Havana, a constant dance
Interjet flight 2900, Mexico City — Havana, April 2014. It was 10 years since the last and first time I was in this charming, poor, cheerful and unique city. I arrive at the plane loaded with my cameras and excited to return to the city where my grandmother was born. I take a seat and start looking through the magazine on the plane or whatever is in my front seat pocket. Willing to wait until we take off to continue reading Memories of Ché, by Fidel Castro. Five minutes later, Migdilia, my roommate on the plane, arrives heated and very nervous.
When she finally sits down, I ask her if she's okay and she says, “Very nervous, I've never traveled by plane. What's more, I've never left Cuba in 74 years until now that I came to Mexico to visit my granddaughter.” The poor woman has a hot flash as if she were going to travel to the moon, and I understand her, because doing something alone for the first time in 74 years must be incredible and overwhelming. What courage the good of Migdilia! Obviously, because of his age, culture and to get on his nerves, he needs to talk. So I look at my book with regret and decide that I will continue it in Havana. We began a very pleasant conversation. After a while she takes out a bundle of photos wrapped in crumpled paper from her bag and tells me, “My granddaughter is a photographer and she took all these pictures of me”. It must be at least 200. He shows me many of them with joy and emotion from everything he has seen. Her eyes are full of tenderness when she sees her granddaughter in some of them. You can tell he had a great time. Many of the photos are of food and he tells me “Look at all this we can't eat in Cuba, the situation is very bad”. He pauses, looks at my book about Ché and says, “My husband would really like you, he's an intellectual (and I wonder — who isn't an intellectual in Cuba?!) and he has read everything about Ché”. In Havana, we already know that he is still an idol for many and proof of this are the number of murals there are of him.
The tricycle, one of the most popular means of transport to get around the city
And so we spent a very entertaining trip, talking about everything a little bit and ending with the dancing and the music. Havana, dance and music are like sea and salt, it's not that they go together, it's that they are one. From classical dance to son, Cubans carry it in their blood. As Isadora Duncan said, “Dance is not only the transmission of a technique but also of a profound vital impulse”.
The pilot announces that we are starting our descent to Havana and I can't help looking for El Morro through the window. Another icon of Havana! That lighthouse that defies the waves of a Caribbean that shows its character and announces its presence to us.
We arrived in Havana, and it happens again, I fall in love with this city and its people. Of the values so present, of the love of mothers and fathers for their children, of couples walking along the boardwalk, of dance, of American cars from the 1950s, of smiles, of daiquiris, of the sea, of the sun... of one of the most authentic cities left, one of the few in which fast food chains have not yet invaded the center of the city.
Havana is a city full of contrasts, such as being a country seized by a great power, the United States, and probably the only country in the world where you can find authentic (not reproductions, not even restorations) American cars from the 1950s. Chevrolets, Cadillacs, Pontiacs, Buicks, Chryslers, Plymouths, etc. What I do notice is that there are already more new cars, although the prices are astronomical (a Peugeot 206 sells for 67,000 euros — 92,000 dollars). In 2011, the Cuban government allowed the purchase and sale of more modern used cars, after 1959, requiring a “letter of authorization” from the authorities. In December 2013, the restrictions were lifted again and are no longer necessary.
I can't help taking pictures of every old car that passes by, it's a weakness, I won't enjoy them again for a while. I find Diana, 26, lying on the side of one of these museum pieces. He is hoping that there will be enough people to go to his village in the community car. The harmony and glamor of Diana, the Pontiac and the architecture of Old Havana are incredible. He tells me that he comes to Havana to study. Education is something that Cubans can brag about, but they don't, and even for that they are humble. I enjoy every morning, very early, photographing how children go to school accompanied by their mothers and one of the best lights of the day. They are impeccable, it is another sign of respect and importance to education.
And for me, Havana is a constant dance of emotions, of authenticity, of contrasts, of wanting to progress without losing its essence, of struggling people. And so I dance with my camera to capture feelings of affection, love, tenderness, nostalgia, hope, tiredness, loss, loneliness. This is how I dance and I want to capture the waves that break in front of the Malecón, the mothers with their children, the couples, the loners, the dogs, the cars of the 50s, the schools, the majestic houses on the outside that collapse inside, the dances until dawn, the children playing, studying.
I want to honestly capture the essence, the glamor and the clean and powerful light of a city where on many corners it seems that time stopped several decades ago.
