On Monday a film that Gael Garcia Bernal directed and acted in premiered at the film festival. Our film professor had already told us that it sucked but we went anyway with the idea that perhaps Gael would be there since we heard he was coming for the festival (I was really going with the hopes of seeing Diego Luna since they’re best friends and I think he’s way cuter.) So we went and the movie was awful, one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. It was about how hard it is to be rich and young and beautiful in Mexico and then oh my God, he didn’t get into Harvard and his parents don’t know yet and then his sister OD’s at a wild party and his girlfriend comes and then he can’t seduce this other girl and life is just so hard!! But despite it being terrible Gael actually did show up along with Diego Luna and they walked right by us and then talked about the film a bit and the entire theater was packed and everyone was yelling and taking photos. It was pretty cool and in real life they both are exceptionally beautiful men but they’re also really short and of course Gael’s movie sucked and received the most lackluster applause out of all the other films I have seen this past week. It was a funny experience because never in the United States would you get to go to the premier of Gael Garcia Bernal’s shitty movie but here in Cuba any person who can get there early enough to get a ticket that costs about 10 cents can go. An extra note: the next day a few of us went to Hotel Nacional because it’s the hub of the film festival and we wanted to buy some posters and shirts for friends and family and Ana actually met Gael as they were waiting in line to exchange money. She told him that she “enjoyed herself” at his film. Ha!
Christmas trees are starting to pop up in peoples’ windows and now when I walk down the street everything feels like a huge oxymoron. I’m in a short dress, sweating my ass off, and then I look up and see a fake Christmas tree with fake glittering snow in someone’s window and I am reminded that yes in fact, it is that time. There’s just something so strange about seeing Christmas trees in a tropical place and of course everyone should be able to celebrate Christmas with whatever tree they want but for some reason I was expecting to see lights on a little palm tree in a planter or something. Even the hotels are all decked out and it’s just so strange because Christmas is something I so heavily associate with coldness and darkness and not going to the beach or sitting in the sun every morning. I heard that theft increases this time of year too because people need extra money in order to buy their kids presents.
On Wednesday we went to the Botanical Gardens on the outskirts of Habana. It was an optional trip but we were promised a good lunch with a lot of greens, something we’ve severely lacked during the past 4 months. 9 of us went and fought through our hang overs since we had played a rousing game of Kings the night before and together we discovered that there are a lot of different kinds of palm trees all over the world. There was a Japanese garden that was kind of nice and they had a koi pond with huge koi that swam around in circles and if you dropped crackers in the water they’d pile on top of each other hurling themselves out of the water in order to eat. Aidan and I also found a huge white toad but we weren’t sure if he was supposed to be white or if he was sick. We ate at the restaurant there called, “Bambu” and it specializes in entirely vegetarian cuisine. It was a buffet of a ton of raw vegetables and good dressings and they had a soup that came to be known as the “womb soup” because it was so comforting. Unfortunately there were pebbles in the rice and when I accidentally bit down on one and felt as though I shattered my back molars I kind of lost my appetite. My teeth were miraculously ok though, which disproved my theory that my teeth have started falling apart during my time in Cuba (Dad, we should make a dentist appointment.)
Now I’m down to a mere three days in Cuba but it hasn’t hit me yet. Usually things don’t hit me until about 5 hours before I leave so I imagine that when I wake up Sunday morning for breakfast that’s about when I’ll burst into tears and then will proceed to cry until 3 in the afternoon when we take off, then maybe some more once I am on the plane, but I think once I get to Miami I will be ok because I’ll be able to talk to all my loved ones at my leisure and won’t have to deal with 20 second delays over the telephone.
This is going to be my last entry during my time here in Cuba and I feel like I need to make some sort of closing remarks but I don’t want to talk like I’ll never be back here. When I think of leaving Cuba on Sunday I think of it as ending one chapter in an entire book of experiences I hope to have here someday. There is no doubt in my mind that I will come back because I’ve never been anywhere as beautiful and complex and amazing as Cuba. Of course there have been moments when I’ve wanted to go home more than anything else, like when I find myself eating pork for the 6th day in a row, or the men are being particularly obnoxious (after 4 months here I’ve found the amount of yelled “piropos” in the streets has a direct correlation with how hot it is, the hotter the weather the more persistent the men), but Cuba is a place that comforts me to my bones and there’s nothing better than waking up every morning to a room saturated with sunlight and the sounds of palms rustling outside the window. I will definitely miss Cuba once I leave. I’ll miss the people and the buildings and the dogs and the insane drivers who honk at you instead of using their breaks and the crowds of people sprinting down the street in order to catch a bus and the old men who set up a table in the street to play dominoes, but I don’t necessarily feel sad about leaving. I don’t feel sad because I know I’ll be back here some day and sure it might be different but to me Cuba has an incorruptible spirit that will persevere over everything else.

I have a week left in Cuba now, which is terrifying. Luckily there is enough to do to keep me happily preoccupied. Right now I’m sitting outside on the veranda in the morning sun, watching doves flit from building to building and it’s really hitting me how much I will miss Habana. It’s funny because for a big city the morning sounds in Habana are no louder than what you might expect in the suburbs. The occasional rumbling of a car, some far off construction, a few people talking and getting ready for the day. I remember being in New York City a few times in the morning and realizing how much quieter it was but it was never anything like this. There were still massive amounts of traffic, people opening up their stores, yelling, and dogs barking, but here it’s so quiet I just heard a baby crying and it must be at least four houses down. Morning is definitely my favorite time of day here. When you walk in the streets the men are still sedated by sleep and rarely yell at you, you can walk in the middle of the street with no problems, and you see other people quietly enjoying the morning either on their front porch or on the roof of their building.
Currently the huge International Film Festival is happening in Habana. It shows over 300 movies in 10 days and they play at least 4 movies everyday in every neighborhood movie theater in Habana. The price of a ticket is affordable for everyone (about 25 cents) but the problem is actually getting one since the lines for every movie are usually so long. Thankfully, SLC got us passes and we’re allowed to cut the ticket line and just go in.
I really love Cuban theaters because they’re massive, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie theater as large as the ones they have in Habana and they fill up almost consistently no matter what film you’re going to see. In one of the films I saw, La Noche de los Inocentes there was a line that was something like, “In Santiago de Cuba people will break windows for soap and laundry detergent, but here in Habana people will break windows for movies.” That film, La Noche de los Innocentes was actually my favorite film that I’ve seen so far. It’s by a Cuban director, Arturo Sotto and was hilarious and touched almost every controversial subject in Cuban society today, interracial relationships, homosexuality, jineterismo, machismo, everything!
Cuban film is highly contextual and while you can never go to Cuba and still enjoy Cuban film, everything about the film opens up once you know Cuba. As a result, watching La Noche after having spent 4 months in Cuba with a Cuban audience was awesome. The theater was packed and everyone was roaring with laughter as one of the characters tried to figure out how to answer a cell phone and an Italian man trying to start a company in Habana blamed the blockade for why his Cuban girlfriend cheated on him. There were all sorts of excited chatter throughout the theater in between laughs and I truly believe that the film was a groundbreaking film in Cuban film history.
Yesterday was the anniversary of John Lennon’s death so Aidan, Tiana, and I went to Lennon park where there is a statue of John Lennon sitting on a bench and we had a picnic. We bought a bunch of sunflowers and put them in John’ arm and poured out some wine for him. As we were doing this, a security guard came and stopped us because he had to put John’s glasses on, which the security guard keeps in his pocket because people kept stealing them. It was really nice sitting in the park and watching people bring Johnflowers and get their photos taken with him. As we were getting up to leave 4 little kids with guitars and an old man walked up and placed a huge bouquet on John’s lap and then sat down next to him and started playing “Imagine” and “Hey Jude” and it was really sweet and people gathered around and sang along. Afterwards the old man gave a speech saying that John Lennon was a musical genius, comparable to Beethoven. Then the security guard told them they had to stop because people wanted to get their pictures taken so played one more song and everyone applauded. It was really nice.
In the night Aidan, Tiana, and I went to the bar at the top of the Focsa building. The Focsa building is the tallest building and largest apartment complex in Habana and maybe even in Cuba, but I’m not sure. At the top there is a bar with all glass walls and you can see the entire city. I drank my first bloody mary, which I didn’t like that much but I was craving tomato juice for the first time ever and although it wasn’t very good, the view and the strength of the drink made it seem pretty good by the end. I really enjoy seeing cities from above; I think the aerial view says a lot about the place you’re in and Habana is very unlike any other big city I’ve seen from above but mainly because there are very few cars in the road (comparatively) and nothing is as brightly lit.
Hopefully before I leave I will be able to write again but who knows if I can find the time. Cuba is unlike any place I’ve ever been before and I really hope that I will get to come back some day because even though there are things that frustrate me about it (men, inaccessibility to certain things, men, disappearing professors, and did I already say men?) I truly love it here.