Viernes 3/4/16
I don’t go anywhere without a notebook, and good thing, because today we needed to write down quite a lot in order to get the most we could out of our visit to el Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. Cuban art seems to be characterized by things that are visibly shocking and, after you recover, the images force contemplation. You could see the transition of Cuba from a Spanish colony to its own “sovereign” country, and you could see expressions of both the luxurious living and tormented lives that were result of an elite, concentrated bourgeoisie/American-imperial class. The violence of both military dictatorships and the Revolution itself were also contrasted through the art. Each room in the museum was sectioned off by linear historical periods, but within these rooms it was clear that many Cuban artists adhere to non-linear, cyclical, and layered histories, represented uniquely but the artists of each of these generations. Black faces next to white faces in an exaggerated pre-creole period, alongside portraits of Spanish dames, dawning Victorian style dresses, not a lick of color on their white powdered faces. Violence is still prevalent in scenes from this era of art, as it is prevalent in every single level of the museum. Themes that frequent every decade are maternity, sexuality, the ocean, identity, pride, ego, and machismo. I could go on, but I’ve got a beyond novice eye for artwork, and simply enjoy bright colors and thought provoking imagery. My favorite era was the 60’s-80’s in which colorful pop art (Raul Martinez) was contrasted with dark, ghoulish, and abstract pieces (Antonio Eiriz). Art as a venue for political speech is very important to me, and it definitely was not lacking in the Cuban artwork we saw today.
Miercoles 3/2/16
El Juevador—the egg man! When eggs are available to buy at the Flores market (what I had described yesterday), buy them! This is what Angie told me today, when we told her about our unsuccessful attempt to buy eggs this morning. El Juevador is your local black market egg dealer, who lurks in the sheds near the outdoor markets. We saw Angie coming into the house with at least 4 dozen eggs, and asked her how she did it. Within a minute I was hoping into her tiny car with her daughter Natalie and we went zooming down the road for this mysterious black market egg dealer. The pursuit will have to continue another day, and this evening he was nowhere to be found. Instead, she showed me where the Panaderia was near El Palanque, and I picked up some bases de pisa for Rachel and I to make quick lunches after classes this week.
Martes 3/1/16
Today Humberto graced us with another in-home class. We learned how to cook a chicken dish—boiled in the pressure cooker with tomato sauce, garlic, unions, curry, oregano, pumpkin-squash, and peppers. Always served with rice, and aside a lovely tomato salad. We have had tons of other dishes in Cuba here so far too—fufu and tostones are quickly becoming my favorite, and you can never go wrong with the way Cubans prepare their beans. We were going to make Ropa Vieja but our meat had not been in the freezer—despite being only 2 days old, things spoil more quickly in Cuba. Those pesky organic farming methods and lack of unhealthy preservatives and GMO’s in the cattle feed—the horror!
At the market, we buy fruits and veggies from piles of produce laid out on wooden crates. And we buy meat from the man behind the counter, sort of like the man at the deli at Stop & Shop, except completely and utterly different. There is the bottom half of a pig and various other animal parts handing from ropes from the ceiling, over slabs of meat laid out on the wooden counter of the farm stand. Since our Spanish is very poor, getting what we want involves a lot of hand gestures and pauses to make sure I’m translating the numbers they are telling me correctly. They cut it right there in front of you and chuck it into a white plastic shopping bag. There is a lot of rare meat roaming around our tiny, dorm-room sized fridge right now…I think it’s time to talk to Angie about sharing some of her freezer space in her full-sized fridge downstairs.
Freedom is just another word for... 