Putting the "Mata" in Matanzas: Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Friday morning greeted us with chilly weather and a day full of God-knows-what. Breakfast was at 8:30, which was complimentary (complementary?) with our stay at the (two-star) hotel. Each morning I ordered a cheese sandwich, and each morning I was given a ham and cheese sandwich. Each morning the waiter took it back, then returned a few minutes later with the ham removed.

We all piled onto the bus (after being scolded for being a couple minutes late) and headed to the first destination. It was a theatre in the middle of Matanzas, which we were presumably to tour. The theatre was closed, as no theatre is ever open that early in the morning. Cornelius did not feel the need to look this up beforehand, so we sat in the bus waiting for the information to be gathered. We then left.

Second on the "schedule" was the pharmacy museum. Standing in the entrance of the museum, the professor chatted with the woman in charge, asking her the basic information which could have easily been found out before dragging fourteen people there. Fudge then turned to us, saying (in front of the museum woman) "It costs 3 CUC to get in. I know I want to see this, but if you guys don't want to pay the entrance then let me know." We all stood there, rather shocked, because we had been told before that all expenses would be included in the trip. Concluding that this expense was a bit much to spring on us suddenly, we decided not to go in. This was when the museum woman consulted with one of the other museum workers, and eventually reached the deal that we would get a tour of the museum then afterward would pay what we were able. Okay.

The pharmacy was interesting. It was completely preserved to look like an original 19th-century pharmacy, and had all of the medicine ingredients there. Mostly it reminded me of potions class in Harry Potter, so I was pleased about that.


Whilst standing by a knee-high table displaying mortars and pestles, Cornelius Fudge wanted to take a picture. Apparently I was obstructing his view of the display, so he felt the need to merely mutter "Um, Megan," then shoved me out of the way. Then proceeding to take his photograph, he muttered, "Yeah." He then chuckled to himself as if to make this into a joke. Ha. Ha.

Next on the "schedule" was the seminary. We arrived there, looking around, and asked Cornelius what we were to be doing at a seminary school. "To be honest, I don't really know," he replied. Glorious. What we did end up doing was sitting around waiting for the seminary guy to show up, as he would not be ready for another 15 minutes. The grapefruit-face tour guide decided that this would be a good time to entertain us with his extensive repertoire of card magic tricks. Joy.

The seminary man was nice, and we learned a lot about the school. I felt like we were on a college tour, learning a lot about the institution, with dates and facts and all that jazz.

Next on the "schedule" was lunch. Our illustrious tour guide brought us to a rest-stop area with a restaurant sitting atop a high hill. The restaurant was outside. It was windy, and it was miserably cold. The meal ended up taking over two hours because the service was so slow, and I wasn't able to eat anything because the only food available all contained meat. After about 45 minutes waiting for the food to arrive, Courtney and I decided to sneak out to the restaurant that was next-door to see if we could find anything that I could eat. I ordered some spaghetti without the ham and cheese which usually is sprinkled on top. The conversation following was in Spanish, but I'm too lazy to write it out in both languages.

Courtney: Can we get this to go?
Girl at counter: What?
Courtney: Can we get this to go? Like in a box or something?
Girl at counter: What?
Courtney: Do you have any boxes we can put this in? We're with a group, and they're all eating at the other restaurant over there, and we wanted to bring this back there with us.
Girl: We have plastic bags.
Me: Uhhh.
Courtney: Uhhh
Me: Would I be able to eat this on the plate over there then bring the plate back?
Girl: No.
Me: Hm, okay.
Girl: We have plastic bags.
Me: Okay, let's do this.

My order was then dumped into a plastic grocery bag, which we grabbed quickly and ran to the other restaurant with, laughing so hard we could barely contain ourselves. The spaghetti was disgusting and, surprisingly, tasted like plastic.

We spent over another hour in the restaurant, miserably cold. The majority of my lunch comprised of saltines. The other students' lunches weren't much better: bloody, undercooked chicken. Yum.

The rest of the day was decent. We went back to the hotel, and Harry Potter was on HBO (with Spanish subtitles, so we could even listen in English) and we napped. Life was good. In retrospect, we decided that that was the best part of our weekend.

TO BE CONTINUED.

(Just making sure everyone knows that you can click on the pictures to see them bigger!)

Putting the "Mata" in Matanzas: Chapter 1

The following is the first installment in a series of entries regarding the 4-day trip to Matanzas.

A couple weeks ago we decided that it would be fun to assign Harry Potter characters to the people present in our Cuban lives. We successfully found matches for quite a few, including (but not limited to):
Dr. Retamar (Head of Casa) - Professor Albus Dumbledore
Maria - Professor Minerva McGonagall
Chino - Sirius Black
Professor Víctor Fowler - Professor Mad-Eye Moody
Gerardo - Arthur Weasley
Sonya - George Weasley
Courtney - Fred Weasley
Steph - Ginny Weasley
Professor Brown - Remus Lupin
Chelsea - Hermione Granger
Me - Nymphadora Tonks

There are others, to be sure, though some are less flattering comparisons than others. Why do I mention this? Well, because the past weekend has been spent in Matanzas, a province to the east of La Habana province. All of us were looking forward to this trip, not realizing what a logistical nightmare we had ahead of us. You see, the man who organized the trip is much like the character Cornelius Fudge (with a little bit of Professor Lockhart mixed in too).

Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, is, above all, a politician. Prominent among his talents is the ability to convince himself that a problem may be solved by avoiding its acknowledgement. Also impressive is his raw determination in the ignoring of the wants and needs of all other human beings beyond his own.

Our trip to Matanzas began on Thursday afternoon. Piling onto a tour/short bus, we delighted in the possibility of a couple hours' relaxation whilst listening to our iPods. With only a commute on foot each day, we all look forward to trips in buses that afford us some time to listen to music and simply watch what passes our windows. Along with the short bus, however, we found that a funny little man in a Canadian Tuxedo accompanied us. Sporting an unfortunate face which makes me think of that line from the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," in which one of the characters is described as having a face "as honest as a grapefruit."

This man had a face as honest as a grapefruit.

He also had a microphone.

Silently we all began to grieve the loss of those precious, music-listening hours we had looked forward to all week, and resigned ourselves to hearing about the José Martí shrine, the history of the revolution, the national plant (La Palma Real), the national bird (I have chosen not to remember its name on principle), and the meaning of the different colors of the license plates on Cuban cars. Abandoning social decorum, most of us put our headphones on after about twenty minutes, drowning out the monologue.

At the end of the bus ride, we were walking toward the hotel when Sonya asked our Cornelius Fudge a simple question.

Sonya: So what is the room situation?
Fudge: Huh?
Sonya: Are we being assigned rooms?
Fudge: Uhh, well, uhh, uhh.. they're double. Double.
Sonya: Well, yeah, but I mean, who are we rooming with? Is that assigned?
Fudge: Uhh, umm... make sure you room with someone you like!

This did not answer the question. This merely avoided it. This was the first indication that our leader had not a clue what he was talking about, and wasn't ready to admit this.

Okay, I lied. This certainly was not the first indication, but it IS the first indication that I can remember in detail enough to recount.

So, we go to our rooms. Steph and I ended up rooming together after we figured out that we were allowed to choose with whom we were staying. Good. Then when it was time for dinner, we all met down in the lobby. There's a cute stray dog that stays in the lobby area, and I named her Eloise because of this. I was petting Eloise when Cornelius Fudge came up to me, saying, "This dog try to sniff your butt, too?" presumably in reference to the dog we had seen the day before that did, in fact, sniff people's butts. This is because it was a dog, and that's what dogs do. But this comment was shocking, and I chose not to reply.

Dinner was interesting. There were several courses (of mediocre Cuban food) and flowers on the table for an extra flourish. Following the meal was a Cabaret performance featuring underfed Cubans shimmying on stage half-naked. It was all very sad, and rather depressing. It was also a little creepy. (Oh, and the MC was wearing a hat with a Jamaican pot leaf on it.) All of this was outside, and we found out the next day that the temperature had been 45 degrees, and we certainly did not have winter coats (the majority of us with only flipflops to wear, for example). For several hours we had to sit outside to watch this show. The best part? The dinner and show cost so much money that, even though we had been told previously that dinner would be included in the price of the trip, no other dinners were now to be paid for. Fudge had blown the entire budget on an excessively extravagant meal, leaving us to pay for our own dinners for the rest of the trip (and, of course, did not even own up to this fact). The rest of the evening was relatively uneventful, or seemed to be from my perspective as I struggled to stay away and keep from shivering too hard while the dance show went on. I heard later the Fudge had tried to pocket the complementary bottle of rum for himself.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Farewells & Photos

Dearest fans,

Today I am leaving for a trip to Matanzas. I will return to Havana on Sunday evening. Until then, I highly doubt that I will have the internet (but have no doubt that I will have adventures worthy of sharing).

Here are some photos from the past few days. Including some the national botanical garden, the beach on Sunday, and our field trip yesterday to the gardens in the 'burbs. Enjoy!

Denim + Denim = Fun For Everyone

Changes in weather bring out the effects of one's internal instincts, their biological core's messages. On rainy evenings one can find earthworms struggling in puddles as they have moved to the pavement from the soil. In anticipation of a snowstorm, birds frantically gather food to withstand the oncoming crisis. Humans are much the same way, revealing their own vulnerability through changes in weather. On a rainy morning as the earthworms squirm, sorostitutes (sorority prostitutes) are seen traipsing down Boston sidewalks sporting Burberry rainboots, ecstatic to sport their impractical purchase whenever appropriate to the weather.

In Cuba, as a cold front moves in, temperatures plummet to frigid depths, reaching an unbearable 60 degrees fahrenheit. The sea-breeze is overwhelming, driving Havana natives to search for shelter out of the wind, huddling desperately in order to avoid frostbite. Instinct drives them to curious rituals, most notably excessive complaining about the cold, and the Canadian Tuxedo.

The Canadian Tuxedo is not meant as an affront to any of the lovely individuals residing in Canada. It is merely the term for outfits which feature both denim pants and a denim jacket. Considered the epitome of tacky fashion choices, (second to fannypacks and spandex, also both common here) the Canadian Tuxedo is generally avoided in the United States, and as such, this American writing has not had the opportunity to observe many of them in action. In Cuba, however, I have seen so many that a CTC (Canadian Tuxedo Count) accompanies many mornings' walks to class. The most I had seen was eight, and this was on one of the more frigid days.

Today was rather chilly, the highest temperature reaching approximately 65 degrees. The walk to class proved fruitful, and the CTC had already reached 11 before Siglo class. Already it was the best day ever.

We ended up going to the 'burbs to see some examples of individual gardens for permacultura movement in Cuba - this is meant to encourage the people to find a balance with their environment, feeding themselves from their crops, and helping to improve the environment by cutting down on the transportation required to bring produce to their local co-ops. This trip proved thrilling as it gave me more opportunities to seek out Canadian Tuxedos. From the humble Casa van, I saw many variations on the look: the classic medium wash denim jacket and matching pants, the tailored jean jacket with a jean skirt on the ladies, a light denim jacket with dark denim pants, and many others. Of course there are rules regarding the CTC, as established by the conductors of this count themselves. Though quite impressive, those sporting white denim cannot be counted as a true Canadian tuxedo. Acid wash is acceptable. Varying levels of darkness between articles of clothing is not only acceptable, but is encouraged. Creativity is revered. Blue hats are considered the ultimate accessory for the CT; like a formal tuxedo when accompanied by a top-hat, the CT has reached its potential with a blue head adornment.

By the end of the trip, the van pulled up in front of our building and I felt triumphant. My modest estimate that afternoon had hovered around 80 CTs, as the sun became more prominent, and the temperature was rising to the upper 60's. This increase in warmth was distressing, as I pictured Cubans all over the country shedding their denim jackets, leaving their jean pants woefully unaccompanied. Fortunately, I was wrong. As I removed my cardigan, the Cubans continued to wear their jackets proudly. Surpassing all previous estimates, the final count reached the illustrious number of 122.

122 reasons to love today. 122 reasons to smile. 122 reasons to never take fashion advice from a Cuban.

I took a few photos, but have concealed their identities in order to protect the innocent. After all, this isn't their fault. They just haven't been educated. (I'm not sure if I blame the embargo or not...)

In Cuba, there is no awkward. Everything is awkward.

Let me begin by saying that there is no Spanish equivalent for the word "awkward." Though there are similar terms meaning "clumsy," "uncomfortable," and the like, there is nothing to quite describe a typical awkward moment. This is made most devastating in interactions with the fine young men of Cuba, who never seem to disappoint in their awkwardness, or our awkwardness with them. Examples abound.

1. One day at the dinner table Courtney got a chill, and visibly shivered. Chino saw that, and (in Spanish) said to her, "Oh, there are dead people talking about you." This is presumably the equivalent of our superstitions involving burning ears or itching noses. What was truly awkward about this was Courtney's reply, in monotone, grave Spanish, "ME. HAN. ENCONTRADO." Instead of jokingly replying "Oh, they found me!" she made it sound like the dead spirits had searched her out, found her, and are now going to carry her away into a pit of despair. Chino was unsure how to respond, and stared at her silently before walking away.

2. We were out dancing the other night, and one of the Cuban guys that we hang out with, Ruben, once again felt the need to try to teach me to dance (I'm beginning to think that the Cubans don't appreciate the robot, the hula-hoop, and the shopping cart dance moves...). I've met Ruben several times, and know Ruben's name, but because Ruben is Cuban, he has been unable to remember my name. So, while we were dancing (and he was becoming increasingly frustrated with my incompetence at a simple two-step) he asked me my name. The conversation went as follows:
Ruben: ¿Cómo te llamas? What is your name?
Me: Megan.
Ruben: Megawerjktn?
Me: Meh-gahn
Ruben: Meh-gahn
Me: Sí.
Ruben: Me llamo Ruben. My name's Ruben.
Me: Sí.
Ruben: Solo amigos. Only friends.
Me: Erm, sí. [I was unaware that introducing oneself implied that we were to become more than friends.]
Ruben: No hay problemas porque somos solo amigos. There aren't any problems because we're only friends.
Me: Oh, um, sí!
Ruben: No problemas, solo amigos. No problems, only friends.
Me: Sí.
Ruben: ¿Hablas español? Do you speak Spanish?
Me: Un poco. A little bit. [Hoping to abruptly end this discussion.]

Such conversations as this are as bewildering as they are entertaining in retrospect. Poor Ruben apparently suffers the burden of having every girl he speaks to fall in love with him. Oddly enough, I am not one of those girls. Also slightly confusing is that after conversing in Spanish, Ruben feels the need to ask me if I know Spanish. Makes you wonder what would occur if I answered him saying, in Spanish, "Nah, I took French in High School."

3. Chino just brought Honorio somewhere to show him a possible place that his family can stay in when they visit him here, and so the two got on Chino's motorcycle. Honorio was unsure of where to hold on, so he put his hands on Chino's shoulders. This was when Chino kindly asked him to not hold onto him, as he has a reputation to uphold, and cannot be seen with a man touching him.

This is both hilarious and confusing in that he would 1. go out of his way to say this, and 2. that this would be an issue at all. Cuba is the island of bro-love, we decided about a week ago, because of the PDA shown by men all the time. Oh, Cuba.

4. Some of the girls went out with members of the national water polo team after meeting them at the beach one day. True to awkward form, each guy picked out a girl that he automatically assumed was his soul mate. The one that picked Steph was dancing with her when he asked, in Spanish, if he could kiss her. She answered, "No, gracias." And then he asked her if she understood what he was asking her. "Yes," she answered. "I'd just really rather you not."

5. Another one of the water polo boys chose Sonya to be his soul mate. They ended up going to the movies last week and saw a film. Said water polo boy generously felt the need to translate all of the words in the movie because it was in Spanish. The only problem with that was that he only knows Spanish, so ended up repeating everything every character said back to Sonya who sat there struggling to just simply watch the movie and hear what was going on, because she constantly had him talking at her. At one point, one of the characters slammed a door, and the water polo boy turned to Sonya to report, "She just slammed the door."

-

I'd continue with more of these awkward stories, but there's just not enough time in the day to write them all out. I will conclude by saying that I did my laundry today, which is very exciting. And I made my first cup of tea since being here (with fake milk, of course!).

Mostly birdpants, and also some commentary.

Today the gang got carted to Cojímar, a beachside town outside of Havana. We were told that we were going to tour a "project" there, leaving us wondering if we were going to be:
1. watching people doing a project
2. doing a project ourselves
3. visiting the projects
4. doing a project in the projects
5. watching other people do a project in the projects

Turns out, we were just going to see the rural set-up for communism. The place that we visited was the town's co-op, the place where people get their rations, and other community stuff goes on. I'm still not entirely sure what they do, but they were friendly, so that was good. They also talked a real lot about these "pantapájaros" that they make, which was fascinating, of course, but also rather dull considering that I had no idea what an pantapájaro was. While we were sitting and listening to the woman describe the pantapájaro project I pulled out my notebook and wrote a note to Courtney that said: "pantapajaro?" Courtney read this, then whispered, "BIRDPANTS?!" thinking that I was pointing out someone in our vicinity who was sporting birdpants.

This provided a fantastic visual of feathery pants, (perhaps big-bird-esque?) but still didn't seem quite right. The thought of the population of Cojímar being provided with feathery, colorful birdpants by the government was as delightful as it was improbable. I then asked Honorio, and he said that they were actually saying "espantapájaro," which means scarecrow.

I took the liberty of making a rough sketch of said avian fashion pieces.

So, after the lady stopped talking we then had to watch a slideshow of snapshots from past scarecrow shindigs that they've had. This was stunningly boring, and devastatingly devoid of birdpants. People make scarecrows, name them, hang up signs with the names of the scarecrows, then, evidently, pose by their scarecrows for terrible photos that'll be added to the slideshow.

On the plus side, they gave us coconuts! For some reason, the man passing out the coconuts felt the need to give me an abnormally large one that had the fabulous feature of a hole in the bottom of it as well as a hole in the top! This led to a lap of coconut juice. (Oh, and coconut juice is a diuretic. Fun fact that we all learned through experience!)

I took some pictures of coconut time, naturally, abandoning my obese, leaky coco on the ground briefly.

A few happy coco campers, blissfully unaware of the lack of bathrooms in the area:
and one photo that I snapped before the tambor began this afternoon:
The lofted ceilings, beautiful tile floors, and ornate gates on the windows still have such an elegant feel despite the lack of upkeep. I can't even imagine what it looked like in the 50's, politics aside.

Deliciosos Del Mar

At lunch at the restaurant Deliciosos Del Mar I decided to take a picture of the absolutely DELICIOUS commie pizza that only exists in Cuba. The cheese is plastic, and the sauce tastes oddly like barbecue sauce.


And Danny got some fish & rice:YUM.