It Must Suck to be a Chicken in Cuba

Yesterday afternoon was so perfect I think we were both delirious by the time we went to bed last night. We laid in bed watching the Grapes of Wrath on TV with Spanish subtitles and playing around with our translation app, realizing it can actually speak the translations. My eyes teared as I laughed over the idea to have it translate, “This elevator is haunted” the next time we got on the elevator with other people at our apartment in Vedado!

This morning we awoke up to the sounds of someone in our house. Laying there momentarily startled we realized it was 8am and, of course, it was probably Michael there to fix our breakfast. We already learned yesterday that the folks here don’t believe in knocking or privacy so we knew that made sense and we could lay around some more before putting on the fluffy pink bathrobes and venturing out to say Buenos Dias. Michael was just putting the final touches on the overwhelming breakfast he prepared for us including baguettes, toast, pastries, scrambled eggs with bacon, meat, cheese, two types of freshly prepared croquettes, a platter of fruit, fresh guava juice, coffee, and tea. It was good but an insane amount of food.

As Michael cleaned up, we sat on the edge of the deck and finished our coffee/tea with the sea. We never did figure out how to actually get down to dip into the beautiful Caribbean so I went inside to ask Michael for directions. “Oh! You want to get in the sea! Right here! So easy!” He led me to the other side of the deck and reached his arm out pointing, right here. I peered down thinking we had missed a ladder or something but still was confused. I didn’t see anything to help us make it safely down the 10 feet. Or back up. Michael sensed my confusion and gleefully showed me, “Easy! Just like that!” as he swung his leg around to the neighbors wall and used a 2” wide crumbling concrete seam as his first step and then about 3 feet further down a maybe 4” wide seam as his next step. No. Fucking. Way. Brandon had been watching from the other side of the deck and came over after Michael had gone back in. I explained the procedure, and how crazy it seemed. “No way. You fall onto that coral and that’s life flight shit,” Brandon declared. There was nothing but hard jagged coral that could break a fall. I was glad we were on the same page of not risking breaking our necks for that sea.

Michael left and would be back at 11am to “check us out.” We got ourselves ready and packed back up. We had a photographer coming to pick us up at 11am for a three-hour photo shoot where we would travel around Havana in a classic convertible. When I was originally going to come to Cuba alone I had planned a photo shoot. I was so excited when Brandon suggested we keep it on the itinerary! As 11am came around we were sad to leave the lovely beach house. Michael arrived back to collect final payment for our “extras” but our driver did not. We were supposed to be checked out at 11 and I could tell Michael was ready for us to get going so he could turn the house, but we didn’t have anywhere to go yet. We also realized that we really should tell our Vedado AirBnB hosts that we did not stay in the apartment last night so they didn’t think something had happened to us when they came in to clean. We asked Michael if he would call them for us since he spoke good English so knew what we were saying and he would be able to communicate better with our hosts. I am so glad we had him call and feel so bad for not calling sooner as they had already gone by and discovered it didn’t look like we’d been back and had already been worried. Oops.

Finally a cherry red 1957 Chrysler Windsor convertible pulled up. Our chariot had arrived! Dayan, our photographer half apologized for being late while lamenting that he’d stopped at three different gas stations trying to get gas, but all were out, and got pulled over by the police on his way here. And we were so far out of town! Dayan was originally going to pick us up in Vedado but was more than happy to pick us up in Santa Fe when I asked. Apparently he had not realized how far it was. He explained that since we had to start so far away our route would be different than his normal and we would end in Vedado, not making it any further east to Habana Vieja. I was crushed. So disappointed. I had really been most looking forward to the backdrop of Habana Vieja, plus we hadn’t made a point to try to make it there yet since we thought we would be going as part of this shoot. I was so distracted with my disappointment that I didn’t even object when he said our first stop would be Fusterlandia. We had already been there! But whatever, I was busy feeling bitter.

I tried hard but struggled to find a real smile at our Fusterlandia stop. I was also realizing that Dayan may not be the wonderful photographer we thought. His vision seemed mundane and he rarely took more than one shot of any given scene. Brandon wasn’t particularly comfortable either. I can’t wait to see how those pictures turn out. I did learn more about the meaning behind some of this art though and Fuster’s tag line that “All you need to pay for love is love.” Hearts are prevalent throughout his works.

I also learned today though that many of his pieces are actually political in nature with murals depicting everything from the birth of privately owned paladares (private restaurants) in Cuba to the war in Afghanistan. One of his pieces is a play on the infamous “Last Supper” and is called the “Last Dinner” since when the government first allowed private citizens to open paladares the rule was that there could only be three tables with four chairs each – so the “joke” was that if a 13th person were to walk in you would be in violation and get shut down. Hence a last dinner painting featuring 13 people along a table.

After Fusterlandia it was imperative that we get gas in that car before traveling much further. It took two stops to find a gas station that had any gas available before we were finally able to wait in a line for close to 20 minutes to get to the pump. As we waited with the hot sun beating down on top of us, Dayan put on some music. Coldplay! But Cuban beat Coldplay! It was fantastic. Throughout the day he played many Cuban remixes for us. I may not like Cuban art, but I love Cuban music.

It was finally time for our next stop, a series of natural pools in Playa. I don’t understand the whole story but something like they were natural pools in backyards of now destroyed houses that used to be where we were standing. Something like that. I was too distracted taking in the beauty around me to listen. This was a theme throughout our time with Dayan. He talked. A lot. And not all of it in English that made sense. A dead duck floated in one of the pools but it didn’t seem creepy, just like it belonged there. I loved the sharp contrast of the jagged concrete amongst the clear blue sea. I hopped around on piles of rocks and fallen pieces of concrete to check it all out. Standing on a little point of concrete against the sea was something special and Brandon and I both finally found our real smiles.

From the pools Dayan drove us across town to the Havana Forest, a beautiful lush green forest in the middle of the congested towns. As we were about to enter the forest on foot, Dayan stopped us very seriously to explain how some AfroCuban cultural/religious customs happen in this forest as it is a sacred area so we need to be prepared to see the carcasses of animals used in these ceremonies as that is simply part of the culture. Hold up! I’m sorry, say what? Immediately I realized that there were chicken feathers strewn all around. Yes, he confirmed, mostly chickens. Yes, we also saw the occasional goat(?) skulls. Bowls and other paraphernalia used in the rituals were scattered all about. As was a lot of trash. The forest was sadly full of both ritualistic remnants and garbage. But it should have made a great backdrop for some pictures!

Next was to Revolution Square. It is what it is. Dayan talked a lot, neither of us listened, he snapped some pictures, and we were ready to move on. As we got back to the Malecon and approached Vedado I was surprised to hear Dayan say it was our last stop, it had only been just over two hours and he had been booked for three. Yes he did do us a favor by picking us up in Santa Fe, but he was late getting us, and then had to stop for gas, so that put him an hour late and he had another client booked right after us. Uh huh. I was not happy about that. Anyways, he parked the car in the middle of the Malecon for our final backdrop. Overall, he was an unremarkable photographer who talked too much but Brandon and I had a lot of fun throughout the day singing along and dancing in the back of the car or making smart ass comments. So we didn’t care too much.

(SIDE NOTE: Since I had to post the blog after I returned from Cuba the pictures from the photographer had already come in so some are included here. We are not impressed. These were the absolute BEST from what he sent us and out of close to 80 pictures we only thought about 15 looked at all decent. Major disappointment. The pictures above are ones we snapped of each other during our session.)

We got back to our apartment in Vedado tired, sweaty, and needing to unpack from the villa. But we didn’t have a ton of time to waste. Our next scheduled experience was this evening, the fortune teller! We were to meet them at a Cafe about 3/4 of a mile from our apartment and they would transport us from there. We needed a snack so we ran downstairs to the little place in the alley behind our building and got another of the ham and cheese sandwiches we had gotten the day before. But this time she charged us twice as much. As she served us our sandwiches with a cigarette burning in her other hand and gave us back less change than we expected we were irritated to be taken advantage of. But this was just another example of what we would face many times on this trip where what you are actually charged is subjective.

We showered and changed into clean outfits. These outfits were actually what we had planned to do the second half of our photo session in but since it was cut short we never changed so we would wear them now. They were good outfits. Brandon’s stomach was starting to hurt as I harnessed the power of offline maps to make sure we had the correct route and we set off on foot to meet Adriana and/or Jose (the experience hosts we had scheduled this with) at the Cafe Galeria Mamaine in Vedado. So just what was this fortune telling we were headed to? According to what we had signed up for, we would learn the importance of the Divination Process in AfroCuban culture and then visit with a Babalawo, the highest priest of Santeria, to learn more about the religion and be given a private reading with the Babalawo to hear about our future. I have always enjoyed readings from psychics and spiritual healings so I had booked this immediately upon planning my trip to Cuba. Brandon was a good sport by agreeing to go along.

We made it to Cafe Galeria Mamaine at exactly the appointed time. But we weren’t sure how to now find Adriana and/or Jose. Nobody else seemed to be there waiting for anyone. We pulled up their pictures from the offline AirBnB archive and saw a woman who looked just like Adriana outside having a smoke. That had to be her. We approached her and asked if she was Adriana. She spoke zero English and gave us a very weird look. Ok, that was not her. We waited some more out front. Nothing. Finally I went back inside and asked the bartender if they knew if an Adriana or Jose was around. They looked at me confused. What the hell?! Back out front we started to discuss how long we should wait and if we would be able to get a refund since we couldn’t find the people. After close to 20 minutes of waiting a waitress came outside to let us know she figured it out. The people we were looking for really were waiting for us out back on the downstairs patio. So this whole time they had been here and we had been waiting out front. Sheesh. She led us through the little bar and down some stairs and there we met Marta, she would be our “guide” this evening. And Sarah, a solo traveler from Australia who would also be doing the experience with us.

Marta gave us a very brief overview of the evening. We would be getting in a car and driving about 20 minutes to the town of Guanabacoa where we would arrive at the home of the Babalawo to learn about the customs, participate in a spiritual cleansing, and then get our readings. The Babalawo did not speak English but Marta or someone else would translate for us. She led us out of the restaurant and to our transportation, the car that Brandon and I had been waiting in front of the entire time out front. We slid into the back seat, alongside Sarah, so I was stuck in the middle. It only took a couple minutes before I was starting to get irritated, the chick from Australia would not shut the fuck up. She babbled, endlessly. She was a know it all, trying to explain to me the best ways to travel from the US. I just wanted to tape her mouth shut.

As we drove out of La Habana it started to rain. We drove by trees that had been leveled by the tornado two weeks prior, I had hoped we would drive through those neighborhoods but we didn’t. Horses and goats were randomly tethered to the side of the road munching away at the grass and weeds. This was real Cuba. Finally we arrived at a little home with metal shuttered windows. We scuttled out of the car in the rain and right into the front room of the Babalawo’s house. What. The. Fuck. The first thing I saw was a little stuffed monkey toy sitting in front of a shrine and staring at as super creepy. I looked over at Brandon and told him he was the best for indulging me. I confirmed that it was ok to take pictures as Marta explained that we actually should have entered through the back half of the little home but they wanted to get out us out of the rain. We would go back there now to start learning about the religions and then end in this room for our cleansing and readings. We did not have to participate in the cleansing if we weren’t comfortable.

We moved through the house and out the back door into a yard with chickens, ducks, and geese scratching about. And a turtle in a little tub. I wondered if any of the fowl would be used for sacrifices in the Havana Forest… it must suck to be a chicken in this country. We would start our lesson in a little shed in the yard, this was the only place where pictures were not allowed. In the shed the Babalawo showed us some dingy blackened shrine and Marta translated the significance. Honestly, I could not follow along at all with what she was trying to explain to us. Something about this little shrine being created when someone becomes a Babalawo. Maybe? It had a metal cylinder that I think she said held treasures inside it with sticks and chicken skulls surrounding it. I was confused and the rain was pounding as thunder started to roll in.

We went back into the house, entering through the back door into the kitchen, with plates of various china patterns hanging from the wall, and were led into the next tiny room. This room held glasses of water with cigars and perfumes, gifts for the spirits. Colorful costume clothing hung from the walls. She explained that the clothing was an example of what people wore when they were inducted as a Babalawo and then they would only wear the outfit one other time that I can’t remember, and then again when they were dead. Interesting. The water and gifts were sacrifices for the spirits and she pointed out groupings of seven to represent the seven different important powers in life. But gave no further insight. I asked what those seven powers in life were and she simply said, “Seven African powers, representing different religious powers.” I probed but could not get any more answers. So I still have no idea what the seven powers are.

Next we walked past the Babalawo’s bedroom and back into the front room where we had originally entered. We were instructed to take seats in a broken down sofa that smelled of body odor. As the Babalawo talked and Marta translated they tried to explain the different shrines around the room, but again, none of it made any sense and I still can’t tell you what they were. The rain was growing stronger and the thunder growing louder. I looked around and realized that a flat screen TV was situated in the corner of the room, covered with a colorful cloth. I felt like they could have tried a little harder to camouflage it. Marta handed us each a coconut bowl that she filled with “fire water,” honey, and lemon juice. We asked what the fire water was and she simply repeated that it was fire water, finally giving us the bottle to look at, but only after she took a swig out of the bottle and then spit it out onto the face of a doll that was part of one of the shrines. With extreme caution we each took a little sip. This was disgusting and tasted like nail polish remover with honey, I would not be drinking it.

Finally it was time for us to have our cleansing done. This was optional and I did not expect that Brandon would want to partake. The irritating Australian went first, then I, and then to my surprise, Brandon got up to do his. I felt bad because I knew he was really uncomfortable and wished I had been clearer in expressing to him that I would totally understand and it was absolutely ok if he didn’t want to. For the cleansing, the Babalawo had each of us kneel, one by one, on a mat, he then put powdered egg shell in our hands and we were supposed to silently express our worries while he prayed over us and whisked our bodies with feathers. We then were to run our hands of eggshell around our bodies before emptying the egg shell out of our hands onto the shrine before us. I took video of Brandon’s cleansing but out of respect for him and his unease with the situation I will not post it.

Then it was time for our readings. These would be done privately with just the Babalawo and the translator. Though Brandon and I were already in agreement that we would insist on staying together. We were happy to let the irritating Aussie get hers first as we waited down the hall at the kitchen table. The thunder was ominous, rumbling the house as it boomed overhead. “My God is angry,” Brandon declared. I told him Allah had given up on me many moons ago. But more importantly, it was important to me to assure him of how much I appreciated him doing this for me and that I recognized how uncomfortable the situation was for him. He’s the best. We sat in the kitchen for about half an hour, listening to the rain, not drinking the fire water in our bowls, and trying to forget about where we were while we chatted.

Finally it was our turns. The Aussie came out and we went back for our readings. Brandon sat on the couch as I took a seat in front of the Babalawo. The reading started with some process, that I of course do not understand, where the Babalawo dropped what looked like a necklace with large round baubles on a wooden board, wrote down a series of numbers, and then repeated the process as he handed me a stone and some large tree nut to shake in my hands and then hide in each fist as he would then instruct me to open one fist at a time. Each time he would take the rock, tap it against the baubles on his board, and then have me lean forward and tap it in my forehead. He would then write down something and repeat the process. This went on for a few minutes, he mumbled the entire time. “You are hard to read,” Marta told me. Finally he was ready for my reading. Marta handed me sheets of plain paper and a pen so I could take notes. The reading was more of a series of warnings. And most were pretty lame. I should think more and be less impulsive. People are gossiping about me and I shouldn’t be so helpful to others. I should make sure not to eat raw beans. I need to be careful with my feet and watch where I step (I asked if this piece of advice was symbolic and they said, no, I should literally watch where I step). I need to be careful not to impulsively slap someone or I could get in trouble. This was the lamest reading I have ever had.

After my reading was finished Marta got up and some man we had not seen before walked into the room. He would be translating for Brandon’s reading instead of Marta. Ok then. Brandon’s reading was even worse than mine as his translator did not speak English as well. Brandon’s cautions were also weird, including a caution that it would not be good to live with extended family again. Well duh. I started to realize how culturally-centric the warnings extolled in the reading were to the culture they know. The translator constantly asked, “Do you understand?!” No, no we don’t because we’re pretty sure that’s the only sentence you know how to actually string together in English. But Brandon kept saying yes, he understood. He just wanted it to be over. And wanted to the guy to stop asking if we understood. I could see Brandon’s sheet of notes and had to stifle laughs as he wrote “BS” and “WRONG” in letters large enough for me to see. I was also ready for it to be over and was irritated at what a waste of good outfits this evening had been.

As we drove back towards La Habana in the rain Brandon asked Marta if she knew anything about the aquarium outside of Havana, in Miramar. We had driven by it with the photographer earlier today and he was wondering if it was worth going. Marta brushed it off saying it wasn’t any good. The Aussie muttered, quite snootily with disgust, “There are better things to do than just go to an aquarium, you’re in Cuba.” My eyes flared with anger at her snotty comment as I squeezed Brandon’s arm. Well, now I understood why the Babalawo warned me not to impulsively slap someone.

Since our apartment was on the way back towards the original meeting spot where they had planned to drop us off we were able to have them pull over so we could get out at our place instead of having to walk back. It was about 7:30pm and we needed to find some dinner. We had walked past many restaurants on our way to the meeting spot earlier so at least we had an idea of where to find food nearby. We also realized that it is nearly impossible to decipher a government owned restaurant from a private restaurant. So much of the research we read was propaganda we realize. Many of the restaurants have their menus posted out front and we found one that looked like it was reasonably priced for the area and had a good selection. We walked in to a large room with three tables occupied and a three piece music ensemble looking downright miserable in the corner. They had a surf and turf combo for two on the menu that included shrimp, lobster, white fish, chicken, and beef. Plus a starter of rice and beans with squash. Seemed perfect. The sauce that the shrimp came in tasted like a pumpkin garlic sauce and was absolutely divine. I dipped everything in it. Brandon commented on his stomach hurting throughout our meal. The grand total for our meal plus two bottles of water, $17. We have an early morning tomorrow and don’t have breakfast arranged so we decided to try to order food to go from the restaurant to take home for breakfast. But we struck out, three different times we put in an order to take with us and each time they came back and told us they were out of the items. Finally we just paid the $17 and gave up. We would make do with the protein bars and nuts we had brought with us.

Walking back to our apartment we found a guy on a corner selling ham sandwiches. Perfect! This would work for breakfast. We bought two to bring home and were delighted when we got back to the apartment and realized we had a sandwich press in the kitchen to warm them up in the morning. Tomorrow we have a car coming for us at 7:30am to take us down to the Bay of Pigs for a guided nature hike in the Zapata Swamp and snorkeling in the bay.