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i am
In the town where Hemingway lived and wrote, I spotted a simple sentence painted on a wall: Yo soy Cuba (I am Cuba). To my eye, this scene summed up a lot of what I saw in Cuba. It was colorful, but also faded. It was urbanized, but also rough at the edges. It was lovely, but also hard and tragic and rough.
I have many emotions surrounding this trip, and most of them conflict with each other. They are still sorting themselves out in my head, and I am not at all sure where things are going to land. I’ll keep you posted…
Cojímar, Cuba
photographed 11.6.2022
weathered
Some Cuban boats, somewhat worse for wear.
Side note: a New York Times article on December 10, 2022, was headlined “‘Cuba is Depopulating: Largest Exodus Yet Threatens Country’s Future.'” It mentioned a fishing village on the northern Cuban coast (the Florida side, if you will) that has seen a huge decrease in the numbers of boats anchored there; the most seaworthy of them have already been put into service for people who are attempting to flee Cuba.
So a couple of things: Playa Larga is on the southern coast, and it’s a long way to get anywhere that isn’t Cuba so probably these boats are less likely to end up carrying refugees someplace.
And how bad must things be when taking a boat like this on an open ocean becomes the preferred option?
Playa Larga, Cuba
photographed 11.10.2022
at the religion store
I stepped into this little shop – next to the boxing gym and across the street from a church (Gimnasia de Boxeo Rafael Trejo and Hermandad de la Santísima Trinidad, if you’re keeping up with stuff like that) – because I spotted that sequined hat (?). The interior of the store was dark and it seemed like the hat (?) had stolen all the light for itself., leaving all the other religious artifacts to fend for themselves.
Or maybe I was having a heat stroke.
Havana, Cuba
photographed 11.11.2022
mercado industrial (reflexión)
It is still weird to me that my eyes will parse out reflections to see what’s actually in a scene, but my camera’s like, “Nope. You gotta see it the way I see it.” and keeps all the stuff I wouldn’t have noticed.
But on the other hand, how nice that the camera shows me a man who is roughly the size of a backpack (and to make it a little more trippy – he’s WEARING a backpack.)
Cienfuegos, Cuba
photographed 11.9.2022
watch repair
It seems like probably everyone has a certain degree of understanding about this aspect of Cuban life – shortages of various things means there are a lot of repairs being done. This man was a very busy repairing watches (let’s assume that his own watch kept good time – a detail I wish I had thought about noticing). Around the corner there was a cell-phone repair place. And just up the street on the very same block as the watch repair place was the motorcycle repairman that I posted previously.
Cienfuegos, Cuba
photographed 11.9.2022
One Day | One Image 