May 1st is Labor Day in Cuba. To celebrate the occasion, the people of Havana congregate to street Paseo and march down the street in a parade. People divide up by their work-place, carrying posters and signs representing their vocation. People also march with posters of historical Cuban figures, or of course, Fidel Castro.
While the general sentiment of the march may have been similar to the José Martí torch march that I participated on January 28th that I noted in my blog One week in, I felt a lot different in this Labor Day parade than I did in the torch march. Re-reading my old blog, I realize that I had been extremely naïve about the showcased enthusiasm that I saw at the José Martí march. I had seen it as an expression of socialism enthusiasm, but now I know that there’s a lot more complexity than just complete support; the youth, for one, is generally not very happy about the government.
My host mom told me that in the first decades of the socialist revolution, Labor Day Parades did have a lot of attraction because people wanted to go to the parade and genuinely celebrate the day of the workers. Each small block district used to rally up people to meet up in the morning, and head to the parade together. However, over time, with disillusionments and failures, interest in the parades started to fade. It got to a point that only three people would show up to some district aggregation points to go to the parade, and it got almost embarrassing. Eventually, the government altered the structure of the parade such that people would congregate by their companies and march with them, making the parade more of a custom than an actually self-motivated event.
The parade happens at 7am, for good reason, since it can already be excruciatingly hot here in Cuba at this time of year. However, since it’s so early, many people don’t feel like going. My friend Javier, who works at a biology lab, said that he really didn’t want to go, but he still had to because he didn’t want to get in trouble. Certainly, the parade seemed to showcase unenthused participants. Many people were just walking with their headphones on, without particularly paying attention to the event itself. In one case, a uniformed ministry worker was walking head down with earphones, and a nearby senior worker told him to take his earbuds out. It was somewhat of a strange thought that the parade was a celebration for the workers, but that the workers needed to get up earlier than ever, still get in uniforms and attend the parade with all their co-workers.
Although certainly many many people are still supportive of the socialist system and are thankful for it, there is definitely a good population that is not completely content with it. My program has been largely focused on showing us the official Cuban government perspective, and it took me time to get to know some Cuban youth to actually learn about the complexities of feelings people have for the state. Getting to know people better, I feel like I’ve finally started to understand the tiniest fraction of life here. I finally feel like I’m starting to settle in here.
Unfortunately, tomorrow, I’ll be taking off of this country. Normally, the Cuban semester runs until May 23rd, but our program director is leaving the country early for her daughter’s graduation (at Pitzer College!) and she did not permit us stay in Cuba without her. So instead of staying here to complete the semester, we depart early.
Ever still, I’m incredibly grateful for the experience I’ve had in Cuba. Even more, I’ve extremely lucky to have been in Havana to be in such a time of transition and see the influx of foreign entities into the country. Obama’s visit, the Rolling Stones concert, the Fast and Furious 8 filming, the Chanel fashion show – these are all unprecedented events in Cuba that had never entered the country. I’ve been in Cuba during a time of confusion and uncertainty, with hopes of the Cuban people towards a more open country on one hand, but also concerns of an imperialist capital invasion on the other. This year is probably the start of the greatest change in Cuba ever since the socialist revolution of 1959.
For now, however, Cuba’s still “frozen in time,” se paró, as my friend Wiliam likes to say. The Fast and Furious 8 filming blocked off giant blocks of main streets and caused a lot of traffic redirection, and for the first time in Cuba I experienced traffic. I had entirely forgotten that traffic was a thing; there just aren’t enough people that can afford cars. At that moment, I also realized that I’ll be shocked to ride in a modern car again on paved roads again. These last three and a half months, I’ve only been riding 60-year old cars on bumpy roads, and I’ve gotten used to just jumping up and down my seat during a máquina ride. The fact that cars can actually run smoothly – it will be something of a surprise to me.
I’m sure in the next few days, I will have so many things that I have become accustomed to here in Cuba that I forgot exists or does not exist out of this country. Some will be obvious, like smartphones or Google, but some will be less obvious, like having reliable electricity and water every day. I’ll be surprised to realize how much I’ve forgotten about an entirely different world.
notclaremont 
❤
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