What an interesting week in Havana. Firstly potatoes are officially in season! It is pretty great, I can now get all the French fries (papas fritas) that I want, and I have also been enjoying mashed potatoes at dinner. I have also become acutely aware of the difference between the word LA papa and EL Papa, the first being potato and the second being the Pope. As I’m sure you have all been made aware by the press the Pope just made his tour through Cuba. It seemed to be a really crazy week of lead up to the pope’s arrival here in Havana as well as the day he was here must have been the strangest day in Havana by far. It is interesting to have seen a bit of what the NY Times has had to say about the Pope and what the official newspaper (the Granma) here has had to say. For example there was a group of protestors that were arrested out of a church a few days before the Pope came to Cuba. The NY Times had an article about the arrest… and the Granma had had an article with the letter written by the church requesting the removal of the protestors…. For sure the police have been on extra alert, there has been way more police on duty, it seems they wanted to prevent any unwanted problems. The actual day of the Pope was very strange, The entire city was basically shut-down; the busses only ran in the early morning and the late evening, most taxis weren’t operating, almost all stores besides cafeterias were closed. The Mass was supposed to start at 9 and under the impression that everyone in the west side of Cuba was going to be there. My roommate and I headed out from our house at 6:30 am,to make the 10 to 15 minute walk to Plaza de la Revolución, we were in a standing section near the middle section of the plaza, and waited for close to 2 hours for the Pope to arrive. However, this was probably the most interesting part because I was able to talk to some people and observe the crowd that had assembled, something that was way more interesting to me than the actual Mass. When the Pope arrived we got to see him drive around in his ludicrous Pope-mobile
(basically a glass box that he sits in on top of a Mercedes. Finally the Mass started and we got to hear an old germen man (he is german right?) speak Spanish (surprisingly well) – sorry if that sentence was too sacrilegious. To be honest I didn’t get much of his Mass, it was very hot by this time and very hard to pay attention. My roommate and I left about halfway through. So impressions…. First of all, there were not nearly many people there as I had originally thought that there was going to be, there was still a lot of people but it wasn’t even close to completely filling the Plaza and I figured that it would be bursting at its seems. Furthermore, after the mass started a large group of people left, not just us. It seemed like a lot of people came (like me) to say they were there but didn’t really care to hear the actual Mass. It seems like a testament to how much less religious Cuba is in comparison to other Latin American countries. Second, I found the juxtaposition of the pope and the plaza that he was in to be really striking. The Plaza de la revolucion is comprised of a giant plaza at one side there is a giant obelisk like structure that you can go to the top of, it is the highest point in Havana, under that is a giant statue of Jose Marti, who is the most beloved figure of the first Cuban revolution and an academic whose writings are quoted constantly; on the other end of the plaza are giant cold-war era buildings with giant pictures on them, one a giant representation of the famous Che picture with the often quoted phrase, Hasta la victoria siempre (until victory always), and on another building a giant picture of Camilo Cienfuegos (another comrade of Che and the Castros). It was just a really strange feeling to be in this plaza that celebrates the revolution so strongly and then the pope in front of it all…. It seemed to be like complete opposites mixed together almost haphazardly.Well anyways, that is more or less my experiences of the pope in Cuba. Until next post.
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