I turned twenty-two years old on May 22nd. Even in Cuba they call that a golden birthday. To celebrate the momentous event, our group decided to attend a U.S. Interests Section cocktail party at the Chief of Mission’s home in la Habana. To clarify, the United States does not have an embassy in Cuba. The […]
RAIN CUBA
All quieted in the city of Habana today when a tropical rainstorm hit the city for more than three hours booming and blasting over the entire landscape. Some of the students were lodged in the Presidente hotel our usual haunting ground for internet where apparently taxi cabs were literally bobbing up and down in the […]
KCHO
KCHO (Alexis Leiva Machado) is a contemporary Cuban artist whose work has been exhibited across the globe including in the United States (most notably in the MoMa). In the Havana neighborhood of Playa KCHO has constructed a huge studio where he invites other Cuban artists to collaborate with him in his workshop, exhibits Cuban works […]
Public art
We were lucky enough to be in La Habana for the 12th annual Biennial, a multi-week, bi-annual celebration of art in Havana. My last full day in Cuba, I took a stroll by myself down the Malecon, from Vedado to Habana Vieja. As part of the Biennial, there was a series of temporarily installed “public […]
The dramatic differences I’ve noticed since leaving Cuba
Life in Cuba was at times very difficult logistically. Without wireless internet or data, and costly phone plans, coordinating or completing simple tasks is difficult. For various reasons, long lines and bureaucratic nightmares made trips to hospitals or banks long excursions. At first, I romanticized the crowded buses and yelling “Ultimo” to figure out who […]