution would be the Numancia of the Caribbean.

In the first flight from Iberia, the lawyer from Seville sent him Carlos Solchaga, to counsel the rustic island advisers in the capitalist economy. Castro took note. And Solchanga’s pile of suggestions he applied to what gave him political oxygen and did not endanger his authoritarian power.

Then the Spanish executive sent the uncharismatic José María Aznar. Hardworking and serious, he cleaned up the public finances but he fell under the pretension that the fractious Cuban president would make political and economic changes. During his two terms he used critical discourse and a diplomatic offensive offering no sweeteners to the regime in Havana.

These methods were insufficient to pressure Castro. And then something worse happened. At this stage the dialog with Spain broke off. I heard from a well-informed source, that the government had a grudge against Aznar, which became a pact among the Creole leaders not to make any gestures toward the future presidents of the PP.

Neither with dialog nor with pressure. Nor by screaming about what you think of the Castros to their face, have the Spanish politicians have their desire, to set Cuba on the democratic path.

Dealing with autocrats is not easy. Many Spanish politicians have proposed a change to the status quo on the island. For historic reasons and because, in Spain, Cuba is a topic of local interest.

Now it’s the turn of Trinidad Jimenez, the fifth foreign minister of the socialist government, since Fernando Moran in the ’80s. Her predecessor, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, scored a major political goal in negotiating the release of the majority of the political prisoners, but like a sacrifice play, it didn’t do anything for the Cuban dissidence.

We’ll see what pieces Jimenez is capable of moving. A woman who got away with it. Already she has the dream portfolio. Now she will try to succeed in her work. The Cuban issue could be one. Perhaps the jackpot. But I doubt it.

Photo: Claudio Álvarez, El País

November 9, 2010

Like every Saturday, the small twelve-band radios tuned to Spain’s Radio Exterior. Suddenly I hear the news. At age 89, the director and screenwriter Luis García Berlanga has died in Madrid.

The man who put the gold in Spanish cinema was very well-known and appreciated in Cuba. Cuban lovers of the seventh art had placed him on the altar of the world’s great directors.

I don’t know all his movies, but the four films of his I’ve seen have been enough to immortalize him in my memory: Welcome Mr. Marshall (1963), Plácido (1961), The Executioner (1963) and Everyone to Jail (1993).

The themes of these films are not beyond me. If I had ever had a chance to shoot a film, my style would have been very similar to García Berlanga’s.

The shortwave also brought me another story. Very different. Finally, the Burmese military (any resemblance to the Cuban is not mere coincidence), have freed the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, after 15 years of house arrest.

Her release will not be broadcast on the island, much less in these times of waiting for the release of the political prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003 who do not wish to leave the country. Not to mention, of course, that for the Castro regime she is an “enemy,” equal to other Nobel Peace Prize dissidents: Lech Walesa, Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi and Liu Xiabo.

The news about Berlanga will be broadcast. Perhaps they will remember him in the Film Festival that opens in Havana in a few days, and even mount a retrospective of his work. Despite being inundated with pirated copies of mediocre films, the cult of good films has not disappeared in Cuba.

The celluloid artist never came to hear about it. I’m sure he would have been glad to know that Aung San Suu Kyi may leave her house.

November 15, 2010

When Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer launched themselves at the world with Buena Vista Social Club, “And What Have You Done?” by Eusebio Delfín, it was already one of the favorite traditional ballads. It is among the top 100 best ballads of the twentieth century in Cuba.

In Yucatán, Mexico, they know it by another title: “In the Trunk of a Tree“. It is so popular there that the people believe its author is from Yucatán. It is said that Delfín wrote it in 1924 and its source of inspiration was some verses found on a calendar.

Anecdotes aside, “And What Have You Done?” was my grandfather Quintero’s favorite song. He used to delight in listening to it on his old RCA Victor radio sung by María Teresa Vera, “the First Lady of Cuban Song”.

It is most probable that my maternal grandfather loved it because Eusebio Delfín Figueroa was a neighbour of his. He was also born in Palmira, a town in Cienfuegos some 300 kilometers to the southeast of Havana. Sixteen years separated them: Delfín was born in 1893 and my grandfather in 1909.

Different from the great majority of Cuban musicians of the era, Delfín was white and came from a moneyed family. He went to the best schools and graduated as an accountant. He combined his profession with studies of the guitar and voice. He made his public debut in 1916, at the Terry, the most important theater in Cienfuegos and one of the country’s principal stages.

His love for music didn’t impede his work as director of the Commercial Bank of Cuba. Nor did marrying Amalia Bacardí Cape, daughter of Emilio Bacardí Moreau, industrialist, politician and writer, son of Don Facundo, the Catalan who in 1862 would found the House of Bacardí in Santiago de Cuba. Amalia, a very educated native of Santiago, was the editor-in-chief of her father’s most important work: Chronicles of Santiago de Cuba, published in 1972 by Gráf. Breogán, Madrid.

I didn’t have the chance to hear him sing. Eusebio Delfín died in Havana 45 years ago, on 28th April 1965, four months before my birth. Thanks to Isadoro, age 80, self-taught investigator, I learnt that Delfín was the first Cuban to record a record, in 1923. It was a 78 RPM and of the 10 included tracks, there were three sung as duos with Rita Montaner, “The Unique”, as they called that mulata who came to the world from Guanabacoa, the hometown of Ernesto Lecuona and Bola de Nieve.

According to the guitarist and professor of harmony, Vicente González Rubiera (1908-1987), known in the artistic world as Guyún, despite being a fairly poor guitarist, Delfín was an innovator, replacing the scratch guitar strum playing used until then for accompaniments with a more Bolero-style method. This novel sound captivated the public at once and began to be imitated.

“He had a baritone voice, but his natural interpretation style was widely accepted in the 1920s, among rich and poor, who invited him to sing in their family parties. Eusebio made the guitar fashionable, an instrument that was under-appreciated. As he didn’t need money to live, what he was paid for his performances he donated to charitable works in his province”, Isodoro tells me.

Eusebio Delfín belonged to the Creole aristocracy, but he was nevertheless involved in popular music concerts, along with prominent artists of the time, as the versatile Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes (1874-1944), author of works as diverse as La Habanera Tú, the Yumurí opera, the Dioné ballet and the Anacaona cantata, and a dozen books.

On several occasions, Delfin organized musical raffles to raise charitable funds, collecting more than 200 thousand pesos. A lot of money, given that since 1915, when the Cuban peso was first set as the national currency, it had the same value as the dollar. In addition, from 1955 to 1959, the peso was trading a penny above the dollar.

Under the label Tumbao, in 2004, a CD was released with 20 tracks composed by Eusebio Delfin between 1924 and 1928: And You What Have you Done?, With Broken Wings, What a Mouth You Have, The Cherry, Past Brides, That Mouth, Poor Adam, God Wanted it, Already You’ve Forgotten, Of Course, Far From You, Foreboding, Love Is That All, Heart of Stone, With The Soul, Marisa, Your Blue Eyes, Guajiras, Isabelita Doesn’t Love Me, and Little Blonde, interpreted by the famous Italian tenor Tito Schipa during his visit to Cuba in 1924. It includes two Spanish poets’ poems set to music: With Broken Wings, by Mariano Albaladejo, and The Cherry, by Pedro Mata.

The famous Palmireño is today remembered on the island in song festivals and music composition competitions. One of the three recording studios created by Silvio Rodriguez bears his name and is in Cienfuegos – the other two, Abdala and Ojalá, are in the capital.

For his last song, composed in 1936, Eusebio Delfin gave it a prescient title: Never Again. Two decades later, in 1956, he sang in public for the last time, accompanied by the Sisters Marti. The last tribute he received in his lifetime was on September 18, 1964, seven months before his death.

October 6, 2010

Ordinary people, exhausted from trying to put two hot meals on the table every day, haven’t heard the news they’ve been waiting for. Nor have the opposition, as they await the release of the thirteen political prisoners who have refused to leave Cuba, whose promised release date expired on November 8.

Where the news of the Cuban Communist Party’s Sixth Congress has been welcomed, has been among its militants. Despite the fact that the red card no longer has the charm of decades past, the membership of the only political party allowed on the island remains high at almost a million.

Founded in 1965, the PCC organized its first congress in 1975. Fidel Castro was elected first secretary, and Raul second in command. “In 2006, when Fidel was about to die, his brother took on the duties of the first secretary on an interim basis,” says Felix, 73, a retired militant.

Humberto, a 36-year-old truck driver, thinks that, “in practice, Fidel is still the one leading the party.” Humberto doesn’t understand why, “if in the last he has been making public appearances, it wasn’t announced by the comandante.”

Other people on the street have also noticed that Castro I missed an opportunity, to appear alongside his brother and Hugo Chavez, to make the call for an event of such supposed importance, once that hasn’t happened since 1997.

“It could be that lately, with the changes of time, he’s not feeling well, he’s an 84-year-old man,” says Rosalia, a 48-year-old housewife. According to Mario, her husband, the fact that Raul announced it, “is proof that there are no disagreements among the Castros.”

The question is whether, in the next six months, the militants will decide to keep Fidel Castro as first secretary, or to create a lifetime appointment for their “maximum leader.”

“I trust that his event will not only discuss the economy and define our socialist direction, but also be an opportunity to renew the party,” says the loyal old man, Felix.

As happened in 1991, when the Fourth Congress acted to allow religious believers to be party militants, it is hoped that the sixth will allow gays and lesbians to join. “That would be awesome,” says Ricardo, 42 and homosexual.

Wishes and predictions aside, what is certain is that the organization of the Sixth Communist Party Congress, as critical as it may be for the fate of the county, is not a topic that interests the people. Especially at this time of year.

With December just around the corner, Cubans are already thinking about how to “resolve” the Christmas Eve dinner and the 2011 New Year’s celebrations with family and friends. If their pockets stretch that far, they will buy Spanish nougat and a couple of toys for the kids.

Photo: Robin Thom, Flickr

November 13, 2010

The Cuban generals converted into businessmen felt a morbid fascination with the Chinese model. It was always the “narrative” they shared with their followers on the island. But in 1968, Fidel Castro decided to play the Russian card. After diplomatic disagreements and an aggressive discourse, Havana broke with Peking and bet big on the line from Moscow.

Last night’s Maoist followers hung their heads. One of the fans had been Che Guevara. His death in Bolivia in October 1967, ended the political flirtation with the Chinese. In the civil war in Angola, quiet today, the Cuban soldiers who took part on this conflict for 15 years, supported the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) of Agostinho Neto, the Kremlin favorite, spraying with lead and killing the group of Holden Roberto, financed by China.

When, at the end of the seventies, the soldiers started to enter the corporate playground, with the creation of public corporations like Cubalse, CIMEX pr Gaviota, it was decided to experiment with new economic methods with these companies. The Japanese business model was taken as a guide.

Then Castro’s government wasn’t sympathetic to the direction taken by Deng Xiaoping in the 80’s. In the Cuban media and academic studies of the time, the economic opening of the Asian giant is referred to as “the Chinese treachery.”

When the Berlin wall fell and the USSR was dismantled, heads turned back toward China. The military entrepreneurs who supported the Chinese model laid low. Including speculation that Raul Castro himself is a fan of the strategy followed by the Chinese communists.

For his brother Fidel, the great problem of the Asian model is that it breaks with his public — and devastating — discourse against capitalist production and business formulas. And if they want to copy China, unfortunately, they have to introduce market economy reforms and the worst version of savage and exploitative capitalism that operated in the 19th century.

In addition, the political conditions stand. China could take that giant step, because the United States granted it most favored nation status in the late 70’s. Cuba does not have the consent of Washington. Quite the contrary. The northern neighbor has imposed a trade embargo and has sparked a political and diplomacy battle and a dirty war over the five decades of the Revolution.

With more than 1.3 billion potential consumers, the country is an attractive market for foreign investors. And what really has attracted the world’s capitalists to invest in China are the low costs because of the government’s intentional depreciation of the currency.

Violating every kind of principle and ethics, the Chinese government exploits its enormous working masses, paying poverty wages. In its factories the usual work day is more than twelve hours, with no right to the defense of a labor union and with few labor protections.

China has become a huge factory that denigrates human beings. In pursuit of economic development it has implemented the worst methods of capitalism which, added to the disastrous totalitarian process, has resulted in a two-headed monster, lacking any ideology. With so much internal control and enough money to start a sweeping advance through the world, with the idea of creating a universal Asian empire.

To the generals who run the Cuban economy, it is attractive to take some elements from the Chinese model, so they can maintain power even if there is an economic slump For this, it’s vital to get the embargo repealed and the European Union common position unlocked.

Apparently, this is a political bet on the future economy of the island. Pockets of market economy, with no political or democratic openings. Clearly, the world in this 21st century is different. There is a brutal crisis that discourages investments and open suspicion toward the regime in Havana, which has been branded a cheat by capitalist entrepreneurs.

Obviously, the Chinese model is far from ideal for Cuba. It’s more of the same. Raul Castro’s government can try it. But it’s hard to eat black beans with chopsticks.

November 11, 2010

Sixty-ninth place. That is what Cuba is on the 2010 Index of Perception of Corruption, recently released by Transparency International. It shares the same score, 3.7, with Brazil, Montenegro and Romania. The island fell eight steps: from its standing in 2009, when it ranked 61st with 4.4 points.

When I tell this to Daniel, 39 and unemployed, he says: “They have prepared this report without having set foot in Cuba.” He says this from experience. On land belonging to his family, they constructed a rental house. Three times a week the inspectors from the Housing Institute come by.

Perhaps, the agency that is the champion of corruption on the island. They are on the lookout for any irregularities. If you get caught, they get your money. Daniel already has paid 1,200 pesos convertibles (1,000 dollars) in all kinds of red tape.

The officials are insatiable, they always want more. It has become commonplace. They take your silver and look the other way. Corruption in Cuba is not one bad actor. Is endemic and is rooted in the socialist system.

If you go to trade or repair your dwelling, or build a house, get your wallet out. Through legal channels, simple paperwork could take years. But if you surreptitiously hand over 100 Cuban convertible pesos, dollars or euros, then everything works out.

The personnel working at the Housing Institute usually last in their jobs about as long as the cake lasts at a birthday party. Genevieve, a 54-year-old fat mulata, knows about the threads of handling corruption like no one else. She worked in an office at Housing.

“The traffic with property and land is tremendous. People who leave the country are the central objective of the inspectors. Good homes go into the state’s pocket, they are not given to families who lost their homes in a cyclone. Under the table there are big profits from them; they are almost always awarded to the party leaders or some minister,” says Genevieve, who lost her job in a scuffle when delivering one of those houses.

“Almost all those who work in the Housing office and have decision-making power, are involved in the trafficking of influence and money. A consultant had offered me a large sum for the mansion. When the business seemed all sewed up, some super bigwig showed up who wanted it for one of his mistresses. The mess that resulted cost me my job,” she recalls.

In her passage through the Housing Institute Genevieve got a good home and enough money to open a “paladar” (private restaurant). In addition to providing food, she rents rooms to discreet couples at 15 convertibles pesos a night.

The chain of corruption goes beyond housing. It covers all levels. From the traffic cop who stops you to fine you, and when you “touch” him (give him money) he cancels the fine, to a medical specialist who, after you give him a little “gift”, turns on the CAT scan.

Daniel just does not believe that Cuba occupies “such a high place” in the global report. “Nah, that can’t be. I’m not talking just to talk. I know it for myself.” And every day he is a victim of the leech called corruption.

November 8, 2010

Anyone who claims to be from Havana has visited, at least once in their life, the old baseball stadium in the majority-black marginal neighborhood of Carraguao, in Cerro.

On October 26 it will be 64 years since the Cerro Stadium opened. One Sunday in 1946 it opened with a game between the Almendares and Cienfuegos clubs. At that time the stadium had a capacity of 30,000 fans.

Built at a cost of 2 million pesos, and headed up by the shareholder Bobby Maduro, the brand new headquarters for winter ball in Cuba started with four teams: Almendares, Havana, Marianao and Cienfuegos. Through the gates of the old place have passed the great stars of the national past-time.

From the immortal Martin Dihigo, the first Cuban to enter the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, to Orestes Minoso, Roberto Ortiz — who hit the first home run in the new stadium — Camilo Pascual, Luis Tiant, Pedro Fomental Agapito Mayor, Hector Rodriguez and the spectacular shortstop Willy Miranda, among many others.

Many players from the United States and the Caribbean, which were then stars in the Major Leagues, also played in the sacred precinct of Cuban baseball. The formidable American black pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige, and the man who was later a famous manager in the majors, Tommy Lasorda, drew applause in the stadium of the capital before 1959. Gringo sluggers Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas also stepped on this lawn when they were amateur players.

But not only baseball has been played in the big stadium. In the 1940s club matches were held for Spanish soccer league, such as Atletico Madrid and Celta Vigo, in the early 1960’s, the Brazilian Botafogo. Joe Louis, the “Detroit Bomber” and professional heavyweight champion of the world, fought there against the Cuban Omelio Agramonte.

The Mexicans Armillita Perez and Silverio staged a bullfight there. And an unprecedented event was when Sonja Heine, a famous Norwegian figure skater, performed her show on the ground turned into ice.

In 1957 the stadium hosted the Festival of 50 Years of Cuban Music, with the participation of Cuban artists living in other countries — Antonio Machin was one of them — and foreign guests such as the Puerto Rican Tito Puente and the Chilean Lucho Gatica.

In 1960, Fidel Castro changed its name to the Latin American Stadium. Then, in 1971, following the celebration in Havana of a world championship of amateur baseball, it expanded its capacity to 55 thousand spectators.

The terrain is natural grass, and it is 325 feet (99 meters) down the sides, 380 (106 meters) at the corners and 400 feet (121 meters) across at the center. It is the home of the Industriales, current national champions.

The best players from the island over the past 50 years have played on the grass at Cerro. Players who have hit home runs there include Luis Giraldo Casanova from Pinar del Rio and his compatriot Omar Linares, the most prominent baseball player since the revolution. Also making it theirs were the Santiagan Orestes Kindelan, who hit the longest national home run; Antonio Pacheco and on the mound Braudilio Vinent. Two superb players like as Pedro Antonio Muñoz and José Rodríguez, from the province formerly Las Villas, staged colossal duels with first class pitchers from the Industriales, the ninth Creole baseball logo.

More than 300 Cuban players who have defected played in the “Latino.” Some shone brightly: Kendry Morales, Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez and Jose Contreras. Others shook their legs to leave the ring. The All-Star lefty Aroldis Pichert Chapman, who now earns millions with the Cincinnati Reds, batted freely on the capital grounds.

In its 64 birthday, the old stadium in Cerro is worse than ever. The terrain is pretty bad. Its ability to drain after a heavy rain has deteriorated. And the roof is in a deplorable state.

The artificial lighting is terrible. Several towers are rusted and useless, presenting a danger of collapse. In the last year, the Industriales team has not been able to play at night. This prevents many fans, who have to work in the day, from coming to see the best club of the last half-century Cuba.

Photo: judithsweet, Flickr

He closes his eyes and sees himself with a bouquet of flowers, the white wedding veil and an 18-carat gold ring on his right index finger. And more. Roberto, 38, a gay hairdresser, wants to be married with all the trimmings, with children serving as pages and, as he emerges from the Havana Wedding Palace, people throwing rice. Lowering his voice he said, “My dreams is to be married by the church.”

And it is not only gays like Roberto trying to get homosexual marriage legalized in Cuba. Every night, in the dark street that runs parallel to the Malecon, queers of every kind and age gather to chat, flirt, drink rum and let their imaginations soar. They feel they are in their element.

For some time, the stretch between Maceo Park and the start of 23rd Street, La Rampa, has become the largest gay club in Havana’s nightlife. Those who are barely out of childhood, like Arturo, 14, who have left school to live off sex. Or Raimundo, 61, who defines himself as “an old faggot, unhappy and suffering, who hasn’t given up on finding a stable partner.”

Roberto the hairdresser also goes there. It was just a night this August when he met his current partner. “I feel very comfortable on the Malecon. My life did a complete U-Turn. To be hunting dicks on October 10 Street, to have a place to share and talk about our frustrations and aspirations. It’s very comforting.”

Among the dozen homosexuals I consulted they all agreed that the good manners with which the government treats them lately should be applauded. Even the police, they assert, have left off with the bad treatment and beatings. They see Mariele Castro, daughter of the general and president Raul Castro, as an icon. “She has done a lot for us, the queers. Now we have a gay pride day, May 17,” says Yasmani, a 25-year-old nurse.

Ruslán, 21, with his hair in spikes and wearing a T-shirt with gold letters from Dolce&Gabbana, wants to be a haute couture fashion model. “We go to gay parties and every month we organize fashion shows in a theater, without police interference. We see homophobia in their looks, but they don’t repress us. When they look at us like freaks it’s like anyone, and sometimes they insult us.”

But the twelve gays I interviewed want more. They summarized it in three demands that are essential to them: allowing legal marriages and adoption of children; the ability to occupy senior management positions or head up companies; and allowing them to have their own union, association or party.

Roberto doesn’t ask for too much. “I don’t see myself, a sissy my whole life, sitting in parliament discussing important topics, nor with a Cuban Communist Party card in my bag. That will not happen, nor do I want it. If they don’t let dissidents into their Party, I don’t think they’re going to let us have our own, even though there are more of us than there are dissidents.”

What the barber wants is to marry his boyfriend before a notary and in style. Better still if it were in a church. The other, he says, is asking too much.

Photo: AP. Day Against Homophobia Celebration in Havana, May 2010.

November 6, 2010

Right now, many Havana residents are sending up last minute prayers that the hurricane won’t hit the city. The hurricane season, June 1 to November 30 this year, has been gentle with Havana. Thank God.

The capital of all Cubans has an infrastructure of tears. The Fourth World. The ancient buildings in the old part of the city crumble under moderate intensity downpours.

Most are held up by a miracle of physics. Decades of lack of building maintenance has resulted in Havana suffering more than it should from any natural phenomenon.

Avenues and streets are overflowing from a persistent downpour. The sewers are clogged with vegetation, or don’t work at all and collapse in a few minutes. The exposed electrical wiring decomposes in the wind, with gusts exceeding 35 miles per hour.

‘Paula’, the latest tropical storm, insignificant in terms of strength, caused 48-hour blackouts in various locations around the city. The Havana seafront is in urgent need of repair. Winds from the north or bad weather cause severe flooding that affects residents in the areas of Vedado and Centro Habana.

For a habanero, the worst that can happen at this time is a late hurricane. Otherwise, it’s the best time of the year. There is not the usual stifling heat. The nights are cool, the mornings bright and full of possibilities, the sun bearable.

True, the skyrocketing number of beggars are crowding out and bothering passersby in the main streets, parks and squares. And public transportation is going from bad to worse.

In the fall there is a more active cultural and sporting life. Although theaters are few and most are damaged and lack air conditioning. Like the movies theaters. Of the 300 theaters in Havana in the ’80s, in 2010 only around 40 remain. Almost all are rickety, the seats broken, the ushers lack lights, the bathrooms are as dirty as can be. Still, the cinemas of the city are preparing to receive a flood of people when, in early December, the curtains rise on a new edition of the Latin American Film Festival.

Also in the fall baseball season begins. Without a doubt the greatest show there is in this country. There will be about 50. And the government and the relevant sports federation intend this year to be the highest quality in half a century. I doubt it. With a Pleiad of young talent taking to the road to the American and Latin American major leagues, the old Cerro Stadium, in a critical state, does not augur a high quality season.

La pelota, “The ball,” as Cubans call baseball, and movies are still within reach of everyone. The entrance to the cinema and stadium costs ten cents. Outside, five pesos (0.25 cents) buys a package of popcorn… so let’s entertain ourselves!

The worst part of attending any event for most people comes when it’s time to catch the bus to go home. The next day, when the excitement of the game or the film is over, routine returns: the lack of hard currency and the headache of trying to come up with two hot meals a day, or a snack for the kids to take to school. We Cubans are already used to that reality.

Despite fears of a sudden storm, the evident deterioration of the city, the legion of beggars and a government that has spent 50 years ago shouting from the rooftops that this was “a revolution of the meek and humble,” I recommend a visit to Havana in the fall. It’s the best there is.

November 5, 2010

There is a bit of a soap opera in the life of Omara Portuondo. The diva of the Buena Vista Social Club was born on October 29, 1930 in the Havana neighborhood of Cayo Hueso. Her mother, Esperanza Peláez, belonged to a rich family of Spanish ancestry, and hoped she would marry a white man, solvent and with a high social position.

It didn’t happen. She ran away with a tall, handsome, baseball-playing black guy. In the society of the time it was a sacrilege. Then they lived a romance right out of the movies. To her parents and friends she hid her marriage to a black man. If the couple met on the street they didn’t look at or greet each other.

His name was Bartolo Portuondo and was a world-class baseball player who played as an infielder in the Negro Leagues in the United States between 1916 and 1927.

Bartolo also dabbled in the winter baseball classics in Cuba. The father of the future “girlfriend of feeling” was born in the province of Camagüey in the 19th century. He was a friend of the national poet Nicolas Guillen and a lover of good music.

From her childhood, music was a daily occurrence in the Portuondo home. Lacking a gramophone, her parents sang songs and their three daughters who, bewitched, listened from their small wooden chairs while they ate.

At age 15, a teenager, Omara broke into the world of sequins. She tried her luck with dancing, following in the footsteps of his sister Haydee, a member of the prestigious dance company of the Tropicana cabaret.

Much later Omara would recall, “It was a very elegant, but it made no sense for me. I was a shy girl and was ashamed to show my legs. ”

Her mother persuaded her not to let the opportunity pass. And so she continued, beginning a career as a dancer who came to form a partnership with the famous dancer Rolando Espinosa.

But what really belonged to her was singing. Weekends, alongside her sister Haydee, she sang American jazz with Cesar Portillo de la Luz, Jose Antonio Mendez and the pianist Frank Emilio.

Suddenly she was overcome by the feeling. When she debuted, at the end of the ‘40s, on the radio, she was presented as “Omara Brown, the girlfriend of feeling.” The name stuck, but not the nickname in English.

In 1950 she was part of the Anacaona orchestra, composed of women. And in 1952, again with Haydee, she joined with a couple of mulatas with the voices of goddesses, who would later become sacred cows in the Cuban singing world: Elena Burke, the lady of feeling and later the mother of Malena Burke, and Moraima Secada, the aunt of the Cuban-American singer Jon Secada.

Accompanying them on the piano was Aida Diestro. The Las D’Aida Quartet made history. They recorded an album with RCA Victor and shared the stage with giants like Edith Piaf, Pedro Vargas, Rita Montaner, Bola de Nieve and Benny Moré.

They also accompanied the fabulous Nat King Cole, when he performed at the Tropicana cabaret. As a soloist, Omara accompanied Ernesto Lecuona, Isolina Carrillo and Arsenio Rodríguez, among others.

Her debut solo recording produced with Black Magic was recorded in 1959, the same year that Fidel Castro took power. Three years later, they were on tour in Miami with Las D’Aida Quartet when the missile crisis broke out.

They returned to Havana. Portuondo continued with the group until 1967. Since then she has sung solo, and sometimes, she shares her voice with other performers, as in 1970, when she sang with Aragon Orchestra. She has successfully participated in international festivals.

Omara Portuondo is a versatile performer. She can sing both the rumba and the guaguancó. From a bolero to a ballad. Or a cappella. She is complete. Her version of “She was giving birth to a heart” by Silvio Rodriguez is proverbial.

She has swing, technique and heart. Anyone who has heard her sing boleros knows what I mean. When she sings “Twenty Years” by Maria Teresa Vera she calls forth tears from old men. And not so old men.

When the German Wim Wenders and the American Ry Cooder were traveling through the dirty slums of Havana, in the sidecar of a Russian motorcycle, looking for forgotten musicians for the album and documentary Buena Vista Social Club, they always had in mind a diva. It couldn’t be anyone else but Omara Portuondo.

With Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, and the pianist Ruben Gonzalez, she went around the world and won several Grammys. The last, in the Latin version of 2009, for the best tropical album.

At 80, Omara has not given up. Go, pearl. She is one of the essentials of Cuban song. Her voice is still lush, as it was in those days when she sang with her parents in the living room.

In Cuba, many things are lacking. But we have Omara Portuondo.

October 31, 2010