Dancing and it´s many joys

I know I already talked about dancing, but I want to say more because it really is one of my favorite parts about life in Cuba, and most likely what I´ll miss most back in the states. It´s just that dancing is such an integral part of ¨fun¨, from the day one´s legs start working until the day they stop. One explanation is that dancing is always fun and requires no money, perfect for Cuba. Almost every party I´ve been to has involved some sort of impromtu dance party, usually with a mixture of salsa and reggaeton. Everyone can dance to both because they´ve learned practically at birth. Also, were as in the US it can be seen as ¨uncool¨ to dance (especially for men), there is an utter lack of embarrassment. For instance, some of these dance parties have involved only 2 people starting to dance while everyone else watches, and many have not involved much alcohol. It´s a beautiful thing to see. I mean, to me dancing is the perfect expression of freedom and a surefire road to temporary happiness, so I hate it when people feel they can´t dance, and therefore shouldn´t. It´s like denying part of one´s inner human nature. I also love salsa because it is structural and traditional while at the same time innovative and surprising. Plus, there are all sorts of games you can do with salsa. For instance, there´s a dance called a ¨rueda¨. A group of partners stand in a circle, boy girl boy girl, and they are all dancing salsa with the same foot, same rhythm. As you know, the male is normally the leader while dancing salsa, so during a ronda, a male leader will call out different directions and the men will follow them, doing a particular dance with his partner or with someone else. It´s kindof like a latin version of square dancing, but way more fun (in my opinion), and way more popular with the youth in general. Also, there is a red-light, green-light version of salsa. In this one, there´s a group of dancers and one odd man out. The leftover person can call green, red, or yellow. Green means continue dancing, red means stop immediately, and yellow means switch partners. Since there´s an odd person, switching partners can get a little violent. What´s amazing to me, concerning this game, is that a pair can stop in the middle of a turn or something, and then naturally continue it whenever. It´s not easy, trust me. I´m actually not 100% sure this is a typical game, because I´ve only played it once, so don´t take my word for it.

Completely unrelated, I discovered a really excellent version of ¨telephone¨. It´s the same as usual except with every person you change the language. For instance, tonight we played it so that we switched English and Spanish for every other person. But you could do what ever language I suppose. Miss-translations happen way more frequently, let me tell you. Once we started out with ¨If you have a cold, eat a box of matches and rub your butt on the wall¨ and ended with ¨If you have the flu, put your ass on the toilet.¨

More Nerdy Bio Stuff

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Before I get into the real entry, I want to write a quick disclaimer. Though this is probably obvious to everyone, the majority of the info I write in this blog is my opinion. It may be right, but it is still opinion and should not be taken as fact.
Now on to my weekend...

This weekend I went on another one of those ecology excursions, but this time we went as part of a group of Cuban biology students plus three professors. Half of them were in the same boat as us, earlier in their education and there to learn about butterflies and moths. The other half were in their last year of university and came to continue experiments for their respective theses. All in all, it was quite an experience, but only in a really great way. The experiment site was outside a town called Canasí, on the north coast about 45 minutes east of Habana. But we traveled by train, so it took us 2 ½ hours. The train is horrible, because it’s ancient and shakes you like bananas in a batido, but I had a great time. Trains let you see a different part of the countryside, the backside, and it was gorgeous. The strange thing is, the landscape is unnatural. Less than 100 years ago, Cuba was almost completely covered in forests, but during the reign of Batista (the president turned dictator whose last rule was interrupted by the Revolution), deforestation knocked out all but a few pieces. So this beautiful grassland is really a result of devastating destruction. Funny, because I keep on saying the countryside looks Jurassic, ie, completely untouched. To keep ourselves busy we taught each other kids’ songs from our youths. Our Cuban professors got a real kick out of “the song that never ends” and “the ants go marching” especially. They also taught us this great song that is kind of like the vowels song about apples and bananas that we have. This one is even better though, and it’s about a skeleton: “Estaba la cadavera / sentaba en una butaca / vino la muerte le dijo / porqué te has puesto tan flaca?” That’s the original, then you change it for each vowel, ie: “Estebe le cedevere / sentebe en ene beteque…” It sounds hysterical. I’ll teach it to anyone who asks when I get back! So then we got to the town and had to hike for about 45 minutes to get to our campsite. The best part of this was we had to cross a big river that went up to our chests, carrying our packs on our heads. Our campsite was just a break in the forest on a cliff that was right next to the ocean. A lot of the coastline in Cuba is rocky, and so was this one. It was really beautiful, I’ll try to add some photos of it. So once we got there, our two main missions were to run an experiment of moth id and to collect eggs, larvae, and food for butterfly experiments. We were going to also go butterfly hunting, but the weather was cold (actually, only like 70 degrees at the lowest, but we had goosebumps…yikes) and rainy, so there weren’t any butterflies out. The moth experiment was at night, and basically we just sat watching a hanging white sheet in front of a light to identify moth species and quantities. Cuba has an incredible number of species of almost everything, and a lot of endemics, so this experiment was a little more exciting then it sounds. Every now and then, a moth would appear that no one had seen before, so there was a fairly good possibility that we had discovered a new species. This happened probably 5 times in one night. Now how often does that happen in the US? One of the professors actually has a species named after him, and he’s probably no older than 35. During the day, I helped one of the older students work on his experiment. His specialty is a butterfly called “skipper” that have split off from the butterfly family. The adults are fairly well-known, but not much information exists about the eggs or larvae, which is his area of study. We just hiked around in the woods looking for the plant that skippers lay their eggs on, while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. I might have Dengue. Just as a side note, did you know that there is a plant in Cuba that can kill you? Seriously, it is that poisonous.
Well that’s about all I have to say about camping and studying bugs. It was probably the most fun trip I’ve had here, despite the bad weather. I just really liked the company, in general they were more my style than the history/philosophy students as a whole, though I love my friends in that department too.

Slightly Boring Entry About Music

Although I’ve only barely mentioned it, music is a humongous part of life here. It can be heard anywhere you go, from every direction. There are a couple very different types of music here that are really popular. First, there’s salsa. Though I’ve heard the style originated in the Puerto Rican communities in NYC, a lot of Cubans say they are the only one’s who do it right. Within this genre, there are a couple of different forms. My personal favorite is called “son”, which was made famous all over the world because of the Buena Vista Social Club. It is a really traditional, even ancient, form of salsa. Actually, most if not all of the songs from Buena Vista were written long before those men played them. You can hear this kind of music all over the country, especially from live bands in restaurants and such, because it is played with acoustic instruments. Usually, a son band consists of a guitar, a smaller three string guitar called a “tres”, claves, bongos, and singers. I’m not sure if this guy is considered son, but one of my favorite musicians here is Polo Montañez. In any case, both he and son are way more popular with older Cubans. Among the youth, Reggaeton rules. You’ve probably heard a little reggaeton before, from people like Daddy Yankee who sings “Gasolina”. It’s sort of a Latin American version of hip hop, with Reggae and Salsa influence, and a persistent heavy beat. At first, it all sounds the same, but then it kind of grows on you. I’ll bring some of the better examples back with me. My favorite so far is this song called “Caperosita,” which is “little red riding hood”, by Clan 537, a Cuban pop group. Anyway, people love to dance to this music. I would say Salsa and Reggaeton are the two most popular forms of music, but a lot of people are interested in Techno, Rock, and Hip Hop, especially the more underground variety in the US like Kweli, Common, etc. Basically, music is a huge pastime because all you need for fun is a couple records and a few people and you’ve got a dance party!

Fall Break in Cuba

This past week I went on vacation, Cuban style. Most of the hotels don’t allow Cubans to rent a room, but there are vacation spots called “campismos” that are almost exclusively for Cuban guests. They are all over the countryside and consist of a bunch of little cabanas with 2 bunk beds and a small bathroom, a pool with no water, a cafeteria, and a TV room. Unfortunately we went to the shittiest campismo possible because the pool didn’t work (though I have yet to see a Cuban pool with water in it) and the beach was about 40 minutes away, but the other option was taken by the “batalla de ideas (battle of ideas)” group. I’m not sure what they do because when I asked a Cuban, he said they have parties and eat shit. Probably not a totally accurate description. Anyway, this vacation was probably the least relaxing vacation I’ve ever taken, a real test of tolerance. First of all, the cabanas were totally infested with ants, they got EVERYWHERE: in the bed, in our food, in our bags, in our clothes…and I hate ants more than a lot of things. Also, as you can see from the photo, the cabana is a pretty tight squeeze, especially since we slept 5 people in our room. And it smelled horrible. I can’t even describe how bad it smelled, it was like shit, b.o., and stale-building smell all rolled into one. Luckily, you kind of forgot the smell after staying in the building for more than 10 minutes. On top of that, the food was terrible. The cafeteria basically sells bread with eggs for breakfast and rice with something for dinner and lunch, so we would buy a bunch of rice and then we got canned meat, about the same quality as cat food. It was disgusting. This one night our rice was made with “pork” which was actually pig skin that still had bristly hair on it. I hope you can imagine how gross that is. But despite of all that, we had a pretty good time. The water was lovely, and there was this spot with huge rocks that we could jump off (pictured above). Also, about 19 of us went, so it was kind of like a big party with a bunch of our friends for 3 days. The campismo plays music all night and we brought plenty of rum. We also played a huge amount of dominos, which is really popular here. I’m planning on bringing back in style in the U.S., it’s really fun. Also, it was a really eye opening experience. I mean, how many of you would choose the campismo for your vacation? I certainly wouldn’t if I hadn’t any other option, but that’s the point. There isn’t another option for vacation here. If you can’t stay in a hotel, even if you had the money, what are you going to do? Already, I’ve been to more cities in Cuba than most Cubans have in their whole life. To me, this is totally unfair. As a Cuban, you don’t have access to outside information, you can’t travel to other countries, and you can hardly even travel in your own country. The campismo is it. So what I just said in this description, I would never say to any of the Cubans we were with. And despite all the negative things I said, I really did have fun and I’m glad I went. After all, it’s the company you’re with that is important, not where you are.

I'm not 100% sure that the pictures are going to appear on the blog for this entry, so if they aren't there stay tuned.