Pain and Glory

I enjoyed staying at the beach resort hotel in Varadero, Cuba. The soft, tan colored sand was a great contrast to the aquamarine Caribbean Sea. I loved the sound of the contemporary Salsa music inside the 1950s-architectured lobby of the hotel in contrast to the sound of the large movements of the ocean waves on the outside. I also found myself in a meditational state at times as I sat at the seaside and felt the warm winds brush across the brown hairs of my hands and feet. Yes, life as a touring ethnographer can be mesmerizing. However, part of me feels guilty being a tourist/ethnographer. What I find myself remembering most, and thus wanting to recount in this narrative, is the time I spent with the Afrocubans in a neighborhood of Matanzas, a town just a few miles away from Varadero. I know that some of the people I met there haven’t, and probably never will, have the opportunity to luxuriate at any beach resort of any town in Cuba. Here I am-a foreigner-receiving a chance to explore “the paradise” of Cuba before natives of the country. As an African American who knows a thing or two about lacking some opportunities within your native country, I empathized with those in the Afrocuban neighborhood. Perhaps they empathized with me as well, which is what made my experience with them so harmonious and urged me to find where my true paradise of Cuba is: in the authentic neighborhoods with the people who have African roots just as I do, and not in the centers that have been tailored for foreigners.

The Afrocuban neighborhoods of Cuba are not considered the places of beauty and “paradise” of Cuba, or places to attract tourists. Yet, in the Afrocuban neighborhood is where I have my most fond memories. One of those memories is of the last day my travel companions and I spent at the Ifá house in Matanzas to say our goodbyes to some of the residents we met. Ifá is a traditional African religion of Yoruba origin (no found in Nigeria) that only few of African descent still practice today. The neighborhood in which this house is located used to be a slave quarter location. One can figure this by the looks of the neighborhood. The landscape is not leveled. There are no cemented sidewalks, just semi-paved rocks and sand that make for the roads and walkways. The houses are at low elevation and the doors of the houses are covered with eroding gates (perhaps the gates used to lock in the slaves in the past). One can witness that the small homes are cramped as people are trying to fit their biological and religious family members in them. Besides practicing religion such as Ifá, another cultural element the Afrocubans have continued is song and dance. The day of my last visit, I watched this man perform traditional African dance moves with electrifying energy. From a previous visit, some of the people learned that I was part of a Congolese dance company. The people urged me to dance with the man. Without hesitation, I headed out…

The man I shared the dance with isn’t what society would consider beauty either. He was old, maybe in his fifties or sixties. He was very black. He was also missing teeth. Later that evening, my travel companions and I were eating dinner. I made the comment that I needed to take a shower. My reasoning was due to the salt from the water of the beach in Varadero. One of my companions exclaimed, “If an old man was grinding on me, I would need a shower too!” Afterwards, everyone at the table erupted in laughter. I didn’t find the comment funny at all. I believe my companions misunderstood what the dance between the old man and I meant. All blacks, not just Africans or Afrocubans, use song and dance as a manner to escape their worries of oppression and discrimination and celebrate being black. Song and dance is a cultural aspect blacks take pride in. I believe the Afrocubans in Matanzas knew that they would not be seeing me again and that I would be returning to the United States soon. Therefore, they wanted me to share the special moment with the talented dancer. The dancing was a celebration between a black brother and sister of African descent, not a sexual interaction between an older man and a younger woman. I didn’t bother to tell my colleagues what the man had whispered to me. He said, “God bless you, my sister.” That is the main memory I have of Cuba thus far. I rarely think about swimming in Varadero. To this day, I try to understand why the man wanted to bless me. He was the poor islander. He was the one who may never be able to see the beaches of the tourist cities. Perhaps that part isn’t important. Perhaps the most important thing is that we share the pain and glory of being black.