Cuba diary

A Cuba Diary – 4/16/16 through 4/24/16 Day 1 (4/16 - Prop plane to Mexico City with a dozen people feeling every air pocket.

Every instruction is in Spanish from exiting the plane to a van to the terminal to finding my way to the right immigration line. A kind older woman helps me find my way, fill out the paperwork all in Spanish, and somehow, asking for a lot of help, I sort through the broken English to get to a new security line that goes back to the terminal. They require every bit of electronic paraphernalia out for security. Back in a very modern terminal but there are no gates listed for Havana but again by randomly asking uniformed people I find the gate and walk back through the long terminal where I meet the producers and one of the composers. More visa lines at the gate but the head producer has a priority pass so he gets all our visas at once. I'm told Cuba is crazy and the arrival and departure may feature long lines, 3 hours to get bags (glad I have mine) and unpredictable but required bureaucracy. They tell me packs of wild dogs roam the streets but if you don't feed them the dogs leave. As for runners however..... The flight to Havana is on a 737 and packedeasy stowing of luggage. The streets are fairly dark for a city with even the main thoroughfares underlit and relying on car lights for navigating. The youth is out on a Saturday night but it seems like they pop into sight dangerously in the headlights. They are doing what youth does but with a lot more abandon. We arrive around 1am and the place we're staying in is a large colonial house that probably was the height of wealth at one time but just looks old in the sense of trying to make old furniture that once was stylish appear nice. I have a shared bathroom with older plumbing and older lighting.

Day 2 (4/17) The people who run the guest house don't speak English and my room is upstairs in a second part of the house that leads through an extremely steep narrow staircase from a courtyard. It sounds glamorous which compared to the other colonial housing in the neighborhood that is falling apart, decrepit, wide open, trash and laundry visible, it is. I wake up to a shower that in this humid climate one might say is ummmm… bracing. I walk the streets to find a church and there are people about so I hesitate to photograph the squalor so visibly and stick to lovely photos and even then, between the iPhone and the photographs I’m too easily be branded a tourist. The streets are falling apart concrete and most cars are old, noisy, and falling apart in ways that make our 91 Volvos seem like luxury vehicles. Street cats and dogs do roam the streets but seem harmless. When I find the church it is locked behind iron gates with no signs indicating mass times and clearly moot at 8am. This scares me. I do see some morning joggers so I might try...it becomes clear to me how vulnerable I am in not being able to communicate easily. I meet the composers at breakfast. They are generally older and not surprisingly self-absorbed in their own music and recordings. I don't know how much they've walked around but they seem more excited by the novelty than actually placing themselves in the stead of a people who seem generally wary, beaten, and just carrying on as best as can be managed.

I go back to the church after breakfast and sit at 9:40 wondering whether there will be a mass at 10. Last night the local liaison told me she had a friend who goes at 11 so we'll see. At least I'm here. The bulletin I receive makes no mention of mass times. The kneelers are all kept raised in place by hooks and loops and I see no one kneeling and

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only one person unhooking the kneeler to rest her feet. A rosary begins at 9:55 and I wonder whether mass will occur at a suggested time or if at all but I might as well wait the hour regardless: Lord to who else can I go?

Mass happened at 10:30 and I feel truly privileged to be there among the people, maybe 100 or so. Piano mass but not evangelical tinged like those in south Texas or Albuquerque. I realized that the basic need to sing comes from a purity of heart and a joy that only comes from God. We translate our emotions and our sorrows and our worries and our musicianship into the "performance" but the first cause if you will, as a child, is guileless and filled with the love of enunciating that inner joy. When I walk I see people in windows or sitting in a yard, some shirtless, some still and staring, some with the stony looks of their individual burden. Decay is the word on my mind but I don't underestimate the special nature of sitting among others and especially in Mass, being in a community in the most meaningful way possible. Lunch by the ocean: we drive in a van of about 15 people to a "posher" hotel or what serves for posh here. Food is mundane though I enjoyed a Spanish cold ham with grilled shrimp. Saw some bathers or scuba divers and since I know there's a big wall around the ocean I wonder how. This is a welcoming banquet that I guess is the last hoorah before the daily studio work and being left to our own devices. As I walk the streets to the ocean there is a world of difference walking toward the Hotel Nacionale, a premium hotel with taxi drivers and tour buses awaiting and the spas, Las Vegas entertainment (ok only buena vista club entertainers) and the working class visiting the edge of the ocean sands and coming by crowded city buses. It is a dialectic that permeates everywhere. At the end of the day I convince a few that we ate so much for lunch we should just go out for dessert and drink. They are hesitant to look bad at a restaurant but it's raining and I tell them I'll go to the Mediterranean restaurant next door and scope it out and besides doesn't a baklava and ice cream sound good? The restaurant is thumbs up and after a mincemeat pie w ice cream and a mojito all is well Day 3 (4/18) I brave it to take a run today my one concession being to wait for the light on the big Avenida. I'm clearly conspicuous with my running togs and gear but find a city block around a park with one other jogger and for 6 quarter mile laps put up with it till I get bored and launch out over the neighborhood through school kids and people off to work.

Breakfasts here are the same everyday: scrambled egg, white Italian bread slices, espresso, squeezed juice of some kind (yesterday strawberry, today pineapple) and a plate of fruit (2 slices pineapple, half a peeled banana, and chunks of guava). It's a little too much but the owners don't understand the concepts of half plates and thus the inner struggle between eating everything one is given vs. leaving food over. I don't imagine leftover food is a common concept in a country like this. In fact, I'm constantly reminded of how spoiled Americans are because even the poor can take for granted the idea of entering a well-stocked supermarket with everything imaginable on the shelves. Clothes, though not always of good quality, can be bought in your average Walmart for cheap while the standard dress here of cheap sneakers or sandals, shorts and tee shirt does not

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lend to a feeling that there are many other dress options at home (though I may be wrong and the climate does lend itself to flimsier wear).

Today is tourist day as we're going to old Havana where the bustlers and hucksters are out in droves. Old Havana is an inner city that had better days, fell apart completely, and is now being rebuilt and restored, piece by piece, at a snail’s pace. The first square we come to sets the tone with a clown and clown chihuahua entertain, strains of Besame Mucho are heard from a traveling band. For the rest of the day we will constantly hear different versions, none of any qualitative merit, of Besame Mucho, Guantanamera, and Oye Como Va over and over again in different combinations from strolling bands of singers, guitarists, and walking percussion, all calculated to please the tourist. I spy an open door full of percussion instruments (claves, maracas, guiro) of dubious quality and make the first mistake of entering into a feeding frenzy of bargaining. Teresa, a butch henna-haired 50ish slightly thick and short woman with a throaty low voice is our guide every day and she rescues me, pulling me out of the shop saying it’s overpriced when I wasn't tempted to bring anything home anyway. She exemplifies an intelligent and thoughtful Cuban who understands much but says little.

At my request we visit an inner garden first and to my delight a small orthodox chapel.

Outside the chapel is a drawing of Fidel and the Patriarch who received this space as a result of Castro’s largesse. Inside is everything traditional from iconostasis to a myriad of icons to the Pantocrator at the top of what rises to look like a 3 story dome. Prayers are being chanted in a deep voice by a monk or priest in Spanish to 3 faithful women up front. As we tour old Havana all the museums are closed and I venture to Teresa well it's Monday, the traditional time for museums to be closed, to which she retorts impatiently no, it's Cuba. Many of the buildings are awaiting renovation and there's a sense that these things are taking too long to address, much like the airport that is far too small for the number of tourists now visiting regularly. The buildings that have been renovated though are gorgeous and meticulously worked out in detail. Courtyard and patios abound and it's clear that this inner city that has transformed from a haven for the rich to at one time ghetto swampland for the poor is now being recouped and wealthier residents are returning though no doubt avoiding the high volume tourist traffic centers. The Cathedral is beautiful on the outside but the main square is being prepared for a commercial advertisement shoot for Channel (Palm-thatched structures are being erected in the closed off cathedral square). The cathedral apparently is active but it seems cold by comparison with the San Juan church I visited yesterday. The tourist crowd is diverse, many nations besides Americans, touring Havana. One of the composers for instance sat next to a Dutch tourist and we watched a family of Chinese tourists take photos in our wing of the restaurant where we ate lunch. The bathroom in that restaurant which clearly was a remade triplex apartment complex has one toilet without a toilet seat and the flusher button missing (one had to figure out which piece of plastic to push) and like most bathrooms feature raw paper toilet rolls – actually many public restrooms have no paper whatsoever. Though we stroll through old Havana and later the craft market place, hundreds of sellers are selling the same things everywhere: cheap percussion instruments, wooden domino sets, Havana Club rum, boxes of cigars, tee shirts with imprints of Havana, Che, or Fidel, Cuban soldier hats or Che berets (the revolution has come and it is

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capitalism), quick sketches, tropical fruit drinks in pineapple or coconut sells, and many more items that are relatively inane. Women are dressed up in the colorful costume of the voodoo religion and roam around trying to get you to pay for a photograph taken with them. When we go to the marketplace for an hour it is exactly the same with one booth after another and every third huckster trying to sell you a pair of maracas. I and a new recording studio friend with long blonde locks out of the 60s retire to a restaurant across the street that brews its own watery beer. It's the third beer we've tried and these beers definitely match up to Miller Lite.

Hotel Nacional is the high class hotel in Havana and I'm told we're talking $400/night at rock bottom. The gardens overlook the ocean and miles of bay so this is prime real estate for those sipping mojitos, pina coladas, a myriad of other rum drinks at 2 or 3 times the going rate, or just wine. But the hotel has professionally functioning Internet with some speed at $7 for 60 minutes for folks who don't have a room in the hotel but well worth it considering the scarcity. And today after finding out I had scores of unnecessary messages that should never come my way considering the automatic replies I've sent out, I joined the select crowd in the gardens. Spoiled tourist. Sigh.

We go out to dinner at another unmemorable restaurant. I think this isn't a place for foodies. To my taste the meat is tougher whether fish (I had shrimp day 1), chicken, or pork and the fact that Ropa Vieja is standard for beef doesn't bode well. The chili sauce with the pork was good and it seems like vegetables from taro root and other root vegetables and fruit are done well. Stef's Moros y Cristianos was better.

Day 4 (4/19) Today is cigar factory tour day and it begins, as is so common, with a wait. The tickets for the tour that were supposed to be picked up at the closest hotel, El Presidente, aren't available because the agent who represents some of the touring interests doesn't show up for work. This hotel is fine but not a top tier hotel so it appears the agents have more in stake salary-wise to show up at more lucrative venues with a greater number of tourists.

There appear to be two systems of money in Cuba. The tourists convert to CUCs, a convertible currency relatively equivalent to the dollar and the average Cuban makes 20 CUCs a month ($20) but in local pesos or dollars more like 400. But still not much since as a tourist I'm easily spending 60-70 daily. At any rate we drive to another hotel (the Hotel Riviera) and pick up the tickets there (10 cuc) after another 15 min wait and drive to the cigar factory in central Havana. Here the neighborhood is more industrial with narrow streets and sidewalks and even more crumbling buildings and infrastructure. The tour takes all of 35 minutes as we watch workers and trainees rolling cigars from scratch while hearing a myriad of forgettable descriptions of the process. It basically boils down to workers rolling each cigar with care and taking 5-10 minutes to roll with exceeding your quota giving you a chance to get a bonus on salary and the workers having a shot to gather the leavings and roll and sell privately. Cigar rolling is not a speedy process and the need for conforming to an ideal of color, shape, length, and volume is not an easy task to master. At the risk of dwelling on the negative, walking in central Havana and visiting the factory confirms my intuition. Yes we are all called to make do with what God gives

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us: a life is a life. But even the poor in America seem to have a better life with possibilities of hope that seem to me to elude many here. There is a look of being stuck, abandoned, and trudging through the day that I infer from many faces. Teresa complains that the cigar factory tour isn’t a tour at all and exemplifies the way Cubans refuse to adapt or consider what tourists want. I agree that if the purpose of the tour is to see how cigars are made, the tour shows nothing but as a matter of human interest and watching people work there is much to be learned if entertainment isn’t the goal.

The afternoon set up was a workshop with the leading Tres (3-string small guitar but double strings so 6 strings) performer in Cuba. He was like every musician I know, bragging of his accomplishments and music lecturing for 90 minutes and then insisting on us listening to another 30 minutes of recording. The music, performed also by wife and daughter, was puerile and naive, his composition for Tres and orchestra really unimaginative and worse, very badly written (like a student in the first orchestration class) for orchestra. His gifts are as a solo Tres player but his talent is primarily local as a teacher of others. A very nice gentleman becomes overbearing when he only wants to talk about himself and display his wares, wares that lack the ability to speak on their own.

One of his students, a priest who's been stationed in Havana for 12 years, was present and he was a good-hearted and interesting person. His parish, according to him, is among the poorest of the poor and it's clear that he's fallen in love with the Cuban people as a priest is called to do. He took some brutal baiting by one of the composers (for not wearing a collar) with a good nature, as I tried to turn it around by scheduling confession for all present with him afterwards.

I spent some time thinking about my piece today since I fear the difficulty I know it will likely have in performance. I decided to divide the piece into sections (all of which seem self-evident) in order to set a possible map for recording tomorrow that might make things easier to understand. I realize that my expectation is that any musician worth their salt takes the time to learn a work thoroughly and organize it and realize it with a depth of thought. I have enough performances under my belt to realize this is a rarity. Part of me thinks I should go back to my old pieces and sectionalize the works with rehearsal letters and explanation but I resent the idea of "leading by the hand" both as a performer and as a composer.

Day 5 (4/20) 4 mile morning run along the sea wall (Malecon). I arrive there just at the midpoint of sunrise when it’s comfortable. The few waves that wet some of the sidewalk are less concerning and less slippery than the fact that the walk is crumbling and pocked everywhere and one has to be conscious to avoid falls and missteps. The bottoms of old lamp poles also jut out. Some run in the street but this is a big enough and crowded enough thoroughfare that I wouldn't want to tempt fate. I see maybe 15 runners and wonder how many are locals - my bet is 2 at most. But there are enough locals fishing off the wall or catching a cooler site on the way to work that there is a mixture of locals and tourists catching the sea breeze. The oddity of passing frowning embassy guards in berets on the other side of the avenue continues the refrain of a strangely divided and conflicted

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Cuba.

Now I’m in the studio and nervous. This apparently is the only state of the art studio in Havana and it is beautiful and the large room able to accommodate an orchestra. Instead the drum set and two basses are set up in the room with the two saxophonists in isolation booths with the doors open to the side. There's a higher room in the back with a Steinway concert grand but we won't be needing that. The drummer asks me a q. about what I realize is a copying mistake and I realize he's learned the part thoroughly. They apparently realized that no drummer in town would learn the part like the young man who's playing: he's excellent and has studied for a month. It shows. The conductor is the conductor from the National Symphony and he will rehearse and record in the sections I marked off which I now confirm with him. He freely acknowledges (actually looks to God for help) that the National Symphony doesn't do scores like this.

At a third of the way through rehearsal I can see these players have worked hard to learn their parts and this is a very difficult score because there is a counterpoint between everything that is so precisely written out versus the need at the same time to feel free to move everything forward at an ever increasing rate. Recording covers up so much because you fix mistakes in retrospect but maintaining forward motion when everything is so broken up becomes a difficult. Still feeling good that this will all come off miraculously and wondering how these performers can go through so much to perfect the composition and then not perform it.

After a 15 minute break it’s as if all the tension and nervousness - I suppose the score is written so precisely that they expect the composer to be finicky - just expired and the performers cut through the rest of the piece like butter. I wrote Puttin' It Together when I was 21 and I was too naive to understand how difficult my attempt to capture Free Jazz, contemporary music, modern techniques, rhythmic and the textural layers and complexity actually was. They did a great job at the U. Of Iowa and I was spoiled by the performance but this group of young Cuban professionals - I don't believe any of them were over 30 far surpassed what I've experienced. They all practiced and rehearsed the heck out of the piece. I'll bet the drummer wasn't the only one studying for a month and the look of fear and being overwhelmed in the middle-aged conductor of the National Symphony was not something I imagined. The performers really connected with each other in ways missing from previous performances and played what was written as well. Moreover, because each performer was isolated in different parts of the room, 2 in booths, the recording should inevitably have so much depth and clarity for each individual part. Several times during the recording and when we finished the last take both the engineers and performers were applauding and the engineers were yelling "Bravo" to the performers.

The PARMA producer, Bob Lord, said he'd never been at a recording session before where the engineers were applauding during the session and that this was one of the finest recording sessions he'd ever experienced or presided over. Everyone wanted to take their picture with me when it was over. Maybe it's all a matter of exaggerated hospitality calculated in some way to make me feel good but I do indeed feel good and honored that the performers not only learned and practiced their parts and took the work seriously but most important were open to a new experience and a music they've never performed or

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heard before. With the self-knowledge that originality is not equivalent to excellence or mastery I can certainly still say that there is no written composition like Puttin' It Together and certainly these performers have not likely heard much like it before. One of the interesting things about the performers is that some rather old contemporary techniques seemed uncommon to them. Snap (Bartok) pizzicato, flutter tongue, nonpitched saxophone effects (honks and growls), and even the rim shot had to be carefully explained and tried many times before they figured out how to achieve the sound. When they thought the session was all over they turned to me and asked for confirmation so naturally I couldn't resist demanding that they play the piece through from beginning to end. They were used to me by that time and everyone laughed. And now for the anticlimax of waiting out the week till I can return home.

Here's a new one: at 3:50 the water in the house was completely shut off. I don't know whether this was Havana-wide or whether this is a regular occurrence. My intuition tells me that given the extremely low water pressure and the lack of hot water that this is likely normal for folks in Havana. In the recording studio bathroom there was no toilet paper and given the way the folks who own the house where we're staying ration the toilet paper, one roll at a time, or rather the equivalent of a half roll which when shared between 3 people doesn't go very far, I suspect toilet paper to also be a luxury. I remember to keep replenishing the tissues in my pocket (I have mini-packets in my suitcase).

It's obvious after 5 days of eating here that food is not something you go to Cuba for. The best meal of the day - the same everyday - is our breakfast of one scrambled egg, stale bread, fruit, juice, and espresso. There obviously is a shortage of meat and dairy products and the pork they have is cooked well done while all meat is chewy and tough. If this is what's available in the restaurants that are priced for tourists my guess is that the average Cuban fares much worse. The pizza I had for lunch in a $400/night hotel was on the par with generic thin crust pizza in our freezers and some of those are better. Cuba has a lot to consider with respect to the tourist industry. All the Americans are coming in droves and pumping up the economy. But the same Americans who are shooting photos with their iPads of those "cute" 50s cars now serving as Taxis also want Internet for those same iPads and Internet means opening Cuba in a way heretofore not experienced. The same Americans spending $30-$40 on their evening meal want better quality food and liquor for those $40. The same Americans exchanging money for a fake Cuban currency at the airport want an airport where they don't have to wait hours to get in and out of the airport. And the same Americans who are paying dearly for cheap trinkets and knick knacks and cigars by hawkers following them everywhere also want to feel safe walking the streets. Which reminds me there was a conspicuous presence of agents at the airport, obvious because of their painfully obvious informal clothing that somehow matched.

They stare with steely eyes, dressing down each traveler: a very uncomfortable and frightening feeling for the one getting the lookover. Cubans keep harping on the fact that tourism has opened up new financial possibilities and yet the government doesn’t adapt.

The common man in Cuba and the new generation of tourists are waiting for Cuba to move in some explicit direction.

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The church was open when I passed by at 5:45 so I stopped to pray in thanksgiving.

There were people gathering on the side where the tabernacle was and an elderly gentleman came up to me with a Visperas book to invite me. I made it clear to him that I wasn't interested (since it was just vespers) and didn't speak Spanish but he was insistent and I figured that even though we were being picked up for dinner at 7pm the office wouldn't take up too much time so I agreed and he patted me on the back in a "good boy" gesture. He then made sure that a woman in the row in front of me (she had turned to me to say the mass was late in getting started but since I was confused by the use of the word mass and I just chuckled in response since it was the easiest way to notice to try to speak Spanish) understood that I didn't speak Spanish (to which she responded with a comprehensive "aha") and from that time she helped me find the pages. She had a rival though in the woman who then sat next to me after coming in late and somehow figured out, even though I showed her what page we were on, that I needed help finding my way through the Vespers book. Oddly enough it turned out to be an RC vespers-liturgy; I've never seen this before but it now explains why we've seen this listed on the web. The hymn and three psalms are said as the normal vespers but this is followed by the epistle, psalm and gospel of the mass. Everything follows the mass with the exception that the vespers intersessions take the place of the mass intersessions and the Magnificat is said after communion. At the end of the mass an elderly woman approached me and I explained I only understood a little Spanish whereupon she corrected my usage to tell me that instead of using the word comprende (I suppose because she heard me responding within the liturgy in Spanish) I should say "no entiendo" to which I responded with a smile "yo comprende."

I had a relaxed and pretty good supper at a restaurant at a fort. We were to eat and then go into the fort where they fire a cannon every Wednesday night at 9pm, a tradition hundreds of years old. The meal was one of the best - I kept it simple a kabob of chicken, shrimp, onions, and green peppers - perhaps because this restaurant had better beer than the Cuban beer for a change. The Cubans make two beers, a really light watery beer called Cristal and a beer that is only slightly darker called Bucanero with the word "fuerte" on the bottle and 5.4% alcohol but there is no strength whatsoever. The new choice of a Dominican pilsener (Presidente) was a delight by comparison, and I was thirsty, and downed the first of two beers before food even arrived. We got to the cannon shot 5 minutes in advance and when there were two of us left we couldn't get tickets because they had no change in the booth. One person who had stayed behind to wait for us heard the cannon shot and then an argument ensued in which he asked for his money back. No deal: Highway robbery and another example of Cuban unpreparedness to deal with the very tourism that could save their economy.

Day 6 (4/21) I've had enough conversations with different people to realize that not all is copacetic nor are people happy with their lot. Part of the despair you feel here had to do with a mentality that not only will things never change here but that the government has the attitude that "Cuba is Cuba" and everyone else should be changing to adapt to Cuba which is just fine. Raul Castro is seen by the youth as an old guard conservative (though

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some think he will change when his brother passes away) so that when Congress meets and does nothing and no changes are made in spite of all the evident needs for reconstruction/infrastructure, boosting the economy, raising the living standard, and increasing freedom, this is understood in the light of a system that has no need to listen to or indulge change or criticism. When the floodgates of tourism open at this point it is seen as a great thing for the economy by many Cubans but when little or nothing is being done to accommodate or cultivate that tourism, there is a fear that tourists won't return given inferior accommodations and that such an influx and economic spike will die out.

The conviction is that no one in charge is listening nor cares to. It was explained to me that there is no such thing as "wholesale" marketplaces in Cuba. This means that all goods are sold at retail prices that for the average Cuban living on 400 pesos per month is difficult. So rather than a Walmart or finding cheaper food at a supermarket (the local food stores will have empty shelving, lots of pasta, canned goods, and very little else), the Cuban must resort to the Black Market to secure any less expensive or more desirable goods.

Today we go to the Art Museum: it is 3 stories high and has ramps that ascend between floors. We're told immediately that the "lift" isn't working and I begin to see some of my stay in Cuba as parodied in the Tintin episodes that occur in South American Alcazar dictatorships in Tapioca. The most interesting paintings are the 19th and early 20th century realists who lived in Cuba and painted landscapes and people of all types. Some of the painters are local and have lifespans of 40 years while others emigrated from Europe, either living out their lives in Cuba or returning to their own homeland or NYC and somehow the best of these have lifespans of 80 or 90 years. Guards are everywhere around the museum and no photos are allowed but I see one woman guard in a chair next to a bench sleeping away and not moving either at my approach or my leaving. The bathroom I walk into has no toilet paper - yes I check first - but within seconds of entering a female guard walks into the bathroom and hands me 5 napkins before I attempt anything and she stands outside the bathroom door waiting for my exit. This confirms my certainty that everything is rationed. Later conversations confirm a foraging mentality.

Someone tells me that people wait on lines to get eggs if they know eggs may be available. Another tells me her friend managed to secure 5 guavas, 2 mangos, and some bananas for 100 pesos (or 1/4 avg. monthly salary). Another laughs at the idea of being able to secure meat or that because Cuba is an island there are plentiful fish and seafood.

She said the people joke that Cuba is an island surrounded by chicken legs. One interesting thing though is that people feel free to complain about their lot in Cuba.

We talk about getting around the island and mention the train. That brings up more uproarious laughter. There may be a schedule but the train arrives and leaves whenever it wills and just because one gets on the train doesn't assure you that you'll get to your destination, regardless of the ticket you bought. I ask about hitchhiking and am assured that no one is interested in kidnapping you but they might indeed take all your money, jewelry, and clothing and drop you off the side of the road naked to find your way back.

There is a sizable Jewish community in Havana and I was old there are at least 3 Shuls, Ashkenazy and Sephardic as well. The Sephardic temple that I took a photo of is in the

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Vedado (forbidden) neighborhood I'm living in and I'm told they speak Ladino there.

Apparently when Jews were fleeing Germany and environs during WWll, Cuba was one of the few places that would sell visas to the immigrants and many decided to stop over for a week or two on the way to America. For most that week turned into months or years before they could move on to a country of choice and as a result a good percentage of Jews remained in Havana.

We have lunch in old Havana in a restaurant where I share the specialty of the house as a meal since I'm not all that hungry: roast suckling pig. It is fatty and juicy and crispy as all get out and goes down well and tasty but as I sit writing my stomach is queasy for the first time in Havana.

Two gay tourists pass by the lawn chair I'm sitting in, looking out over the ocean while contemplating life in Cuba, and they ask me in halting English to take their picture. I photograph them on their respective phones but since I'm a man of few words with strangers the again ask if I speak English or Spanish in halting English and Spanish. I enjoy the moment and confirm speaking English while responding in Spanish and they ask where I'm from I say USA and they tell me they're from Quebec so I say I can speak French and they ask me in French whether I can really speak French and I respond "Un Peu" to which they thank me with a final "merci" and I in turn repondĂŠ "de nada."

With all the crumbling edifices surrounding us - I learned today that we're staying in the mansion once owned by Battista's vice-president - it's interesting to know the history of the transition at least according to one Cuban source (you do have to take some of these conversations with a little salt). When everyone fled Cuba at the end of the Battista regime, many homeowners leaving in haste assumed they'd be back on in a week or two so they left servants in charge of the house or friends or relatives who were staying with them or nearby. When Castro took over and the landowners didn't return those who cared for the house became the new owners by default, at most paying a minor tax to the he government but these houses were passed on rent and mortgage free. Many became divided up into apartments and smaller and units as a way to make a living in an economy where their former jobs were no longer needed. I wonder at least whether the government was more hands on in dividing up apartments than the above description.

In today's economy with low wages and low supplies such necessary items as air conditioning - which we do have and use where we're staying - are impossible for most Cubans to support on their monthly wage. Electricity is essentially rationed in that there is an allotted rate that once the individual goes past becomes a rate something like 4x the normal rate and so in a climate where air conditioning would normally run most of the time the cost of electricity alone would exceed monthly wages. At one point we were talking about the fact that Obama's last words in Cuba were to the effect that the Cuban people will speak out about their needs and this was followed the next day by a massive demonstration in Havana that was immediately and effectively crushed. The Cuban we were telling this to my indicated no knowledge of the demonstration. One of us asked well didn't you hear about it from gossip or friends? No. Another asked didn't you read about it or hear about it in the news? To which the incredulous response was "the

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news?!!" followed by uproarious snorting laughter at the thought that the Cuban media would ever be allowed to report such things.

What will I remember of this trip: Certainly the decaying, crumbling, and rotting buildings that I see all around me. Even in this safe upper middle class neighborhood every third house or so has rubble from the house and all around it and rotted wooden boards evident in the structure. Not only do people live in these private homes that are basically open to the breezes and akin to what we'd think of in America as private homes that have become beach houses but this is the state of many buildings. The myriad schools I pass by to which I see uniformed children entering don't measure up to standards that our school buildings in the US dating from the 40s and 50s measure up to.

The children walk through rubble and rotting structures to their classes because this is everyday life. This appears to be true of office buildings, government buildings, and lower tier hotels as well. Every once and a while one comes across a remodeling or renovation effort that to all appearances appears to be months or years in the making and years to completion as well.

I will remember vendors in the streets but not the ones hawking to tourists but the ones I've stumbled across in the neighborhood who are selling to Cubans: Black market packages of baked goods they've come into or bunches of bananas or cans/liters of soda pop that they sell more cheaply than the retail stores. I will remember the despondency or vacant stares of some folks sitting on their own porches or in windows and barely moving for minutes at a time.

But I will also remember a recording session that whizzed by in relative haste compared to the time experiencing Cuba. The honor of having 5 National Symphony musicians bust their chops to learn and record my composition is my primary reason for having come and they have created an amazing memory for me that I hope will be mirrored in a future edited recording. And also the spirit of so many people I met. They live their lives with zest and purpose in spite of a surrounding that seems calculated to sap their strength.

Day 7 (4/22) Who are my fellow artists? Heidi and Charles are the husband and wife who share my bathroom with me in the 2nd floor walk up attic like area we reside. They've been generous in managing to share the bathroom time. Heidi is here to record a complex chamber work that her husband Charles, a composer and accomplished pianist, also plays piano in. Her piece is the only one that had serious difficulties that will require hiring a baritone and trumpeter stateside to fill in at a later date. He teaches at Temple, she at Haverford. She is outgoing and talkative while he is, on the surface a bit snooty but he is more wry than snobbish. We know a lot of people in common and the fact that he knows the Italian grocery store we discovered in the Ardmore area gets them two thumbs up.

They are about my age and we're excited about getting together in Philadelphia some time. They would like me to be Dean at Temple. Heidi has short dyed blonde hair and gabs while Charles has curly locks and a definite look of superiority and aristocracy though that really isn't who he is.

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Jeffrey is in his late '60s and also an accomplished and famed pianist and is here to record a work for piano and chamber orchestra. He is generous and soft-spoken as well as comparatively modest given his accomplishments as a performer. His age slows him down - he looks older - and he is thin as a rail while sharp as a tack.

Sergio is Uruguayan and is emotional but charming. He's here for a clarinet quintet recording and is also probably late 60s/early 70s and speaks many languages. We use his Spanish abilities too our advantage whenever we can and given his ability to kvetch and get nervous or depressed about how his piece will go, how rehearsed etc., he's kind of become the pet of the group. He is urbane, mannered, and cultured, the latter heightened by his accent but he also is a bit lost without his male companion of many years whose cat-sitting at home.

Christina is a feminist composer of sorts and is here for the recording of two short choral works for 9 voice women's choir. She is a bit of a health fiend like me and, unlike me, she's been very guarded with respect to the food and amount of food she eats. She comes from Portland and seems game for most adventures. She has short black hair that she washes every morning, coming to breakfast with a wet head, and intense staring eyes.

Ovidiu is a black-grey bearded cellist who is not here to record a CD but here to launch a pilot for a projected TV series about visiting foreign nations and playing with other musicians. He's got a great sense of humor and as a Romanian who lived through communist oppression sees many parallels between Romania and at least the negative results of communist government here in Cuba. We tease each other and joke about tourists and the apparent state of Cuban life. He’s kind of built and mannered like a bearded Robin Williams with an Eastern European accent.

Mike is a businessman from New Hampshire who made his fortune in real estate and real estate speculation. At 40ish, the fact that he owns many shopping plazas, stores, and land is impressive coupled with his tall, solid good old boy looks. He is apparently putting up the funding for PARMA for some of this trip, partnering with PARMA, and his official role is as a photographer of all the studio events and Cuba scenery. He promises to capture the essence of each of us and we're looking forward to some kind of Dropbox site to download the photos.

Sam is a huskier, bearded version of Mike, probably in his 30s and he's traveled all over the world for himself as well as PARMA. Bulgaria, Macedonia, and the Dominican Republic are three of the non-Parma locations he's visited and his role is in the studio to help out with the production. The studio in Havana, Abdala Studios, is run by Tyrone and he and his engineers run the sessions and bring in the talent while Parma watches on.

Alex has long blonde hair worthy of the 60s and is in his 20s. For the most part he's the entertainment director, working with the local henna-haired Teresa the on all the arrangements, taxi pickups, and excursions. His only time off was when he switched with Sam to watch my piece get recorded. He's relaxed and easygoing and mellow.

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Bob at 39 is the guy that makes everything happen as the head of Parma, close-shaven beard and curly hair of the Sicilian stock he comes from. He's intense and takes mental and written notes about everything as he ends his afternoons at the Hotel Nacional typing into his computer and tapping into the WiFi. He is always in control and somewhat of a genius in all his machinations from producing to editing to developing entrepreneurial schemes.

Today we take the Hemingway trip to visit his mansion about a half hour up the isle from Havana. The scenery around us on a slow four-lane highway becomes more tropically bucolic as we follow the ocean and pass by many workers cutting down weeds with machetes on the side of a road surrounded by tropical plant life on both sides with the ocean in the distance to the north. The museum decides to open at 10 today instead of the stated 9am so the driver, who lives in the area, drives us instead to the ocean village where Hemingway would launch his fishing boat (about 15 minutes away). The road to the museum is newly paved because Obama visited the Hemingway house so as we enter the fishing village and the driver navigates all the potholes at 5mph we start joking about what Obama (or Trump) should visit next to help improve roads and infrastructure in Cuba. There is a monument to Hemingway in the village across the street from an old castle-like structure. The village seems relatively rural but built up and not unlike small beach towns in the US. Hemingway's mansion is basically a space where visitors can look into each room of the house (as well as a tower, his swimming pool and attached shower and pool room, and boat (Pilar)) by walking around the grounds and looking into each room from roped off space outside the house. Hemingway had tons and tons of books on bookshelves as well as animal trophies and when I joke about Hemingway being a collector of books he never read I'm assured very seriously that they know he read the books because they've opened them and there are copious notes inside every book. It's an oddity though to see tourists of every nation walking around the manse.

One of my great comforts has been having the San Juan de Letran (St. John Lateran) church in my neighborhood. I stop talking in on some of the late afternoons when it's open in preparation for 6pm mass and it's a nice respite from the bustle outside and the feeling that I stand out on the street as a non-Cuban. Today the man who was handing out vespers books on Wednesday spots me and comes over to shake my hand. That commonality is something to be cherished. Is it a coincidence that the church is run by the Dominican Friars with a convent as part of the whole? It feels like home to me in spite of the keyboards and folk music.

This afternoon we attend a percussion demonstration by Cuba's leading timbale player, one of the few overweight Cubans I've seen on the trip with a jolly but dignified demeanor. He lectures us about the origins of Cuban folk music and drumming but it's nothing most of us haven't heard before spoken or written by more eloquent and scholarly musicians. His performance on the congas he brought, admittedly not his specialty, is fine but short and undistinguished. But he is clearly an authority and engaged as a performer and scholar in Cuban folk music. Musicians appear to be revered and better paid in Cuba, one reason why there seem to be an abundance of polished professionals.

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Day 8 (4/23) Yesterday ended with a bang. It was the last night out and the final dinner with everyone present. Dinner was as usual prosaic and expensive but the wine and company more than made up for it. We then went to another restaurant off the plaza viejo in old Havana where we watched a young jazz group, 2 singers, flute, saxophone, double bass and trap set perform. They were ok technically but not particularly interesting or creative. Five of us got into a beaten up old 50s model taxi as we began the drive along the river wall (Malecon) and as we were driving the passenger side door in front seat swung open and Christina, who was sitting there, screamed with terror. Somehow between us we got the door to shut but Alex in the front middle seat and I held the door for the rest of the trip.

The driver thought it was funny and for the rest of the trip was pranking us by mimicking Christina's new posture of stiff fear, letting go of the wheel and asking Alex to drive, passing other cars on the road and yelling "na na nah na Naaaaah na." Just generally having a good time and then overcharging us after we arrived.

Yesterday and today were the hottest days I experienced here. I had thought about not running at all, let alone do a long run this morning but after getting less than 6 hours sleep for the second day in a row (tomorrow will be the 3rd day given a 2:15 wake up time), my body wouldn't cooperate as bathroom session yielded to bathroom session and I just gave up. My run was 45 minutes later than usual but even stopping at 3.5 miles I knew I was flushed and overheated and that I would have endangered myself to try to get 5-6 miles. Ten minutes more might have compromised my body's cooling system and as it was, even when I returned to the air conditioned cooling of my room, I really continued to sweat profusely for another 10 minutes and had to towel down twice. Hydration has to be a huge challenge and with no air conditioning possible for most Cubans this must be a constant consideration. Today I saw a husband and wife walking down the street with a large fan they were bringing somewhere, he holding the big fan stand and she holding the blade portion. I've noticed a lot more street selling today on a Saturday from breads to 50 lb. bags of potatoes to fruits. I see the women carrying plastic baskets of goods they've bought to bring home. Yesterday I peered into a general store that sold everything, akin to a Walmart, and there was very little on the shelves, perhaps an item or two of specialty without choice. In other words, for instance, if the store sold suitcases they'd have one suitcase and you either bought that one (leaving none) or you didn't.

Today is just a winding down day - kind of a limbo because the original arrangements were changed and shortened the work portion by a day so all of us should have been leaving today. Only two parties could change their bookings, Jeffrey who was ill the last day after some unusual drinking for a 69 year old Thursday night left early in the morning but had stayed back from our itinerary all day Friday (so that was his limbo).

People have been too free with the drinking and eating here. All manner of rum drinks and cocktails are available, common, and tempting. The mojitos and pina coladas flow endlessly but I felt from the start that with the possible exception of a first class hotel I wouldn't trust the ice in those drinks. We're all drinking bottled water so why would we trust the ice? Likewise, given the way food is over cooked here, I would generally avoid seafood, beef, and unusual dishes that might require fresher vegetables. I stuck to beer,

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wine, and bottled water. At any rate, Charles and Heidi left at 5pm and with a late wake up all I did in the morning was email and addressing some crises at both schools with plans to join Heidi and Charles for their late lunch at 1pm before taking off. After all, the best thing about Havana has been the new friendships that were made. So five of us enjoyed a 2.5 hour lunch (which is also my dinner) on this lazy day. I had a terrific meat ravioli in a cheese-truffle sauce. 6 or so large raviolis, not much food but when supplemented by one last Mediterranean mincemeat pie is more than enough till the next time I eat. One final round of Internet and I return to see Charles and Heidi off while making sure the driver is all set for my 2:45am departure. Now I wind down, take a shower, reflect and try to get ready for an early bedtime to accommodate. I'm nervous about getting home and surprisingly not nearly as nervous as my comrades. Each one has shown true colors in the anxious preparation for leaving, as each of us at heart knows we've enjoyed the visit but we'll be very, very happy to return to our comparatively safe and secure home environment.

Day 9 (4/24) It’s 3 in the morning but somehow the navigation at the airport is so much easier because the wall to wall people that were there at 11pm last week isn't here at this time. I spot a long line but no signs around but by asking people in the line I find out that somehow this is the initial check in line for Aeromexico. There was a desk in front and someone started waiting and others followed so I'm at the rear of a one hundred-person line that somehow, 15 minutes later, starts moving when the agents arrive. Similarly with emigration and security that follows: Agents start arriving for work and the lines start moving and the early birds like me are sitting in front of a projected gate (one can never count on that though). At emigration, the agent asks me if I want her to stamp my passport and not knowing any different I say sure. Later I find out that a Cuban-stamped passport could have repercussions (no future passports? Other problems?), but the information is vague enough that I assume this is old info and probably no longer has any bearing given the huge influx of tourists. So at 4:30am after a night of fitful sleep I'm at the gate waiting another 90 minutes and suspicious because everything went so smoothly. At the currency exchange booth I find out that the 20 cuc exit fee to leave Cuba no longer exists and so I needn't hold back any CUCs in order to leave the country. Cuba is evolving.

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