Cuba

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This is Pico Turquino, Cuba's tallest mountain at 6,476 feet tall. This mountain is shown on the map above, on the southern tip of Cuba near Jamaica. It's named for the spanish word for turquoise, turqui, and means Turquoise Peak.

Pico Turquino is the tallest mountain this prominent mountain range, Sierra Maestra in the Oriente province of Cuba.

This is a picture of the Bellamar Caves, formed over 300,000 years ago.

This is Varadero Beach, one of over 100 beaches on the island of Cuba.

The Oyu Oro Dance Ensemble is shown here in traditional dress, preserving their Afro-Cuban heritage.

The cuisine of Cuba is a unique blend of flavors that reflect on their blending culture. These women, in traditional Cuban dresses, honor their heritage.

This painting "Pescador #2" (Fisherman #2) was painted by Roel Caboverde Llacer, an artist from Baracoa, Cuba.

A Wedding in Cuba media type="file" key="Ava Mathews.m4a" width="300" height="50" By Ava Mathews > The procession makes its way down the long winding streets of Havana, Cuba. The bride and groom, Isabella and Marcos sit happily in the back of a 1957 Chevrolet, not a rare sight since the embargo with the US. The family of the happy couple, my host family, walks alongside the car, all in their best clothes. Festive music and excitement fills the air as the large group dances down the road. Though I’m a stranger to most of the people in attendance, they welcome me as one of them and we celebrate as one. As we round the corner, the tiny church looms into view. It is one of the many new churches in Cuba now that the law banning religion has been repealed by the oppressive Castro regime. We enter the church, and the bride and groom take their places. The bride is in an extravagant white silk dress with a long full skirt. The room has been decorated with vibrant colors and beautiful flowers and ribbons. No expense is spared in a Cuban wedding, something that is still standard though the bride and groom make only 225 pesos or $10 a month, at their jobs in food processing factory. Though in some ways Cuba is a good place to live, with health care and education, the economy has been struggling since Castro came into power in 1959. Since then the citizens have had no right to free speech, press, assembly, or a fair trial. All the rights we here in America enjoy every day. > > The ceremony is simple and beautiful. The bride and groom say a prayer and light the unity candle, a symbol that they are united in a long life together as one. Then comes a night of music, food, and dancing. The traditional wedding dance is carried out, where the bride dances with the guests and they pin money onto her dress, so as to help them start their new life. People everywhere are dancing the traditional Cuban dances such as Cha Cha, Salsa, and Meringue. The party continues for several hours, well into the night. I find myself being sucked into the magic and the euphoria of it all. The music spreads through me and I feel lighter, like I could dance all night. I am amazed by the spirit and happiness that the celebration has. Despite their oppressive government, and the hardships they endure in their everyday life, these people still laugh, dance, and celebrate. They let go of their troubles, just for a night, and join in the festivities for this new couple. Finally, when the night is over, we watch the bride and groom drive away with the traditional "Just Married" sign on the back of their car. > “How do you find the money and energy to throw this party?” I ask my host mother, Carmen. She smiles with the wise look of someone who has seen many things in their life, and answers, “//Con ganas, nada es impossible.”// (With desire, nothing is impossible). Coming to Cuba made me realize how very lucky I am to live in America, where my rights cannot be taken away and everyone can live a full and happy life.

media type="file" key="Cuba Narrative.m4a" width="300" height="50" Cuban Melody By: Abby Bordin

The leather soles of my shoes slapped against the rough, uneven bricks of the street. I walked quietly among the natives, nearly shoulder to shoulder with perfect strangers as they lead their Labrador on fraying leashes and chatted with a friend in rapid Spanish. My ears were full, bursting with hundreds of sounds: Latin pop drifting from the window of a high up apartment, the masterful twang of a guitar from a man in his living room. I inhaled deeply and fervently attempted to grasp the details of this alien place.

A picturesque scene of antiquely peeling homes lined my left side, towering buildings of deep red bricks and faded yet lively shades of orange and blue; time peeling off their layers with its slow and purposeful hands. A mere glance to my right and I would've thought myself in 1953; a straight row of automobiles parked nonchalantly on the edge of the curb, shining in the midday sun as if they were the newest, fastest, and best model ever to hit the market.

I crane my neck, searching for the door described to me in a short and concise email: 'forest green with white trim and a pane of dusty glass'. In such a charming atmosphere, I couldn't allow myself to waltz right past it. If I missed this interview, I’d be stuck with copy room duty for months. It caught my eye just as she said it would, awaiting my arrival directly across the street. I made my way toward it; the tiny door wedged in snugly between two neighboring buildings, and pushed it open.

I was greeted into the cafe with the rustic African beats of Oriente music mixed with snippets of conversations and clinking silverware. A woman standing behind the bar noticed me, she fanned herself with her hand while piling her thick black hair on top of her head.

//"Hola, como estás?"// Her voice was light and cheerful, fitting in perfectly with the interior of the cafe. Table and chair sets of wood and twine were stuffed into every square inch of floor space, nearly all seats occupied by somebody sipping on Papaya //Batidos// or devouring an //Empanada//. Cheerfully chatting groups were nestled all the way up to the edge of the white plaster walls; draped artistically with cloth tapestries of vibrant orange, electric yellows and pastel blues, side by side with paintings of street and beach scenes, the sunsets and people of Havana, Cuba.

"//Bien, gracias. Y usted?"// She had approached me from behind the bar, a short woman with toffee colored skin, embroidered skirt dusting the floor. Her hands reached for my face and she planted a kiss firmly on each of my cheeks.

//"Estoy bien, perro el sol... Hay demasiado calor. Gustaria tu que se sentara?"// She had barely taken a step back from me, I felt her breath.

//“////No, gracias. Estoy a la espera por un mujer, Enricua Machado////?”// I tried not to show how uncomfortable I felt, my body begging me to step away.

Her face lit up, //“////Oh! Enricua! Si, si// //ella es de allá.”// She pointed to the corner of the room where a woman sat alone at a table beneath a bold watercolor of a woman’s face illuminated by dancing candlelight.

//“////Gracias, muchas gracias////.”// I made my way back through the café, straight towards Enricua Machado. She was beautiful, her face creased like paper in a way that makes her look wise and knowing but still kind and gentle. She smiled when she took notice of me, making her eyes fold up tightly like she had been waiting a very long time just to meet me.

//“////Hola, buenas tardes////.”// I offered a single open palm, she ignored it and pulled my face to hers, letting her lips graze each of my cheeks.

//“Hola, mucho gusto.”// She sat back in her chair, taking me in, so obviously un-Cuban in my crisp white button down, creamy khakis, and dark sunglasses.

//“////Podemos hablar Ingles, por favor////?”// I could manage about enough Spanish to introduce myself and order a plate of tacos. In order to properly interview Enricua, we’d have to test her English.

“I was just waiting for you to ask.” She spoke with surprising accuracy. For a natively Cuban Spanish speaker, Enricua handled English better than I could ever handle a second language. “Where should I start?” She reached back towards the wall, and rotated her wheelchair to face me fully.

“At the beginning,” I said with a smile, “how did you start in the Revolutionary Armed Forces?” She pondered this for a while.

“Well, let’s see. It was… 1960 when it first started, when everything first began for the Forces. I was only eight years old, and that was around the time my father decided to sign himself and my older brother, Juan, up to fight if the forces ever needed them. My mother died when I was born; so it was just the boys and me. Juan started his training a couple years later, I think he was seventeen then, and my father had to stay home with me. Juan came home twenty-six years old and a sergeant, it meant so much to my father, and I thought I saw tears…” Her slate-colored eyes looked far off, a small smile settled across her lips. “The day I turned sixteen… that was the day I signed myself up.”

She said it so nonchalantly, as if she had just decided to go to the grocery store rather than dedicate her life to fighting for her country. “Was it difficult to be a woman in the army in 1968?”

She looked at me quizzically, as if she had never heard the such a question uttered aloud. “I didn’t start my training until I was twenty-three… what do you mean difficult? Was I made fun of? Mostly by the girls in my class when they found out; in the forces, nobody cared. I had the same class system and pay as all the men.” I was amazed, a woman in the army without being victimized. “Don’t you know about the law?”

“What law do you mean?”

She smiled at me, “We don’t allow that here, you see. To discriminate against another human being by skin or by gender.” She spoke softly, as if explaining to a child, accented voice low and smooth. “Nobody would dare give me a hard time in the forces.” At that point, it seemed so silly, almost ridiculous; how had I been sent to here to write a piece on females in Cuba’s military if to them it was nothing? Countless front pages have been devoted to the women of the U.S. Army, but here the law, like a shield from hatred and prejudice, protects them.

“Was it battle that put you in that chair, then?” I tried to imagine an America more like Cuba. It was only 90 miles away, how hard could it be to envision? No discrimination against the women; none of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell crap, where people came together out of love for their country and nothing else mattered, it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever tried to picture.

“Oh, no, I –”

//“Hola,// //que deseas ustedes////?”// The woman from behind the bar was back, bun sagging slightly in the mid-afternoon warmth, strands of hair flopping into her nearly black eyes. She held a ballpoint pen and a pad of yellow paper at the ready, clearly looking ready to introduce me to native Cuban cuisine. Before I knew it, Enricua was speaking for me.

//“Hola, hola, para mí, voy a tener un orden de las empanadas de pollo con una guarnición de arroz y frijoles de la tabla. Ella tendrá que ... nos dan dos de las placas de empanada, el especial de la casa, ¿sí?”//Words fired from her mouth like a cannon, fast, precise, but calming in her smooth voice. I lost myself in the fluidity of her sentences that I barely even noticed that she had placed an order for me as well; her eyes twinkled, she couldn’t wait for me to try the real dishes. I trusted her, but this leap into unknown racked my nerves ever so slightly.

“Where were we? Ah, yes, my legs.” She showed no signs of remorse or a dampened mood as she gazed at them, stationary in her wheelchair. “It’s not really that great of a story, not heroic or climatic or anything like that.” She paused, as if she expected me to switch subjects or stop her from telling the story. “Well, it was early in November I believe, the beginning of the dry season. It was nice and warm out, cloudless skies, light breeze; but we went out for training anyways, to the shooting range just to keep alert. We shot at these moving targets, little people on metal tracks that squeaked and jittered and smelled like rust. I was walking across the grass to hit the power switch to get them moving and somebody let fire a shot at one of the targets. They missed it by about two feet and hit me square in the back, enough to detach the base of my spine. I got an honorable discharge and that was that.” I could barely keep my jaw from plummeting to the floor, shot by a //companion//?

With a whirl of long skirt and the clinking clattering of silver wear, she was back again, the dark-eyed, hair-in-a-bun woman standing beside me a mountainous pile of food. A great heap of steaming, doughy, turnover-looking items radiated the scent of a thousand spices; beside a steamy pyramid of Cuban //Congri//, intermingling rice and whole black beans with the kick of onion flavor. Enricua gestured to me and then to the heap of foreign food, indicating that it was all right, I was free to taste it.

I reached for one of the fragrant turnovers, she called it an //empanada//, the soft outer shell of dough flaked off in my fingers as I held it in my palm, before I took that first bite. The flavor flooded into my mouth like a rushing river, exploding like a multicolored firecracker in a deep navy sky.

The crust of the empanada melted in my mouth, buttery and doughy to reveal chicken cooked to perfection on the inside. Bathed in tomato, onion, lemon, and chili powder, the meat was the thin line in a //gringa’s// taste buds between overly spicy and bland, the zone more commonly known as heaven. Second bite, relive the experience. Savor the medley of tastes harmonizing oh so beautifully together. I looked up from my plate and past the heroic woman across from me, to the streets of Havana. The children played, the cars gleamed, the sun shone, the rhythms flowed, the houses peeled, the guitars twanged, the waitresses clattered, my shoes clicked, and it all fit together in a sort of strange and beautiful melody.