Many are accompanied by a small statuette of the saint and a cardboard box to deposit the quilos.
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 17 December 2024 — In Cuba, every corner has its Saint Lazarus. Bent over, propped up by crutches or moving in a wheelchair, dressed in the jute that characterizes the saint or in the rags of Babalú Ayé. You don’t have to go to the famous Havana sanctuary to find yourself face to face with an old man, a sick person or a beggar.
People are not sure whether this December 17th is celebrated by the Catholic saint who got up and walked, St Lazurus — the beggar with dogs — or the Yoruba orisha. The only thing that is clear is that Lázaro – a name that Cuban mothers often give to their children if the pregnancy was difficult – is synonymous with suffering, and that is never lacking.
Since colonial times, when African slaves mixed their tradition with that imposed on them by their masters, Saint Lazarus was the saint closest to the terrestrial and, therefore, the most venerated; sometimes even above the Virgin of Charity (Ochún) or Saint Barbara (Changó). The drums of his “wake,”as in the song by Bola de Nieve, can be heard from the night of December 16th in any part of the country and the church collection boxes are filled with coins collected throughout the year in homes.
The average Cuban cares little about the theological boundaries between the orisha and the biblical figure. There is no beggar on the island who does not carry a small statuette of the saint and a cardboard box to deposit the
quilos, pesetas and pesos, and sometimes a few bills.
Silent and in the company of these symbols, Cuban beggars rarely really ask for anything. You see them – like the one that on Tuesday was near the Parque de la Fraternidad – hunched over, with nylon bags around him, a bottle with a little soda and some violet piece, the color of Babalú.
The glances, always on the ground or lost somewhere in the street, say it all, like that of the old woman who – cart in hand, jute robe, and a little box with Saint Lazarus on it – was selling oil sitting near a line.
On Rodríguez Street, a “diver” explores a gigantic landfill with his crutch. Reduced to pure bones, another beggar washed his feet in a ditch on Reina Street. It is enough to continue walking through Havana for the list to continue.
In the land of the Lazaruses, the gigantic advertisement on the scaffolding surrounding the old Payret cinema, opposite the Capitol, is shocking. The photographic exhibition Grandmothers and Grandfathers on loan, by Monik Molinet, is the exact opposite of reality. Rosy-cheeked, peaceful, in houses made of slabs and with happy faces, the “borrowed” elderly have little to do with the mistreated Babalú Ayé or with so many Cubans who resemble him.
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