Learning the bittersweet rhythm of Havana

Victoria Dosch photos

Taking a cue from some Cuban boys, the group climbed and swang from the majestic jagüey trees in Miramar, Havana.

Earlier this month, nine eighth-graders from the Tower School in Marblehead spent five days in Cuba, a country off-limits to most Americans. The licensed trip was led by Victoria Dosch, who teaches Spanish at the school and is the daughter of Britain's former ambassador to Cuba, and by her husband, Steve Dosch. The students, all from Marblehead, Nahant, and Swampscott, are Ben Clark, Harry Cohen, Eliot Gregory, Caroline Hooper, Drew Jacobs, Emma Kahn, Grace Polk, Grace Murray, and Emily Willis.

By Victoria Dosch

“Colgando del Cielo” or “hanging onto heaven” is the repeat chorus the 11 of us chanted along with controversial Cuban singer/songwriter Carlos Varela in an intimate lunch he hosted for us in a paladar in the Miramar district of Havana. It was a family-run private restaurant blind-eyeing innumerable socialist controls. Over the course of our week in Havana, we would understand why it was that Carlos put his head back in agony as he sung those words while closing his eyes. Perhaps he was imagining a world less political as he sang about the reality of the people we met and came to adore. Having dodged snow by just minutes or miles on both sides of our trip, crept inside our shelter several times just seconds before the Havana skies parted, and surpassed levels of US and Cuban bureaucracy in which the least of our worries was that our donation Play-Doh was deemed a threat to security, we could kind of relate to what it meant to be hanging onto some unearthly power for what we were worth. But when you are among it all, the crumbling facades of old Spanish architecture, the incessant beat of salsa day and night, the intoxicating smell of island-made diesel that keeps the ’57 Chevys loyally rattling on, all you can do is smile, extend a hand and cheek hello, and not bat an eyelid when questioned why on earth there are Americans in Cuba again.

Drew Jacobs recalls: “As soon as a Cuban found out that we are from the States, their face lit up. They very rarely see Americans, so they were eager to talk to us. They wanted to find out why we were in Cuba and what is going on back home in America because, as Jonathan Farrar, chief of mission of the US Interests Section in Havana told us, virtually all 11 million Cubans have family in the US, but few have ever been, despite the 20,000 granted visas each year.''

“As we were roaming the streets of Old Havana, on a scavenger hunt that had us confronting locals to ask them questions about Cuba, we came across an old man selling the national newspaper, el Granma,” Grace Murray remembers. “Upon asking us where we were from, his cigar-filled mouth exploded into a smile as he exclaimed, suddenly in near-perfect English, 'Ah! The United States, the richest country in the world! I love the United States!' ''

Never once, except during the two nations’ immigration screenings, did we feel judged or unwelcome. We were, however, very aware that life is ever so different, particularly for the youth, on the communist island. To break the ice while visiting some elementary school children just beyond the city, we started to play a trivia game with world facts. The Cuban teachers nervously interrupted, saying we couldn’t talk about non-Cuban history, whispering, to the side, that the students wouldn’t know any either. And so we taught them English, and as Emily Willis remembers, “the funniest was the word 'lollipop' because all of the students and teachers laughed so much repeating it."

We learned other lessons on diplomacy and socialist survival while delivering our $1,200 in medical donations to child cancer patients from across the country. "The hospitals were the opposite of what one would expect,'' Ben Clark says. "Nobody except patients and their mothers were allowed in, and the hospital employed

Horses are commonplace on the streets of Old Havana.

several armed guards to enforce this. The hospital would also not accept donations, given that Fidel Castro's medical system is one of the country’s main prides. So we had to quietly get the supplies we had in by giving them to patients who brought them in discreetly.''

In a country where all are supposedly equal, but so clearly not, the smallest differentiation can be deemed counterrevolutionary.

"The people of Cuba are extremely proud, happy, and a thrill to be around,” says Grace Polk, “but they are also very nervous. Finding rides from place to place within the city was a constant battle. As we were a large group of foreigners, los taxitas were never willing to fit us all in, also given that there are armed police everywhere. Fortunately, we were able to find a few valiant drivers who allowed us to smash into the backseats. Gringos stacked on gringos, with pins and needle limbs, and shoulders mashed against the doors of the old American cars. It was a sight to see. At the time we were so uncomfortable, so bewildered by their fear, but we enjoyed every minute of it and it is an unforgettable part of our unreal experience.”

Some moments will not register as sweet in our memories.

"In Cuba there were stray dogs everywhere you looked,” Harry Cohen notes. “It was sad to see their underfed bodies and missing patches of fur." Apparently during the ‘Special Period’ after the Soviet Union’s collapse, dogs were fair game for dinner. While we didn’t see any on the menu, it was clear that their place in society hasn’t much changed.

Next time, we vow to take a good stash of Milk-Bones in our emergency supplies. And the food situation wasn’t just scarce for the dogs. Emma Kahn notes: “Scoping out restaurants that had enough food left for us was a challenge in itself, let alone having to then ask if they actually had any of what was on the menu. A typical day consisted of pieces of bread for breakfast, real Cuban sandwiches for lunch (not much like the Cuban sandwiches we thought we knew), ice cream, a piece or two of pork and rice with beans for dinner, and then more ice cream. Ice cream is never in short supply. Given that we were trying to consume not only the food, but the entire culture of the island in just six days, quality and quantity was but a mere crumb in our short but sweet taste of Cuba.”

Caroline Hooper recalls with fondness: “One of my favorite places to be in Cuba was the almost 4-mile malecón, or boardwalk, that runs along the length of Havana. It is the heart of the city. While we were there we ate, wrote, danced, and were serenaded by a local guitar player on our last night.”

It could be, or perhaps it just was, in those days before everything started to fall apart, the most beautiful city in the world. “Havana reminded me of a run-down ancient Rome, as if the buildings hadn't been lived in for hundreds of years,” says Eliot Gregory. Yet the people continue on as if there’s no other way, probably because there isn’t one.

At a glance it’s both the happiest and saddest place in the world. The rhythm and warmth are contagious, yet the starvation for freedom and basic necessities is blatant. We traveled to the island, not to make almighty political conclusions about whether John Lennon’s imagination to be as one was real, or whether Che Guevara’s proclamations are still alive and well, but to give a little and as it turns out, be given so much more. We hear those lyrics of Carlos Varela’s echoing deeper these days. We know that while we think we understand Cuba and its people better, there is so much of it we can never comprehend.

We are back to our own reality now, with dog groomers, world history books, Subway sandwiches, and patient visiting hours. We have journals of outspoken, enamored, and disgusted thoughts from our unique journey. And we know we are lucky, to have all of this, to have lived all of that, and to know the unspeakable difference.

To learn how you can blog for Passport, e-mail Lydia Rebac at lrebac@globe.com