Originally published in Lawrence Today magazine, Summer 2000
Prelude
Illinois Governor George Ryan led a 45-member state delegation on a five-day humanitarian mission to Cuba October 23-27, 1999. The group included many high-ranking politicians in Illinois government; representatives from the MacArthur Foundation, Archer Daniels Midland Corporation, institutions of higher education, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago -- plus Trio Chicago and Friends. As a part-time Chicagoan and full-time singer, I was invited to be a "Friend."
Governor Ryan is the first sitting U.S. governor to visit Cuba in more than 40 years. His invitation was extended by Cuban Ambassador Fernando Remirez during a brief visit Remirez made to Illinois in early October. Throughout the ensuing scramble of phone interviews, photo shoots, and child-care planning, I wondered just what was motivating this sudden mobilization of people and resources. Some voices in the Chicago press had already suggested this would be a purely political endeavor, designed to generate international brownie points for the new Gov and to pave the way for his state to benefit from ready relationships with the Cuban bureaucracy, should the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba ever be lifted. Whatever the reasons, I comforted myself with the knowledge that a million dollars worth of "hostess gifts" (food, medicine, computers, school supplies, musical instruments and scores) were gathered to take along.
Day One
Lourdes has already set my mind at ease about this mission. She was born in Cuba, came to the States at 5 years old, and has worked in Chicago as a teacher, a school principal, and a community organizer, lobbying against the embargo for many years. The movement to open communications and provide assistance has, according to her, trickled up to Ryan with the help of people like his good friend Representative Edgar Lopes, who was a pharmacist in Cuba.
Lourdes will be seeing relatives for the first time in 30-some years. She's proud and nervous. I'm nervous, too -- there's a large contingent of media people on this trip. Someone decided it was a good idea for me to perform for the Gov in the airplane, and the media feeding frenzy caused by my dulcimer-accompanied rendition of "Here Comes the Sun" was truly ridiculous.
I'm grateful that we musicians have been assigned to a hotel separate from the political contingent. Aside from the obvious benefits of privacy, Hotel Ambos Mundos turns out to be Ernest Hemingway's old digs. The air and the view from the rooftop patio are absolutely seductive. How can decrepitude be so attractive? Something about the quality of light on peeling paint, the texture of rust on most things metal, the essence of music -- real, live unamplified drumming and fluting and singing -- coming from just down the street. Some Americans who've been here for a few weeks tell us that yesterday a whole lot more policemen appeared in this neighborhood, sweeping many of the local outdoor merchants in advance of our arrival. I can't wait to get out on the street.
Women wear a lot of spandex here: capri-length and form-fitting, whether young or old. There's a strut I've never seen anywhere else. It's all bellies and breasts; they seem to love themselves from the inside out. No mirror has persuaded them to recompose anatomy or expression. The men don't strut so much, but there's a relaxed alertness that allows for humor or serious intensity by quick turns.
Everybody's lean. I see really dark skin and brown skin and white skin all mingling. Can I discern class based on color here? On the street it seems the majority are dark people, but at the two cocktail parties I've already attended today (!) it seems there is a higher percentage of light-skinned people. Hmmm.
Day Two
Sunday morning. I walk by myself through this neighborhood of crumbling colonial giants. If I smile but don't speak, people look away quickly or never look directly. If I say buenos dias, I get a very friendly response. The policemen (plainclothed and uniformed) don't try to stop me, so I venture away from the tourist center.
Then I meet Lucila, a thin (of course, but I'm still not accustomed to that), energetic 50-something in faded jeans. She stops after we greet each other and regards me with some excitement. She tells me that the people of Cuba love the people of the United States, tells me that Che Guevara was a good man and a hero, and says something about a star that I don't understand. I show her photos of my children, and the friendship is sealed, despite my rudimentary Spanish, her rudimentary English, and our extreme differences in political perspective. She is on her way to work as a cook, work that she likes very much. We meet her younger son there, who is on his way to study at the University. When I ask to go in with Lucila, to see the kitchen where she works, everyone looking out from the doorway is mildly horrified, and I am denied entrance.
I walk on and discover a corner shop embellished inside and out with ornate mahogany, disturbed by nothing more than dust during its century-plus. The marble-inlaid floors have fared worse, and, as it slowly dawns on me that this is drugstore, my heart aches to see the half-dozen bottles of medicine, the two or three boxes of bandages, and the muted hostility on the faces of the two clerks.
I meet the American delegation at the Cathedral for mass. Where are the local dignitaries, the community leaders? The service is conducted by one young priest (and our Archbishop) with the same children who sing in the choir stepping up to read the Bible passages. When we shake hands at the Peace, we find only old women in the congregation.
Later, we are fêted at Hotel Nacional, a 1920s romance of a property overlooking much of Centro Habana. It's time for me to do my stuff again. Will my Duke Ellington renditions be like bringing coals to Newcastle? Will they be able to find a piano? (Ah, at last, a Roland electric has been scoured out.) Will it be O.K. to sing "Love You Madly"? Will the Bearded One be watching on some closed circuit? I dive into my song and find that, by the time I've finished, I have new friends from the Cuban arts bureaucracy, as well as the U.S. Special Interests Section (our not-embassy). I make inquiries into adding a local conga player to our radio broadcast.
Day Three
Today we five ride out of town to Instituto Superiores de los Artes, the conservatory for performing and plastic arts. We give our concert with a tiny spinet piano so fragile that I fear it will disintegrate under the hands of Bill, our Gershwin madman. I talk to Melkisedeck, a percussionist from Haiti, and other students. I overhear the practice of a fabulous guitarist from Brazil. I look out across the beautiful grounds of this academy and feel that someone has died here. No, that someone is dying right now -- not for want of diligence or skill or heart but for want of materials, information, and opportunity.
Back in town I meet Pedro Camos, a Tai Chi master, physical therapist, and philosopher so adept that, were he in the U.S., he could give Deepak Chopra some competition. He tells me his five years of training in St. Petersburg were the best years of his life. This frightens me, the thought of a youthful man from a beautiful, cultured island finding more freedom in cold, moldering Soviet life.
Tonight we find that the dying tenaciously persevere and that some recover: viva La Zorra y el Cuervo, a club so loud I make earplugs out of toilet paper. The tunes are original, the players skilled, spirited, and cutting-edge. And they have the key: a CD. CDs are purchased with American dollars, CDs can be used as demos for foreign tours, CDs are the way to go. I buy.
Day Four
Today we learn that anything institutionally musical in Habana is likely to be named Amadeo Roldan. We give a concert at his High School for the Performing Arts, where the corridors are grimy and the pianos are dilapidated, but the students are bursting with life and enthusiasm. The excellent 15-year-old conga player we are provided with for our finale of "Caravan" maintains his terror under a mask of calm. His mother, who is our interpreter, works as an international operator. This is her only child, and she makes repeated inquiries into the possibility of his finishing his studies at my institution. She is ready to send him today.
I talk to the very warm but sober faculty. They form the bridge between these hopeful, vibrant teenagers and their listless older brothers and sisters, who stand at the threshold of their professional lives and stare into an abyss. I ask them how they get materials, write down their requests, and feel deeply ashamed.
I work with Anna, Idania, Gustavino, and Flor in master class. These young singers equal the skill and passion of Americans, in spite of their deprivation. While my shame persists, I am proud for them. Visions of collaborative projects dance in my head.
We move on to the concert hall named for Maestro Roldan, where we find state-of-the-art facilities and a brand new piano. We perform for a tiny audience and later learn that only diplomats and bureaucrats have been invited to the hall. Regardless, I receive an unforgettable compliment: "Your singing gave me chicken skin."
We reconvene the Music Search Committee and once again find Habana giving us more than we give her: the quartet playing salsa at the outdoor café includes a master flutist blowing on an instrument so bowed that our own flutist can only shake her head. We buy more CDs.
Day Five
I take my dulcimer into the booksellers square for the promised meeting with two vendors who befriended me. Along the way I meet Lucila again; this time she has a broom and dustpan. Most people who don't have access to American dollars try to gain access to two jobs.
Curiosity without smiles is how my music is greeted. Most people are wondering if the plainclothed policemen will warn them away from me. Lucila and I remain as oblivious as we can under the circumstances. She gives me a coin with a picture of Che on one side and a star on the other.
I go to the medical college at the University to hear Governor Ryan speak. He is sincere and dignified, moved and moving as he conjures Abraham Lincoln to link our countries. I hope he succeeds.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: We line up to be greeted by Fidel Castro, who has kept the Gov up most of the previous night in some secret meetingplace; he stands up from his place in the front row of the lecture hall, raises his arms to the gallery (where the students are), and bellows, "Any questions?" Since none of the questions we all have can be asked or answered in this context, the reception line proceeds.
I receive an especially warm, double-cheeked greeting from the Bearded One, probably because I addressed him in Spanish, confessed to my musical purpose, and was unintentionally female. My personal skepticism is momentarily disarmed by this -- was it the energy of the crowd or of the man himself? He bids farewell by climbing into each busload of politicians and shaking each individual's hand. Then he gives the American press a two-hour audience.
Postlude
That leaves the musicians stranded at the airport, well ahead of the entourage, to witness the arrival of our not-Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, whose hand has never been shaken by Castro, National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon, or anyone else at the top of the Cuban pyramid.
That most undiplomatic scene gives way to a Mercedes rolling up on the tarmac, bearing a Cuban child and his mother, who will travel back with us for liver treatment. We learn from our doctor contingent that Cubans have developed vaccines against Hepatitis B, Meningitis B, and Leptospyrosis that could be extremely useful in the rest of the world.
At this writing, our hopeful expectations have been upstaged by the melodrama involving another small boy who did not have permission to make the journey to the States. The musicians are invited back in October for the annual Contemporary Music Festival. I'm planning to be there, carrying as many gifts as you all will help me gather. Contact me with your ideas and donations at 920-832-6623 or patrice.michaels@lawrence.edu.