Stumbling along the streets in Havana, carrying a 4×5 Speed Graphic on a tripod from one corner of their tightly, claustrophobic streets to the next, and blank stares of confusion. I was considered to be an oddity, transporting not only the camera, but all the miscellaneous photo-related equipment that is needed. I would often stop, set down the tripod placing it in front of the scene that I was only hoping to photograph, yet, to find, only moments later, my scene would not wait for me to be photographed. Often left in disappointment, moving on until another scene would unfold, setting my camera down once again, yet only to be disappointed once more. I would spend my days walking the streets, occasionally stopping to rest on the stoop of a step, looking at all the wonderful moments unfolding before my eyes, but discouraged by the speed of time these moments would unfold. After my rest, I once again gained consciousness to move forward looking for more scenes to possibly photograph. I walked by this complex of three boys playing-one boy was playing with a pair of homemade stilts made out of wood and rusty nails. I placed my tripod down once again, yet to be told they did not want their photograph to be taken. I packed up my equipment, yet again to walk in between the buildings that crumble and hold their breath, while looking for other moments to capture on film. Halfway down the block, the man-sitting in the top left corner of this image-with his broken english and my broken spanish, invited me back to photograph him, and the three boys. Elated, I jumped at the opportunity, holding back my enthusiasm, and setting down my tripod and camera once more. The three boys, including the one with stilts, were climbing up and down the stairs, and running around as if I weren’t there. The minute I was ready, the magic happened, all three boys and the man, who chased me halfway down the block, all sat down, without direction. I exposed two plates, before I realized all the other film holders I had pre-loaded for the day, have already been used. I then realized that these would be the only two exposures that I would be able to create of this moment. The first exposed plate went well with only a slight concern of the image being underexposed. The movement in this image, the second exposed plate, is a result from using a slow shutter speed, the people moving, and me bumping the camera. Once I processed the film and made my contact sheets, this image turned out to be the more interesting of the two. The rest of that evening was spent cooling off, and eating chinese in the Barrio de Chino District of Havana, before returning to my casa particular. On subsequent journeys, I have wondered the same streets looking for this complex, yet it seems to have vanished only to exist for this one moment, this one photograph.

My days of photographing had been long, walking the dusty, polluted streets with smells I couldn’t even recognize. Besides the heat and the sun beating down upon my soul, it was cooking all the left over items on the pavement. It had been days since I rested and experienced anything normal-a normal meal, a normal bottle of water, a normal bed. I had come down with another illness, nothing serious, but serious enough to wipe me out, and not having the motivation to photograph my normal scenes, avenues, or boulevards. My friend Arien even noticed I was different today, in the heat, not like times before. He suggested we rest that day, asking him where, he suggested the Hotel Riviera to relax by the pool; a large open space caught between a 1950’s postcard of the old Las Vegas strip, juxtaposed to 1970’s or 80’s Soviet architecture, and the Caribbean Sea on the other side. Drifting in and out of delirium, I was often confused by my surroundings, and kept asking Arien where we were. Maybe it was the heat, maybe the water I drank, or maybe the Soviet architecture; perhaps the combination of these things. After napping, and few dips in the pool, I came to senses once again, and able to photograph. This is one of a few images created that day. A peaceful, restful day, an oases of sorts, away from the garbage baking on the streets, and the roasting of unidentifiable odors.

Thomas

Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia is a novel about memory–remembering, forgetting, trying to forget and attempting to find peace when forgetting is impossible–and about the past and how it affects the present.

Celia del Pino lives alone in her house on the beach in Cuba. She believes fervently in the good of El Lider and the revolution. She keeps watch at night to guard against another Bay of Pigs invasion. The way she sees it, the revolution has allowed women to do things other than stay at home and have babies. It has also given everyone food to eat and health care. Celia’s devotion to Castro (she has a framed photo of him on her nightstand), drives her daughters away. She also spends a good part of her married life writing letters to her first lover, a man from Spain, who left Cuba just before the revolution. The narrative takes us back and forth through time, moving fluidly between past and present, making it evident that, as Celia notes at one point, “memory cannot be confined.” She is right. We are our memories and our past, we carry it all with us into the future and pass it along to our children and grandchildren.

Felicia, one of Celia’s daughters, still lives in Cuba but suffers from bouts of mental breakdown. She despises the revolution but she is powerless to fight against it. She is a woman filled with pain and anger. She was always second fiddle to her sister who was their father’s favorite. To get out of the house and to get back at her father, she marries Hugo Villaverde and is banished. They have three children but their marriage does not go well. He cheats on her and does nothing around the house. He travels the world on business but it never seems like he contributes much to the household. In one of her delusional and anger-filled moments, Felicia sets Hugo’s head on fire. Her little way of telling him to get out and never come back. Felicia eventually finds comfort in santeria and is even initiated as a saint. Her mental break downs seem to arise as a sort of coping mechanism for her life. She loses herself in her imagination, but as she tells her son, Ivanito, “Imagination, like memory, can transform lies to truths.” However, she fails to see how her own imagination recreates the world.

Lourdes, the eldest of the sisters (there is a brother too, but this is not his story), married into a rich family. When the revolution came she lost everything. Not only was the family’s ranch taken from them, but one day when her husband was away Lourdes was brutally raped by three revolutionaries. She tells no one, not even her husband. She carries the secret inside her and even when she has the opportunity to tell her mother many years later, she can’t let it go. Lourdes, her husband, and baby daughter, Pilar, escape to New York. Lourdes buys a bakery and stuffs herself with pecan sticky buns. She is a bit of a tyrant and can’t understand why her employees always quit and why her daughter constantly fights against her. Her daughter says of her mother, “Maybe in the end the facts are not as important as the underlying truth she wants to convey. Telling her own truth is the truth to her, even if it’s at the expense of chipping away our past.”

Finally, Pilar, Lourdes’ daughter. She is a rebellious punk rocker and a talented artist. She has a connection to her Abuela Celia. When Pilar is still young she and Celia can communicate in dreams and thoughts. The connection gets broken during Pilar’s teenage years but is re-established when she is college-aged. It is Pilar that wonders most about the past and about memory. She has to come to terms with her Cuban heritage and what it means to her family. She sees the past as a fluke:

I think about the Granma, the American yacht El Lider took from Mexico to Cuba in 1956 on hi second attempt to topple Batista. some boat owner in Florida misspells “Grandma” and look what happens: a myth is born, a province is renamed, a Communist party newspaper is launched. What if the boat had ben called Barbara Ann or Sweetie Pie or Daisy? Would history be different? We’re all tied to the past by flukes. Look at me, I got my name from Hemingway’s fishing boat.

While Celia worries that no one has loyalties to their origins any longer, Pilar struggles to understand “who chooses what we should know or what’s important?” And finally realizes,”I have to decide these things for myself.”

I could go on and on. Dreaming in Cuban is a rich book and a pleasure to read. It contains some lovely gem-like sentences that encapsulate a thought or idea that have kept me, and will continue to keep me, thinking about this book.

Pop over to the Slaves of Golconda blog to see what others who read the book have to say about it. Then join us at Metaxucafe for the discussion.