"Slowly, the circle of a century is closing."
-Pedro Luis
Encountering Group Ariete, January 2017
The loose writers collective of Group Ariete are former graduates of the Havana-based Centro Onelio (Centro de Formación Literaria Onelio Jorge Cardoso). They are a diverse group of thinkers and creatives who write in different genres and styles, and hold different political beliefs, but if their name holds any significance (ariete is the spanish word for “ram”) the collective embodies a spirit of breaking through barriers. Or perhaps leading a charge with a hard, fortified head.
While some have had success in published collections, magazines, and contests, few of them get paid as writers in Cuba, and they come together once a month or so to hone their craft, and connect for recreational art and cultural events.
I had met one of the founders of the group just days before, on a chance visit to the Fundación Alejo Carpentier museum in old Havana. I had never read anything by Carpentier (one of Cuba’s most famous writers, and a pioneer of magical realism) and had forgotten the museum had been on my itinerary of landmarks to visit. But somehow, while aimlessly strolling down Calle Empedrado in Old Habana, I obliviously wandered into the shaded patio of the baroque-style colonial house that was Carpentier’s former residence, and home to the current foundation and museum in his name. Soon I was peering down at old photos, letters and his old typewriter, engaged in conversation about the author’s life and work, with one of the museum’s staff – a bright looking guy in his mid-20s named Pedro Luis.
Within minutes, we started talking about each other’s lives and work. He asked me about New York, and I asked him about Havana. As my broken Spanish began giving way, he graciously picked up the slack and transitioned to English without missing a beat.
He then lowered his voice and asked for a favor: would I be able to critique the English in his short story? He was about submit it to an international contest in Europe. I said of course— thinking we’d exchange emails and he’d send it to me later—but before I knew it, he was unzipping his backpack and passing over some loose bent up pages.
I had a favor of my own to ask. I’d been thinking of making some sort of short film while in Cuba. Did he know any local writers or poets that might be open to meet, and talk about… life? I wanted to see and hear Cubans beyond the pastel-painted classic cars, salsa bands in the tourist cafes, and the fedoras and cigars and mojitos. He laughed, and kind of sized me up with a double take, gaging my intentions.
He gave me his cell and invited me to meet his writing group that Saturday.
Maybe it was some of the magical realism still reverberating from the walls of Carpentier’s old home: I thought I had serendipitously been pulled in to absorb some history of one of Cuba’s great literary figures, and left with an invitation to connect with some of the island’s emerging, living writers.
That Saturday, I found myself on the top floor of an old schoolhouse in the Miramar section of Havana, sitting in a circle of about 20 writers from Group Ariete, and their mentor Raúl Aguiar, during one of their monthly hangs where they share each other’s work, talk literature, and as evening descends set it all free with sufficient amounts of alcohol, tobacco and whatever music might be blaring out of someones cell phone or old classroom computer speakers.
After an awkward entrance (picture yankee gringo stepping into a session in process, having no idea he’d be interrupting a classroom-formatted meeting), Pedro invited me to join the circle, and introduce my project. In what must have been the most grammatically incorrect Spanish ever heard in that building, I laughed and said hello and thank you and sorry, and that I was interested in doing some audio interviews for an improvisational short film project with anyone interested in participating; I had 6 or 7 open-ended questions about the world, the future, and life in Cuba.
Polite nods and smiles all around (which I couldn’t tell where on the spectrum they fell between sincere interest and friendly ridicule), but when the meeting wrapped up and post-session alcohol began greasing the wheels, eight writers made it up to the rooftop where I had set up a little open-air interview area, before the Miramar twilight descended, and we began heading out for Saturday night’s festivities.
The voices I recorded that day were at once lucid, weary, deeply reflective, and individually unique. Their candid and poetic meditations on the questions I threw at them allude to the complex internal terrain of Cubans today: a people who have played no part in the old ideological clash that envelops their lives, who look out beyond their shores and see a rapidly developing, globalizing, competitive world still driven by a US dollar that is weaponized against them, and yet a people who remain dedicated to their country and the ideals of co-operation and resistance that have forged the modern Cuban spirit.
Their generosity in participating in this spontaneous, improvisational project, in responding to my intentionally abstract and vague questions, and working within the parameters of my single, challenging creative direction— of trying to speak in short phrases to allow me to combine their voices in an edit— was to me, emblematic of the genuine Cuban desire to connect with Americans to find common ground.
In sharing these Cuban voices with Americans on the other side of the embargo, I hope to encourage us to think about more creative and humble ways to listen to, and engage with, our neighbors 80 miles to the south. Neighbors that still deal with unnecessary hardships every day, that result not just from the decisions by the authoritarian communist regime at home, but from the endlessly punishing 60-year long embargo upheld day after day by the supposed human rights-loving democracy to the north.
1 The Future
Where are we, as a world, headed in 2017?
Pedro Luis Azcuy
Está lentamente, cerrando el círculo de un siglo.
We don’t know where we are going. It’s uh, I don’t know. It’s like a tricky moment.
Slowly, the cycle of a century is closing.
We don’t know where we are going. It’s uh, I don’t know. It’s like a tricky moment.
Damián Leal
Yo opino que a lo largo de todos estos años hemos estado viendo un comportamiento del mundo que se demuestra demasiado consumista con las tendencias que tienen los países del primer mundo, capitalistas como tal.
Yo soy de la idea de que este año puede ser un poco más exponencial de lo que hemos visto, en el sentido de que lamentablemente la humanidad está tomando el camino de las guerras y no darle una solución al hambre que se pasa a los países del tercer mundo, y solamente unos pocos logran alcanzar lo que viene siendo la felicidad, la riqueza, la abundancia, mientras que el resto de la humanidad padece de los males que está agobiando a demasiadas personas.
Lamentablemente humanidad está yendo por un camino que ya ha sido trazado de antemano. Realmente quisiera que lograra cambiarlo. De momento no veo nada de cambio.
I think that throughout all these years we have seen a world grow consumerist due to the tendencies first world countries have, capitalist as they are.
I think this year might prove to be even worse than we’ve seen, because humanity, unfortunately is taking the path of wars instead of solving the hunger that plagues third world countries, and only a few manage to reach happiness, wealth, and abundance, while the rest of humanity is facing overwhelming issues.
Unfortunately, humanity is walking down a path that has already been traced. I would love changing it, I really would. But at the moment, I do not see a change.
Iris Rosales
¿A dónde vamos en el mundo en el 2017? No te puedo responder eso, no, es una idea demasiado grande para una sola mente, tal vez mi mente. El mundo va hacia donde las personas decidan ir. Y mientras más grande sea un grupo de personas con un solo objetivo, hasta ahí irá. No tal vez el mundo, pero una ciudad un grupo, tal vez un país en dependencia de lo que desea la gente.
Where are we going in the world in 2017? I cannot answer that to you, no, it is far too big an idea for a single mind, or perhaps just my mind. The world goes to where people choose to go. And the bigger the group of people with a common goal, there it will go. Maybe not the entire world, but a city or a collection of people. Maybe a country that depends on the will of the people.
Raúl Aguiar
Tiemblo un poco con adonde vamos, porque… es confuso. Tengo utopías como los cubanos, ideas, un mundo mejor. Un mundo donde las personas sean felices, implica educación gratis, salud gratis, comida fácil, viaje fácil, libertad, opinión libre, información libre. Pero el mundo va atrás en estos temas.
Debemos pensar en utopía, utopías nuevas, no discursos, no política fácil. Utopías pensadas, individual y social, que mejoren al ser humano.
I tremble a little with where we’re going, because… it’s confusing. I have utopias, like other Cubans do. Ideas, of a better world. A world where people are happy, have education, free healthcare, easy food, easy travel, freedom, free opinion, free information. But the world is going backward, on these things.
We must think of utopia, new utopias, not speeches, not cheap politics. Thoroughly-conceived utopias, individual and social, that improve the human being.
Lázaro José Viciedo Bersaguí
Un mundo compulso. Un mundo complicado. Mi mundo como el mundo de otros, no? Intentando nadar, intentando buscar oxígeno o aire, intentando sobrevivir, un mundo difícil, complicado para existir.
Un mundo donde el dinero es importante, donde el nombre y el apellido son importantes, donde la competencia es tan importante como la competencia entre uno mismo y entre muchos entre tantos.
Un mundo con deseo de que siga siendo mundo, un mundo donde casi la esperanza más que verde, es gris, más que gris es negra, y de momento el negro se convierte en verde para otros que andan buscando esa esperanza.
Un mundo cercano a mi donde yo vivo en Cuba, con cambios internos o externos. Externos que puedan provocar cambios internos.
Un mundo donde la incertidumbre, la incertidumbre es importante, porque la incertidumbre genera desaliento, y genera falta de esperanza. Donde la incertidumbre es: no sé dónde estoy, no sé qué va a suceder, no sé qué es lo que puede suceder ahora mismo conmigo, con los que me rodean, con los que rodean a los que me rodean.
Y es tan convulsa, es tan desilusionadora, que a veces me aterra pensar en la incertidumbre, incluso menciono esa palabra incertidumbre y se me eriza la piel. Se me hacen chinitos los pelos, donde no sé si cien días hacen posible mi existencia, o la existencia de otros que me rodean.
Salgo más allá de mi mundo y me refugio en el mundo más cercano, donde los conflictos raciales están provocando muerte, asesinato, discriminación, desentendimiento, donde lo que le interesa a otros muchos, es la posición que ocupan en el mundo, y no lo que son en el mundo.
Eso es lo que me provoca ahora mismo todo este problema con la actualidad y con pensar en qué puede ser este mundo que esta movimiento en el futuro para mí y para otros.
A turbulent world. A complicated world. My world, like the world of others, right? Trying to swim, trying to find a breath of air, of oxygen, trying to survive, a difficult, complicated world to exist in.
A world where money matters, where names and surnames matter, where competition is important, within oneself, and among many others.
A world that wants to continue being a world. A world where hope is more gray than green, more black than gray, for those looking for that hope, that black turns to green.
A world close to where I live in Cuba, that is changing. External changes that could bring change within.
A world where uncertainty is important because this uncertainty leads to discouragement and hopelessness. Where uncertainty is: “I do not know where I am, I do not know what will happen, I do not know what is going to happen now, what is going to happen with me, and with those around me.”
It is so agitating, so bleak that at times I am afraid of thinking about uncertainty. Even mentioning the word “uncertainty” makes my skin bristle, my hairs stand on end. I don’t know if I’ll be alive in 100 days, or if those around me will.
I leave my world and take refuge in the closest world, where racial conflicts are causing death, murder, discrimination, and misunderstandings, where what matters to many is what status they have, rather than what or who they are.
This is the root of my problem, my problem with the present world, and what the future holds for me and others.
2 The City
What does the wind feel and hear, as it passes over Havana?
Pedro Luis Azcuy
¿Qué escucha el viento? ¿Qué escuchó el viento? ¿Que trae el viento cuando pasa sobre la Habana? Trae historias de gente.
Casas, podredumbre, mujeres, hombres, niños, perros, gatos. Coches viejos, que aún funcionan. Casas viejas, que se mantienen de pie. Edificios de malos diseños, edificios diseñados en la era Soviética, para un clima que no es Cubano. Edificios que están llenos de fisuras por esos errores. Joyas de casas de arquitectura colonial que ya se están restaurando algunas, otras están muriendo.
De gente que ha sufrido cosas que no han querido. Gente que ha tenido que vivir vidas programadas, tanto igual que en otros países, aunque no he ido, sé que tiene que ser es igual. El ser humano más bajo, el del ciudadano promedio, siempre tiene que enfrentarse a cosas que no diseñó.
What does the wind hear? What does the wind bring, when it passes over Havana? It brings the stories of other people.
Houses, poverty, women, men, children, dogs, cats. Old cars, that still work. Old homes, that are still up. Buildings with improper designs, buildings from the Soviet era, for a climate that is not Cuban. Buildings that are fraught with fissures because of these mistakes. Jewels of the colonial architecture, some are being restored, others are dying.
Of people that have suffered what they did not want to. Of people that have led programmed lives, just like in other countries, though I haven’t gone, I know it must be the same. The most basic human beings, the average citizen, must always face things they did not design.
Nelson Ochagavía
La sal. Sobre todo la sal. El mar, yodo, algas, el sudor, el trabajo, cansancio, agotamiento. También esperanzas, sueños, empecinamiento, durezas desde cabeza, vida, furia. Mucha ira, mucha furia reprimida.
Salt. Above all, salt. The sea, iodine, algae, sweat, labor, fatigue, exhaustion. But also hope, dreams, stubbornness, hardheads, life, rage. A lot of rage, a lot of repressed rage.
Raúl Aguiar
Mar, ciudad, humo, olores corporales, comida, suciedad, hembras, podredumbre, azúcar, café, mucho alcohol, ruido, música, reggaetón, gritos, pregones de vendedores, autos, bocinazos de autos, sirenas policiales, discursos a lo lejos, radios encendidas, peleas en hogar-caseras, dominó en las calles.
Sea, city, smoke, body odors, food, dirt, females, rottenness, sugar, coffee, lots of alcohol, noise, music, reggaeton, screams, salesmen’s shouts, cars, car horns, police sirens, speeches in the distance, radios on, domestic fights, dominoes in the streets.
Damián Leal
Yo soy un escritor de fantasía y el viento me remonta a mundos fantásticos en el que imagino otras versiones en de lo que Cuba pudo ser o puede llegar a ser.
El viento me transmite muchas cosas, sobre todo cerca del mar. Pero para saber lo que transmite el viento hay que saber incluso lo que significa el viento para ti.
Tienes que saber escuchar desde del sonido del viento desde un lugar alto, a los consejos de un amigo, a las palabras de una madre, de una novia, hay que saber escuchar y el viento es el mayor enigma para todo aquel que está dispuesto a oírlo.
I am a writer of fantasy, and the winds take me to fantastic worlds in which I see the many things Cuba could have been, or can be.
The wind tells me many things, especially near the sea. But to know what the winds say, you must know what the wind means to you.
You must know how to listen. To the sound of the wind from a high place, to the advice of a friend, to the words of your mother, or your girlfriend, we must know how to listen. And the wind is the biggest enigma to all who are willing to listen to it.
Iris Rosales
Ai.. el viento. El viento es un sinvergüenza. Que te deja oír lo que tú quieres. Y te baja el optimismo, que te lo sube, que te alegra. Que te trae buenos recuerdos, que te trae malos recuerdos, que te hace reír, que te hace llorar. Que te hace soñar. Ese es el viento. Un completo travieso sinvergüenza.
Ay.. the wind. The wind is a scoundrel- a trickster that lets you hear what you want. It takes away your optimism, and raises you and makes you happy. It brings good memories, and bad ones. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry. It makes you dream. That is the wind. A complete, mischievous scoundrel.
3 The Nature of Things
What's the difference between spirit and matter?
Pedro Luis Azcuy
Materia y espíritu? El espíritu se funde en la materia y por eso la materia está en constante movimiento siempre. Todo es vibración.
La materia no esta tangible a los sentidos. La materia está repleta de espíritu y los dos están en constante movimiento. La misma, la materia y el espíritu funcionan como una sola cosa, y la materia siempre está en constante movimiento.
Material and spirit? Spirit merges into matter and that is why matter is always in constant motion. Everything is vibration.
Matter is not tangible to the senses. Matter is brimming with spirit, and they both are in constant movement. Matter and spirit function as a single thing, always in constant motion.
Iris Rosales
Lo material y el espíritu, la diferencia entre lo material y el espíritu está entre lo que realmente quieres y lo que realmente necesitas. Puedes tener algo y, sin embargo, no sabes lo que quieres. Se puede querer algo con muchas fuerzas y realmente no saber qué es lo que realmente necesitas.
The material and the spiritual, the difference between the material and the spiritual lies between what you want and what you really need. You can have something, and yet not know what you want. You may want something really bad, and not know what it is you really need.
Nelson Ochagavía
Para mí, casi ninguna sin una no hay otra, hay una simbiosis extraña. Que no tiene sentido diferenciarla de esa manera. Sí okay, lo material y lo espiritual pero cuando uno va a la esencia, es lo mismo, somos materia y a la vez espíritus. No hay una diferencia real entre una y la otra. Simplemente cómo percibimos la manifestación de una de una y de otra. Para mí no hay diferencia.
For me, there isn’t one without the other, it’s a strange symbiosis. It doesn’t make sense to differentiate them. Well, there is the matter and spirit, but in essence, they are the same, we are both material and spiritual. There is no difference between one and the other. Only how we perceive their manifestations. To me, there is no difference.
Lázaro José Viciedo Bersaguí
Materia no muere, la materia se transforma, cambia constantemente, siempre, segundo por segundo. La materia es todo lo que da inicio, y es todo lo que continua, pero también es espiritual.
El espíritu es lo que está también implícito en la materia, es las sensaciones de bienestar, es el sentirse bien. Lo espiritual es lo placentero lo que no puede ser alcanzado con nuestras sensaciones, con nuestro sentido mas concreto, lo que es el tacto, lo que es la visualidad.
Hay muchas cosas que sentimos pero que no somos capaces de tocar. Las sentimos, las vivimos, pero no somos capaces de llevarlo físicamente con nosotros, lo espiritual es una elevación de la materia, es la materia misma pero en una de sus propias transformaciones.
Soy un ser muy material pero también muy espiritual. Tengo muchas creencias religiosas. Y creo desde el punto de vista espiritual, en una reencarnacion, creo en pulir las asperezas de esta vida para tener después mejores vidas y poder unirme al todo, pero la materia me condiciona y me obliga a pensar un poco mas, y a cultivar mas mi espiritualidad, o mis espiritualidades porque tengo varias.
Matter doesn’t die, matter transforms, changes constantly, always, second by second. Matter is all that begins, and is all that continues, but it is also spiritual.
Spirit is also implicit in matter. It’s the sensation of wellbeing, the feeling of pleasure that we cannot reach with our more concrete senses, like touch or visuality.
There are many things we feel but aren’t able to touch. We can feel it, we can live it, but we cannot hold it physically. The spiritual is elevated from matter, it is matter, but transformed.
I am a very material being, but also very spiritual. I have many religious beliefs. And I believe, from the spiritual point of view, in reincarnation. I believe in polishing the roughness of this life that I’m living, to have better lives in what comes after, to be able to join the whole. But it is the material that conditions me, and makes me think a bit more, cultivating my spirituality, or my spiritualities, because I have many.
Raúl Aguiar
Los dos necesarios: alimento espiritual, alimento material. Aliento espiritual difícil, sin alimento material. Cuba difícil alimento espiritual.
Muchas personas trabajan, sueñan, escriben, romanticismo, espiritualidad. Muchos problemas: la materia, la comida, vivir día a día. Escritor, escritor debe comer; difícil escribir.
The two requirements: spiritual food, material food. Spiritual food difficult, without material food. Spiritual food, difficult in Cuba.
Many people work, dream, write, romanticism, spirituality. Many problems: matter, food, living day by day. Writer, writer must eat; difficult to write.
4 The Caribbean
What is Cuba, to the Caribbean?
Iris Rosales
Cuba es tantas cosas al mismo tiempo. Y es casi lo mismo que otras islas.
¿Que somos? Un Enigma. Somos algo sencillo, algo complejo, algo alegre, algo complicado. Somos algo para descubrir y al mismo tiempo que ya hemos sido descubiertos. Somos algo que no necesitamos estar de moda. Y al mismo tiempo nos puedes disfrutar en cualquier época del año. En cualquier década en cualquier siglo. Somos cubanos.
Cuba is so many things at the same time. And it is almost the same as the other islands.
What are we? An enigma; we’re something simple, something complex, something happy, something complicated. We are something to be discovered and yet, something already discovered. We are something that needs not be in fashion. And at the same time, we can be enjoyed in any season of the year. In any decade, in any century. We’re Cubans.
Raúl Aguiar
Es un experimento social con hallazgos, descubrimientos, algunos buenos y otros no tanto, errores en lo económico, pero descubrimientos en lo social, en los derechos básicos, derechos de educación, salud. Qué bueno sería para el caribe si hubiera logrado el experimento bueno, con éxitos, con logros, en todos los aspectos, tanto en los aspectos de derechos humanos, como en económicos, como en los derechos civiles. Es la isla más grande del caribe; es interesante por lo que sucede en la isla en cuanto a población, en cuanto a influencia total en las demás islas. Pienso que el caribe gusta de muchas cosas de Cuba, sobre todo la parte de la conexión que hay con esos otros pueblos, sin importar el idioma.
Es la isla más grande del caribe. Es interesante por lo que sucede en la isla en cuanto a población, en cuanto a influencia total en las demás islas. Pienso que el caribe gusta de muchas cosas de Cuba, sobre todo la conexión que hay con esos otros pueblos, sin importar el idioma.
It is a social experiment with findings, discoveries, some good and others not so much. Economic errors, but discoveries in the social, basic rights, in education and health. How good it would’ve been for the Caribbean if the experiment had been accomplished, with successes and achievements in all aspects, of human rights, and economic, and civil rights.
It is the largest island in the Caribbean. It is interesting because of what happens on the island in terms of population, in terms of total influence on the other islands. I think the Caribbean likes a lot of things about Cuba, especially the part of the connection that there is with those other peoples, regardless of language.
Nelson Ochagavía
Utopía vieja, sueños románticos, imagen, fachada… Algo que pudo ser y no llegó a ser. Imagen distorsionada, mulatas, tabaco, ron, poco mas.
An old utopia, romantic dreams, image, a façade… Something that could have been, but did not turn so. Distorted image, mulattos, tobacco, rum, not much else.
5 Newness
What's new in Cuba?
Nelson Ochagavía
Todo. La política, nueva cada día. La gente, de alguna manera es nueva cada día. La gente. Los sueños. Un pocos son los de antes, pero se renuevan todos los días, nunca nada es igual. Pareciera que en Cuba todo está estático, pero no. Todo está cambiando, lo que el cambio es muy lento. Muy por debajo y se nota poco.
Cuba es una isla surrealista, de realismo mágico, todo está en interno cambio en Cuba siempre. Más lento que en el resto del mundo pero todo es nuevo. Siempre.
Everything. Politics, new every day. People, somehow, are new. The people, and dreams. Some are the way they were before, but they renew themselves every day, nothing is ever the same. It may seem as if in Cuba everything is stagnant, but it is not. Everything is changing, but the pace is very slow. Very subtle, not really noticed.
Cuba is a surreal island, of magical realism, everything is internally changing in Cuba. Much slower than in the rest of the world, but everything is new. Always.
Raúl Aguiar
Cuenta propia, cuentapropistas, propiedad privada; facilidad viajes, relación Estados Unidos.
Aperturas necesarias, límites rompen, mayor libertad, expresar, mostrar. Igualdad información, apertura información. Fuera bloqueo, bloqueo externo, bloqueo interno. Odiar espinas, muros, espinas, afuera y adentro. Esperanza futuro.
Incierto, esperanzador, idealista, pragmático, comercial, romántico, vital, natural, robótico, artificial, libre.
Self-employment, self-employed citizens, private property; ease of travel, relationship with the United States.
Necessary openings. Breaking boundaries. Greater freedom, expressing, showing. Equality of information, transparency. The blockade, external blockade, internal blockade. Tired of suspicion, walls, outside and inside. Hope for the future.
Uncertain, hopeful, idealistic, pragmatic, commercial, romantic, vital, natural, robotic, artificial, free.
Pedro Luis Azcuy
Esperanza. A mí esa palabra, no se si, si abordarla porque yo tengo esperanzas de que el ser humano pueda zafarse de tantas cosas. De tantas cosas como los gobiernos, por ejemplo, como el dinero, por otro ejemplo. Me da hasta miedo tener esa esperanza.
Está lentamente cerrando el círculo de un siglo.
Hope. To me, that word… I don’t know how to address it, because my hopes are that human beings can escape from so many things. Things like government, for example, or like money. I am even afraid to have this hope.
The cycle of a century is slowly closing.
Damián Leal
Un espacio del mundo que no ha sido insertada en el mundo todavía, pero con el tiempo lo será. Sólo hay que esperar.
Hemos pasado por mucho nosotros los cubanos. Todo el bloqueo.
Y muchas personas en el mundo puede que no los encuentren en el mapa, puede que no sepan de nosotros, pero aquí hay 11 millones de personas, deseosas de mostrarle a planeta Tierra de lo que somos capaces de hacer… de lo que somos capaces de inventar, de soñar y de crear como artistas.
Y el cubano tiene muchas inventivas, eso se refleja en las calles de La Habana cuando usted sale por la Habana usted ve las locuras, que todavía existen que son demasiado exóticas para cualquier persona que llegue de pronto a Cuba o viste la Habana, y las tiene que descubrir, en cada pasillo en cada callejón, en cada avenida, va haber algo distinto. Siempre hay algo para descubrir.
A place in the world that hasn’t fallen in line yet, but with time it will. We just have to wait.
We Cubans have gone through a lot. The blockade.
And many people in the world cannot find us on the map, they might not know of us, but there are 11 million people here, anxious to show the Earth what we are capable of doing… of what we are capable of inventing, of dreaming, of creating as artists.
The Cuban is very inventive, this is evident in the streets of Havana when you walk outside and see crazy things, oddities that still exist and that are too exotic for any person who recently arrives in Cuba. Anyone who visits Havana has to discover these oddities, in every aisle, in every little street and avenue, there is always something to discover.
Iris Rosales
¿Qué es nuevo? No me atrevo a responder esa pregunta… ¿qué es nuevo para Cuba? ¿Qué es nuevo para mi ciudad? Tal vez lo único nuevo que tengamos ahora es la tecnología.
Lo que sale todos los días, lo que podría ser nuevo tecnológicamente para el mundo y científicamente para el mundo, pero seguimos teniendo los mismos sentimientos, los mismos que puede tener otra persona en cualquier otro lugar. Amor, odio, todo un complejo amasijo de sentimientos.
Somos algo para descubrir y al mismo tiempo que ya hemos sido descubiertos. Somos algo que no necesitamos estar de moda. Y al mismo tiempo nos puedes disfrutar en cualquier época del año. En cualquier década en cualquier siglo. Somos cubanos. ¿Que somos? Somos un enigma, algo sencillo, algo complejo, algo alegre, algo complicado. Somos cubanos.
What is new? I do not dare answer that question… What is new in Cuba? What is new in my city? Perhaps the only new thing we have is access to technology.
Technology that is new every day, that is new in the world of science and technology, but we have the same feelings still, the same feelings others could experience in any other place. Love, hate, a complex tapestry of feelings.
We are something to be discovered, and yet we’re the same people we have always been. We don’t need to be in fashion. And at the same time, we can be enjoyed in any season of the year, in any decade, in any century. We are Cubans. What are we? An enigma, something simple, something complex, something happy, something complicated. We’re Cubans.
6 The Horizon
Who is the new generation?
Iris Rosales
¿La Nueva Generación? Juventud, vida, futuro, esperanza, voluntariedad, sueños, deseos, perspectiva, sentido de pertenencia, seguridad en lo que desean, amplitud e internet.
The new generation? Youth, life, future, hope, willfulness, dreams, perspective, identity, sense of belonging, confidence in what they want, depth, and internet.
Nelson Ochagavía
Tontos, superficiales, vagos, con mucho potencial y sin ningún deseo de explotarlo. Facilistas. Mucho más vacíos de lo que éramos nosotros. Mucho más vacíos de lo que fuero n los de antes que nosotros. Muy difíciles de tratar y de entender, en mi experiencia personal no concibo entender muy bien, cómo se puede ser así. Cómo se puede ir por la vida sin que nada te importe nada.
Fools, shallow minds, lazy, with a lot of potential but without the drive to exploit it. Low effort. Emptier than what we were. Much emptier than the ones before us. Hard to deal with and hard to understand, in my experience I can’t understand how one can be that way. How can you go through life without caring about anything?
Raúl Aguiar
Tecnológica, conectada, individualista, romántica, pragmática, ignorante, inteligente, emocional, materialista, romántica, prostituida, esperanzada, desesperanzada, resignada, rebelde.
Technological, connected, individualistic, romantic, pragmatic, ignorant, intelligent, emotional, materialistic, romantic, prostituted, hopeful, hopeless, resigned, rebellious.
7 Shapes of the Past
The buildings in Havana, what do they hold?
Pedro Luis Azcuy
Edificios de malos diseños- edificios diseñados en la era soviética para un clima que no es cubano. Edificios que están llenos de fisuras por esos errores. Joyas de casas de arquitectura colonial que ya se están restaurando algunas, otras están muriendo.
Buildings with improper designs—buildings from the Soviet era for a climate that is not Cuban. Buildings that are fraught with fissures for their designs. Jewels of the colonial architecture, some are being restored, others are dying.
Iris Rosales
Historia, misterio, pesadillas. Muchos enigmas, sobre todos los edificios que pueblan la Habana Vieja y Centro Habana, algunos del Vedado, pero generalmente son casas. Esos los edificios guardan muchas cosas, resistencia, cultura. No me quiero morir. Aunque me estoy desgranando poquito a poquito.
Stories, mysteries, nightmares. Many enigmas, especially the buildings that populate Old Havana and the Central Havana, some in Vedado, but generally those are houses. Those buildings keep many things, resistance, culture. I do not want to die. Although I am coming apart at the seams.
Nelson Ochagavía
Vida propia, historia, mucha historia acumulada en ellos mismos. Son preciosos, me encanta la arquitectura. Cuando miro un edificio estoy viendo casi un ser vivo. De hecho, lo veo como un ser vivo. Por todo lo que un grupo de personas puso para que ese edificio estuviera ahí. Y ahí están tus sueños, expectativas, ilusiones.
Ahí está la historia del obrero que levantó es edificio para darle de comer a su familia. Ahí está la historia del arquitecto que lo proyecto para ser famoso. Y el edificio un poco es la concentración de todas esas historias, si quieres. Está vivo los edificios están vivos. Y los veo como seres vivos. Muy bellos. Aunque estén viejos y hechos mierda. De hecho parte de su encanto es eso, de que como los seres vivos son capaces de pasar de una etapa de nacimiento, a la esplendidez, a la decadencia completa. Pueden nacer y puede morir como cualquier ser vivo. A no ser que algún hijo de puta meta la mano y lo restaure.
Their own life, history, a lot of history accumulated within themselves. They are precious, I am fascinated by the architecture. When I look at a building I am almost looking at an alive being. In fact, I regard it as a living being. For all the things a group of people had to put in place to erect said building. There lie their dreams, their expectations, their illusions.
The story of the worker that erected the building to feed his family. The story of the architect that planned the building to become famous. And the building is the concentration of all these stories. They’re alive, buildings are alive. And I see them as beautiful, living beings. Even if they are old and turning to shit. In fact, that’s part of their charm, just like living beings go through stages in life, from birth, to radiance, to total decay. They can be born and they can die like any living being. Unless some son of a bitch put his hands on it to restore it.
8 La Habana
What's the vibe in Havana?
Iris Rosales
Rutina, obstinación, esperanza, sueños, risa, tristeza, alegría, dominó, tabaco, cubanos, asfalto, dióxido de carbono, sueño, futuro… Sueños y futuro, historia, misterio, pesadillas.
Routine, stubbornness, hope, dreams, laughter, sadness, joy, dominoes, tobacco, Cubans, asphalt, carbon dioxide, dreams, future… dreams and future, stories, mysteries, nightmares.
Damián Leal
Por lo menos para mí. Me da un aire de antigüedad cuando veo todos los almendrones pasando. Los carros antiguos la década del 50 O de los 60, cuando todavía están en pies y coleando. Me da un aire de una población latinoamericana que sigue ahí con sus problemas, con sus virtudes, con sus defectos, con su cultura todos los días y todos los días sale a la calle y sobrevive, porque tenemos muchas dificultades como cubanos dificultades económicas. Pero, seguimos el pies.
Y el cubano tiene muchas inventivas, eso se refleja en las calles de La Habana cuando usted sale por la Habana usted ve las locuras, que todavía existen que son demasiado exóticas para cualquier persona que llegue de pronto a Cuba o viste la Habana, y las tiene que descubrir, en cada pasillo en cada callejón, en cada avenida, va haber algo distinto. Siempre hay algo para descubrir.
For me, I get an air of antiquity when I see the Almendrones passing by. The old cars from the 50s and the 60s, when they are still kicking. I get an air of a Latin American population that is still out there, with its issues, its virtues, and its flaws, with its everyday culture, every day it walks out into the streets and survives, it has to survive many difficulties because, as Cubans, we have many difficulties, economic difficulties. But we continue on.
The Cuban is very inventive, this is evident in the streets of Havana when you walk outside and see crazy things, oddities that still exist and that are too exotic for any person who recently arrives in Cuba. Anyone who visits Havana has to discover these oddities, in every aisle, in every little street and avenue, there is always something to discover.
Nelson Ochagavía
Utopía vieja, sueños románticos, imagen, fachada… Algo que pudo ser y no llegó a ser. Imagen distorsionada, mulatas, tabaco, ron, poco mas.
An old utopia, romantic dreams, image, a façade… Something that could have been, but did not turn so. Distorted image, mulattos, tobacco, rum, not much else.
ABOUT GROUP ARIETE
Ariete is a writer’s collective based in Havana, Cuba founded in mid-2014, by graduates of the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Center for Literary Training. In 2018, with author and mentor Raúl Aguiar, the group published “Ariete”, an anthology of short stories, published by Editorial Guantanamera and Lantia Publishing.
In 2019, “Ariete” won the Best Fiction – Multi Author category at the 21st International #ILBA Latino Book Awards, held in Los Angeles.
Paperback and kindle copies of the book are available online, through the publisher Lantia, and Amazon. At the moment, the only version is in Spanish, but even if you aren’t fluent, it makes a great gift, or donation to your local library or book store.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
Music in this series comes from “Distant Wind II” composed by Orlando Jacinto Garcia, and performed by the Lviv Philharmonic and 1st clarinet Wojciech Mrozek, at the XXII International Summer Festival Music Festival in Sandomierz, Poland.
Orlando Jacinto Garcia is a Cuban-American composer, living in Miami, Florida.
