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Havana nights are quiet this year, like a huge post-game amphitheater. The days are much louder, though. The completed crackdown on "crime" has kept the drinkers, carousers, and loose women off the dark streets, but budding commerce has its  effect in daylight. Merchants and street hawkers have appeared everywhere (in contrast to only a year ago when classic Communism still prevailed) and their cries have a strange familiarity. In a year or two I think this noise will rival that of Boston or Mexico City but so far remains a bit subdued, almost polite. And Cubans are NOT polite, or quiet, or shy( ! ); they don't have the time and they're much too busy being passionately into something. Even when they know you can't follow what's being said they can't  slow down to the normal rhythm of International Spanish. They care much too much about what they're saying and too little about a foreigner catching the drift...   I thought maybe a revolution was brewing when I first entered Jose Marti park in Central Havana a few years back. Every day a group of 20 or 30 men gather to yell and scream and gesticulate. When I moved closer and strained to understand the rhythmic language (actually Spanish but in disguise) I was stunned to discover they were arguing about American baseball !

. Kirk Stephan is the sort of person who asks hard questions and seeks honest answers - He doesn't sugar - coat the world and hand us answers that we already know.  He takes the time to look for the reality beneath the veneer.  His writing and observations are reminiscent of Andrei Codrescu.  If Cuba and the Cuban people have a false pitina that misleads us we should want to learn the reasons. Escape Artists can find more on Cuba in the Profile of Cuba - plus other articles on Cuba and things Cuban in the Escape From America Magazine. Cuba is an enigma in a changing world - Codrescu called Cuba the "laboratory of pre-post-communism"

  In general I'm anti-progress and never appreciated even new models of automobiles (the coolest part of this country may be all the 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's American cars everywhere on the streets). So, with only nostalgia for company, I pack up to see the 'Oriente', the eastern parts of the island, where I'd not been before.

   Apartheid is alive and well here. You gots the Cubans and you gots the tourists. Fidel does not want them to mix, for all the obvious reasons; outside opinions never favor the rulers...So the new "Via Azul" bus for tourists is a bore. The video movies horrible and the air-conditioning overwhelming. I was warned of the latter and my Cuban friend in Havana had lent me her sweater so I was warm enough. My French seat-mate was interesting but the video-volume didn't allow for much talk. We reached the charming but run-down town of Ciego de Avila and spent a couple of nights. 'Not much to say about this slightly drab community with as many horse-carts as cars. I decided to take the local bus for Cubans , the "gua-gua", from there on. This clunker took twice the time the tourist bus did but the open windows and conversation with Cubans made the trip a pleasure in comparison. The fat turkey buzzards perched on telephone poles were cool. The snowy white ibis in the fields sat on their brahma-bull partners and contemplated the world of tasty bugs...

  The people grab their freedom and independence where they can, so the non-motorized road traffic is a sight: Bicycles, pedestrians and horse or bull-driven carts vie for possession of the highway. Just before what seems like an immanent crash our bus would blare its horn at the upstart, then with a sigh, brake to a stop as they failed to take notice. I never saw one person move over, swerve, or even flinch at these risky encounters. We were hours late but the ride was great fun.

  Holguin in the early evening was fascinating; hundreds of people milled about the close, quiet, streets and parks. The bicycle-taxi man said it was known as the "city-of-parks" and they appeared regularly every 2 or 3 blocks. Jose, my seat-mate on the bus lived here and showed me to a great apartment about a mile  from downtown. I slept like a log there every night, the only sounds coming from my goat, pig and chicken neighbors.

   One day we were sitting at the patio table talking when the neighbor woman fell off the roof. The sudden crashing 'thud' was horrible. No-one knew what had happened till she moaned. Then we all screamed and yelled and men from the neighborhood rushed over to try to extract her broken body from the rubble. The poor lady broke both her legs, one arm and a little finger. The only nice thing about this scene was watching the quick, helpful neighbors and hearing later that she'd reached doctors and hospital within minutes. We all worried over and discussed her pain and whether she'd be able to breast-feed her new 2-month old baby...Two days later she's recovering nicely because of that immediate attention; and her milk is flowing!

  These people respond to and accept anything and everything with an alacrity that stupefies this hesitating and cogitating Yankee.

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The "bici-taxis", all over the country, aren't allowed to carry foreigners but take the chance anyway. They risk a huge fine and possible loss of their vehicle, but, if anything at all they're gamblers at heart. The people have been ordered not to socialize with us and usually have a grim countenance (if any eye contact at all) until spoken to. Then their huge smiles shine out and warm you right up. Of course there are some too nervous to do it in public. This is a shame of the place.

  I'm staying in Holguin with Pedro, who has a large 1946 Chevrolet gasoline truck, which he uses to transport people back and forth to nearby towns. After fuel and special license costs he ends up making about what everybody else does, about $18-20/month. His daughter Illeanna is a dynamo and runs the house-hold. She's a great cook and organizer. It was she who took charge of the neighbor-rescue mission the other day. She stayed with the woman and held the baby throughout the ordeal. Her husband Rolando, and son, both work in a bakery, making the fairly tasteless Cuban loaves of bread that I won't miss, but those folks...
After a week and a second thwarted attempt to jump the national train down to Santiago I gave up. Both times the train was broken and not running. I ended up hiring a 1969 Muscovy (Russian cars along with the old Yankee ones proliferate) and driver for $30.
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