Day 11: Ciego Montero to Palmira

Ciego Montero—Palmira

 

The next morning the young woman who signed me in the night before is still on duty. 

“You live here, or what?” I say, putting my backpack down by the front desk. The entire front of the building is made of glass so I can see down the long driveway all the way to the road. No sign of my ride; no lights slicing through the darkness yet and it is almost 6 a.m. A stray dog sleeps curled up right outside the glass doors. 

“Seems that way,” she says. “Going home today. Twenty-four-hour shifts. Want some coffee?” 

“Always,” I say. She disappears into the dark hallway and returns with some delicious black morning gold. 

Carbajal and the driver arrive before I started my predictable, introspective pissed-off rant about Cubans always being late. 

“Just in time,” I smile, when they roll up parallel to the curb. I throw my backpack into the trunk and we are off. 

Six members of the original welcoming committee wait to see me off from the Casona. Carbajal’s mother consumes me in a bear-like hug.

 “You have your house here. Whenever you want.” she says. “Don’t forget us.” 

Ciego Montero-Part 2

Ciego Montero-Part 2: Talking Shit to the People

The theatre, next door to La Casona, is also one of the most popular public spaces in town.  The director, introducing himself at the door, explained how every day some event takes place within these walls, be it a film or a poetry reading, a dance or a musical performance. Always free and open to the public.  This afternoon the theatre had one of its rare closings because of a presentation in my honor. The Grupo Folklorico, a group of dancers and musicians consisting of practitioners of Afro-Cuban religion who live in town, were scheduled to perform for me and my friends.  He leads me inside.

The theatre reminded me of the small movie house in Gainesville, Georgia where I would escape to see the lives of others. It was a good place to be by oneself without feeling alone. There I saw Romeo and Juliet and fell in love with Oliva Hussey and found out that I could cry to Shakespeare as the soundtrack by Henry Mancini made me feel the very loneliness I was trying to escape. Memories of those times seem to teleport randomly to wherever I am and stand in front of me, waiting to be bumped into.

The ticket booth out front is flanked by two doors which open to the semi-circle walkway that lead to the right and left of the large sitting area in the middle.  The seats, hard and folding tight against the back, welcome about one hundred rear ends. My welcoming committee members and the regional assistant director of Cultura from Cienfuegos, the thin black man who I had met in Potrerillo, sit in the first two rows. A few invited visitors are scattered behind.  Carbajal stands in front of the elevated stage and introduces the “young artists” who have come from Oriente, eastern Cuba and have overcome much to be here today.  

“The show is a tribute to their religious traditions,” he says. “I’ll let them show you what they have.” 

Day 10 (continued): Ciego Montero

Ciego Montero

The smooth terraplén screams to be walked on. One huge guardarraya between walls of cane, broken only by brightly colored wooden houses and their simple yards. Garlic grows in this region as well, and dozens of houses are overrun by battalions of the brown tufts.   

In Ciego, the mule stops at the edge of town, near a park that had the air, by its clean statue of Jose Marti and well-trimmed bushes, of being an important part of town.  My handler walks with me half a block to a wooden house with a sign flat on the wall next to the door announcing it as La Casona, a private home that served as the town art gallery and community center. 

Fotografía de Julio Larramendi

I have always associated the town with the spring which produced the most popular bottled water and soft drinks on the island, the Ciego Montero brand.  And this is the only reason why most Cubans would ever know about this small town which geographically is tied at the hip with the adjacent town of Arriete.  Arriete-Ciengo Montero has approximately four and a half thousand residents.  Ten of them welcome me to the town. 

Day 10 (continued): Santa Isabel de las Lajas

Santa Isabel de las Lajas

The settlement of Santa Isabel de las Lajas dates to 1800 but it was officially founded in 1824.  Esteban settled in the town after the war and took part in the 1912 black revolt protesting the exclusion of blacks from national political culture. He lived in Lajas at the same time as Coronel Simeon Armenteros and other members of the Partido Independiente de Color, the national party leading the revolts.  Most of the violence of the uprising took place in eastern Cuba, around Santiago, but a few bands of Independentistas stirred the pot in the Province of Santa Clara; one band attacked the northern region around Sagua la Grande and the other, led by Armenteros attacked the communication infrastructure of Cienfuegos between May and July 1912.  Estaban was in this group. The uprising was quickly crushed. Esteban survived to tell the tale.[1]

If there was ever a man who loved what he did and where he did it, it is the director of the Benny Moré museum in Lajas.  

Day 10: Cruces-Lajas-Ciego Montero

Cruces—Lajas—Ciego Montero

 

Electricity came first to Santa Clara. Right into the city. The philanthropist Marta Abreu brought it. It didn’t come to the Ariosa until…well, I don’t remember, but it was after the Caracas mill. Caracas brought in electric light in that area of Lajas. In the biggest mill in Cuba. The owners were millionaires, and that was why they bought the electricity. Their name was Terry. I don’t know where I was, up in a tree or on top of a roof. But I saw the lights of the Caracas mill, which were a marvel. 

--Esteban Montejo

 

It must have been the water. I boil with internal heat even before I toss my mattress on the floor hoping to find the coolest spot in the big room. My efforts are to no avail. The fever sucks up the feeble breeze of the fan like a black hole sucks up light. The absurd dreams begin as soon as I close my eyes. 

And then there were the shits. 

I stagger in a stupor to the bathroom five or six times, wobbling between the theatre seats each time, and each time leaving behind more body weight than the time before. This continues until thereias nothing left inside of me. 

After the third or fourth visit to the bathroom, I stop cursing the darkness and am glad that I can’t see what I leave behind. I perform the laborious flushing duties the first couple of times, but by the third and fourth forays, I abandon my waste to fester in the darkness. I know I will return.