Cuba Diary June '96 continued from page 4
by Lang Phipps
by Lang Phipps
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After five days, I realize I haven't seen or heard any airplanes overhead.
The Cuban isthmus is now off-limits, and all flights have to avoid the area.
I have been furtively eyeing the Soviet Embassy building for days now, waiting for a chance to photograph it. Even as a relic, it dominates the skyline with its priapic central tower stretching like a concrete turtle's neck to scope the scene around it. The cop in his sentinel box on the corner pays me no mind as I shoot the embassy with my telephoto lens, feeling very CIA about it all. But someone in a passing car calls out in perfect English, "Hey, what are you doing there?" Apples are the hot commodity in Havana this week. We brought coffee and powdered milk as gifts/bribes, but it's apples everyone asks for. Unfortunately we gave them all away to the customs officer who cleared us at Marina Hemingway when we arrived. Hector is the name of the guy I asked directions from one night in the old city, Habana Viejo. I was happy to hear his good English, but not so happy to hear that he had acquired it as a result of the Marielito boatlift. Hector was one of the Cuban undesirables -- AID's patients and criminals -- who Castro dumped on U.S. shores in the 80s. He had lived in Harlem for a decade and somehow made his way back into Cuba. It was hard to shake him even after I gave him a few bucks for his help. A small apartment complex was going up across from our driver's house. It had been framed out, and now a skeleton crew was layering on concrete. I asked Ernesto when he thought the job would be finished and new neighbors would be moving in. He said he had no idea: they had been working on it already now for ten years. That is Cuba...it didn't come from a library |
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