Dr. Eric Conway writes:
Day 7 in Havana, Cuba
In
Havana, we exchanged the exterior sounds of the rooster in Santa Clara,
with the sounds of cars in the busy city streets. This morning we had
time to take in the spectacular view that we had of Havana and the ocean
from our hotel rooms. Havana is the capital of Cuba and the largest
with 2.1 million residents.
Our
first hotel in Cienfuegos, Hotel Jagua was owned by the Hilton chain of
hotels. Our current Hotel Tryp Habana Libre, was also previously owned
by the Hilton hotel chain. Before the US sanctions, and the Cuban
reactions to those sanctions, there were many American-owned hotels in
Havana - America’s playground only 75 miles south of Florida. At some
point Fidel Castro and the Cuban government told all the American hotels
to leave Cuba. In Cuba, no one owns the land as it is a communist
state, so when the government usurps one's property, one has no
recourse. Now, local hotel chains have taken over all the previously
American owned-hotel properties. These properties are still among the
best in Cuba!
I
must confess in all the international tours that the choir has taken
over the years, and there have been many, this has been the greatest
challenge to acquire a good internet connection. In America, some
believe that free wi-fi is almost an inalienable right! No one has been
able to get any wifi signals in their hotel rooms. All guests must go
to lobby to acquire the network connection. One must purchase internet
cards at a rate anywhere between $2-$5 per hour with the discreet
username and password. Once connected, one would notice speeds similar
to dial-up twenty years ago when the internet first began. When I have
attempted to send emails home, I could not tell whether the email was
sent or not, needless to say, you may have seen multiple transmissions
for some day’s account of our tour. Certain websites are not allowed in
Cuba like: Google apps, YouTube, Banking sites, etc. Forget trying to
use VOIP apps to call home via the internet, as this was not possible.
The only wireless carrier that is supposed to work is Verizon Wireless,
however the rates are $2.99 per minute for phone calls and 2.05 per
Megabyte for data. By just downloading a few emails in a minute or so,
you could amass a bill of over a thousand dollars!
Another
Cuban departure from American hotels is the lack of the hotel gym.
Given all the food that we were eating, a hotel gym could have been put
to good use. Although every hotel had a swimming pool, the hours to
access the pool were generally not very compatible with our itinerary,
open 9-5 or 10-7.
At
10:30 a.m. we left for our last cultural exchange at the house of the
National Choir of Havana. We imagined that the event would be similar
to the previous cultural exchanges, however, today the Havana choir:
Coro Entrevoces did not meet with us until our sound check later that
afternoon at the theatre. During our exchange, the very fine director
of the national choir, Maestra Digna Guerra, worked directly with the
Morgan choir on our songs in Spanish. She gave some great comments on
Spanish pronunciation and pointers on sound production. During a tour
of the facility, we discovered that there were at least five choirs in
residence. We got a chance to hear one of the choirs sing the American
classic, Shenandoah, as well as a complicated Cuban song arranged for choir. The choirs were very well-trained.
From
the exchange, we received a quick bus tour of Havana, driving through
the most famous sections. We saw a neighborhood next to the ocean named
Miramar, which means looking at the sea, with beautiful homes. We saw
their version of our Embassy row, where rather than the US Embassy being
the largest, the Russian Embassy was enormous in a brutalism style -
reinforced concrete. Havana’s Fifth Avenue is not like the US version
with upscale retail stores, but upscale residences! From there we went
to unique attraction called Fusderland. An artist named Fusder adorned
an entire set of buildings and furniture with mosaic tiles. The sight
was fantastic - very amusement park-like! We could only think of a
former choir member, Loring Cornish who similarly adorned his Baltimore
home with tiles of glass. It was well worth the visit to this
community. We then visited the Plaza de la Revolución, which is a
gigantic square where many political rallies have been held over the
years. Fidel Castro spoke here for many political rallies over the
years.
Although I do
not smoke, and certainly not cigars, one cannot visit Cuba and not pick
up an authentic Cuban cigar or two. We visited the Corona cigar
factory and many purchased a couple of cigars for personal use, or for
gifts to cigar smokers back home who asked to bring back a couple of
genuine Cuban cigars.
Although
the pacing of this tour has been more reasonable than some other tours,
(China comes to mind where we had to walk up to the top and back of the
great wall of China), most are still generally exhausted from all the
touring in the Cuban heat. We returned to the hotel for a short rest
prior to our dress rehearsal at the Havana theatre.
After
our soundcheck and short rehearsal with the other Havana choir at the
National Theatre of Havana, we went to our farewell dinner. Originally,
our concert was planned for a smaller room in the National Theatre,
however, due to the interests in our concerts from the Cubans, our
concert was moved to the largest hall in the venue, the García Lorca
Room in the Gran Teatro de La Habana which seats 1,147. As a result of
the change in venue our concert was moved from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
forcing us to have the farewell dinner prior to our concert.
The
farewell dinner has always been the best meal of the tour over the
years, and this meal did not disappoint. The farewell dinner was held at
the National hotel of Cuba on the waterfront. It turns out the moving
the meal earlier was better because we could see the ocean from our
tables at dinner with plenty of light. Around the hotel premises were
several peacocks with beautiful wings displayed. The food was great and
typically Cuban. We all will miss this Cuban cuisine. This is the
event where we presented gifts and gratuities to our Cuban guides and
drivers. We all believed that our guides were very accommodating in all
facets of this tour, trying to respond to as many requests as possible.
Some believe that it is not a good idea to eat a big meal before a
singing a concert, but I tell people all the time, that the Morgan choir
sings better on a full stomach.
After
dinner, we went to the theatre which is the most famous in Cuba! We
believe that choral lovers all over Cuba made sure to attend the concert
this evening. Like in all the other concerts, the Cuban choir began
the concert. Entrevoces Coro was the choir that visited Morgan during
last summer, featured in a Baltimore Sun Article. We told Entrevoces
then that we were planning to come to Cuba. I am glad we followed-thru
on our statement. After the Cuban group, we did our thing, with again
very enthusiastic applause, although not as special for us as last
night’s very special concert in Matanzas. Our performance this evening
was taped to be televised all over Cuba, once edited down to the
appropriate time-frame. Once again, we believe that Morgan has poised
itself to be the university that Cuba thinks of when students want to
attend an American University. We could not ask for better publicity
than what we will receive via this telecast. We leave on the 31st to
return to the states!
Best,
EC
