Some people know how to use their spare time and consequently be
happy. So are the Cubans in Florida, especially in South West, Miami.
Anyone has something to do there when the
working day is over. To begin: those who are not satisfied to relax at the
shade of the old-centuries trees back to Ponce de Leon 's times join the
elderly around tables on the famous Calle Ocho. Calle Ocho want to express its
identity through this ebullient and exciting way of life that characterizes
everything which is Cuban.
So, on Friday night, middle-age women and
men , some of them turning their sixties and seventies gather in crowded
places, seeping the famous expresso, this strong Cuban coffee with a special
flavor. There is no time for melancholia apart the moving one that the music
brings back. A pianist is his late fifties recreates more or less the fiesta
Cubana. This fiesta also consists of spicy food: rice and beans, steak with
onions, coffee con leche. Hung on walls, Cuban paintings and pictures
complete this exotic scenery that makes the Cuban experience so unique,
so original.
Tasting good food is a tropical-like
environment is not the only ingredient of the Noche Cubana. Dancing is also
part of the game. ? Cuban, some people say, are born to dance as well as
Dominicans. Cobblestone and pedestrian streets serve as ballroom. Here feverish
music, thunderous megaphones, exciting couples jammed by a still active avenue,
make the Cuban week end a frenzy party.
there is a mix of Latin American dances
such as salsa and the European imported rhythms, say danzons that
flourished in the first half of the 20 th century, Mostly popular among people
from Batista times, those dances still echo Hispanic feelings and grace, save
that other ones are practiced more by Latin American natives with various and
fast figures. So is the music of hot countries and passionate fans. Calle Ocho
comes up with such a whole on week ends. This is a place where Cubans go to
forget hard times and think about future good ones.
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hen they want to chat and talk about what happens at home,
Cubans go to Versailles where the gentry reunites. A little bit
aristocratic and conservative, Versailles opens late at night. By 6 and 12 PM,
all of the Cuban politics is there. Workers in jeans, ladies wearing eardrops
and necklaces listen to the last news form their native island while swallowing
teas, scrambled eggs and waiting something they wish to happen. A very relaxing
place, Versailles displays TV interviews and VIP visitors, some of them ready
to make news and maybe history. Once at Christmas, we had to stand long before
being seated.
Calle Ocho is part of the so-called Little
Havana, as much as the semblance with the remote and crumbling Havana is more a
desire than a fact. It is considered the core of the Cuban political life. A
sometimes quiet neighborhood, Calle Ocho conserves the touch of tropical
countries. More than 40 years later, nostalgia and memoires of the past is
lively. Everything you see or watch has not completely move out of this
pst.
History is everywhere present in Calle
Ocho.
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| Versailles Restaurant |
Elderly are delighted to recall these
memories . bay of Pigs' veterans, prisoners freshly released and finally
settled in the US, opponents watching every move in the island... There are a
lot who mix the exploratory Cuban future and the turmoil of a past time. It is
behind their windows and at the shadow of the oversize trees that Cubans dream
of their countries. Once again, a relaxation feeling is not absent. As if
in the midst of more serious questions Cubans keep their sense of humor and hedonistic life philosophy. The 1900-like resorts or guest houses lining the
famous avenue bring as much relaxation as nostalgic frame of mind to the Little
Havana being modernized.
Nevertheless, good times, farniente or
not, what really matters and what people are expecting is the coming of a few
Cuban generation still linked to their island and raised in the shadow of a free America. Many expect
the real change would take place now. This is not in vain that some Cuban voices
are talking about Miami as the capital of sun, exile and anticommunism. The last one, they add with pride, is well a
Cuban job.
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| El Pub, "donde la Cuba de ayer se vive hoy" |
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