La vida
es una obra colectiva
En la
cual otros seres destilan
La
esencia del universo
Lo dice
Estévez, Lo dice Daniel
Y es la
misma piel en donde se escribe
Justo
es Dios quien precisa los tejidos,
Del
corazón que con sus latidos
Pulsa
el verso que nace cada vez que un ave
Despega
sus pues y comienza su viaje
Es el
aire, es el ardor
Que se
siente por fuera, pero brota en el interior
Que el
mismo cuerpo afina
Con
cariño y con amor
Every single
person that you meet, regardless of how long you interact with them, impacts
your life as you impact theirs. Every single person that you meet has something
to offer and a story worth uncovering. This is something that I knew already,
but this trip engraved that into my heart. I had been struggling to find a way
to summarize this. How does one fit a life changing experience such as this
into one neat little blog post? How could I possibly get across how intensely
this affected me, and everything that I’ve learned and felt as a result? I
wrote and rewrote everything until I realized the answer had been staring me in
the face. This is the story of the people I met and how they changed my life.
On July 8th, 2017, I boarded a
plane with people who were virtually strangers to me to a country I only knew
on paper – if that. We came together at IAH, many of us
for the very first time, without much of an idea as to what to expect, because
no amount of explanation could ever prepare you for this experience. Still, we
came together. A rag-tag group of excited, nervous, and sleep-deprived students
that I never would have guessed would become so important to me came together
and began a journey that would give us a brand-new set of eyes and a renewed
love of life.
The
beginning was nerve-wracking for me. Being at airports tends to put me on edge,
and this would be the very first trip that I would take without any of my
family members present or waiting for me on the other side. I went over
everything in my head time and time again, and I could tell that this feeling
was reflected in my newfound peers as well. Cuba is not the simplest place to
travel to after all (at least not from the United States – thanks, Trump). We got through it though. It was here that it
first became clear to me that we would be each other’s fiercest allies; we were
in this together after all. We came to each other for assurances, for answers,
for pens… and we made it to Havana.
When we first arrived, I didn’t quite believe that I
was in Cuba. Logically, I knew that I had gotten on a plane and travelled to
Havana, but it was like my mind and soul had not yet caught up to my body. I
had yet to reconcile myself with this new reality. I almost convinced myself I
was in Mexico instead… until I saw the cars. Soon enough, Havana’s pace became
palpable. Everything was fast, warm, friendly, and bold, and it had already
started to infect me. Even after we settled into our B&B, there was an odd
rush. We had only been in Cuba for a couple of hours, and the people were
already so open. Here, we wide-eyed Houstonians marveled at the streets bathed
in color, at the sounds that impregnated the air and at the multitudes that
adorned every avenue.
Before anything else, comes
food, health, and shelter. It’s something most of us probably learned in a
psychology class at one point or another – Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and all
that. This trip would have quickly become a bad experience without everyone
working for us in the background. Without Dr. Cuesta and her wife Neysi working
tirelessly to make sure that we had everything we needed, that we were safe and
on top of that ensuring that we could see everything Cuba had to offer, we
wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without Irelys
and her family making sure we could open the door and making us breakfast. We
wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without all the hardworking and lovely staff of
the Hostal Azul making sure we all had our orders in and that our food was
ready in time for lunch, or without Saldivar organizing events and making sure
everything was in place. We literally wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the
bus drivers, who not only got us from point A to point B but also helped us
with our luggage without ever complaining, were gracious enough to work with
Dr. Cuesta to allow us some stops and put on some great jams that were
essential in creating some of my fondest memories from the trip: our bus ride
singalongs. These are the people that made any of this possible.
Dr. Cuesta had changed my life once before in her translation class. I
went into it knowing that it would be useful and that I would probably enjoy
it. I ended up completely enamored with the world of translation, so, when I
received an email from her about an advanced translation class in Cuba, I jumped
at the chance. When I thought about study abroad programs in the past, it was
all very superficial. I would see words like ENGLAND or SPAIN and barely glance
at the class titles. I figured I would never do a study abroad program. As
enticing as travelling seemed to me, I thought “why would I spend money on
something that is clearly a whim?” This time, I was more interested in the work
and everything that I could learn and experience than the destination itself,
and that was enough to convince me that I was doing this for the right reasons.
Before I can say
anything about our work at Ediciones Matanzas, I have to talk about Laura Ruiz
Montes. Her workshop was one of the most significant moments for me on this
trip. I came to Cuba excited to have the opportunity to learn from translators
like her and Dr. Cuesta, and to be able to learn about publishers and how they
work. So I started geeking out pretty quickly, as I’m sure my classmates may
have noticed… Montes was extremely interesting to listen to. She is a
Spanish-French translator, and she spoke to us about the challenges she faced
translating a book that was in French but contained large amounts of Creole and
words that were part of a personal relationship. It was incredible listening to
her talk about reconciling the original work with a solution that maintained
both the meaning and the overall ideas that the author was trying to convey
while keeping the cultural aspects of the book intact. Translation really is an
all-encompassing art. It’s the act of stepping so thoroughly into another’s
shoes that you can actually visualize the earth beneath them, the heavens above
and everything that person ever went through. It’s not just “the world”, it’s
the world as seen through this very specific, personal lens that exists because
of everything and everyone around them that played a part in shaping them. A
translator must discover this world, live in it, and take it into their heart
in order to truly convey it to the audience. This is what I took away from
Laura’s workshop, and I think it was essential to the work we did in Ediciones
Matanzas.
Working at Ediciones
Matanzas was more satisfying than I could have ever imagined. At first, I was a
bit worried that my partner and I wouldn’t flow well together or wouldn’t
agree, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that working with Emmanuel
was straightforward and quick. We were different enough that we came up with
different solutions but similar enough or cooperative enough that it didn’t
take us too long to argue our case to each other and decide which idea worked
best. It was a bit daunting at first, having the poet there watching us trying
to understand and translate his work, but talking to Daniel Cruz Bermudez and
even talking to the other poet at the table, Derbys Dominguez, gave us a deeper
understanding of the poet’s motivations and the atmosphere that influenced him.
Sometimes we learned the most when we were taking breaks from translating.
Daniel and Derbys would ask us questions or vice versa, and we would end up
talking about what it was like growing up in Cuba versus what it was like
growing up in the United States. I think those moments were extremely helpful
in being able to better understand where our poet was coming from and what his
personality was like, and it seemed to be a two-way street.
I think my favorite
thing about translating at Ediciones Matanzas was that we could draw on
everyone’s talent and ideas. I loved being able to yell across the room to
Rachael when I came across a word in English that I didn’t know and being able
to ask Kim about words that seemed very specific to religion. I loved that I
could ask Isis and Tanya about words in Spanish that I had never heard and that
I could get Yesenia to read our work aloud when we needed a second opinion on whether
or not our translation flowed. My classmates gave me a new perspective just as
much as Laura Ruiz Montes and Dr. Cuesta did, and I am forever grateful to them
for that.
There is something about creation that is so beautiful. Whether it’s an
imitation of life or remnants of a dream, art is always born of something, and
what makes it even more beautiful is that each work exists on many planes. I
mean to say, that once a piece of art is looked at, it starts existing in that
person’s mind with the colors and dimensions and feelings that that person
gives it; it’s a new work now. And this happens each time a new person looks at
it. On this trip, however, I learned that everything can be made into art and
that no piece of art is the result of a single person.
I was blown away by just how
much the book designers at Vigia, including our guides Adrian, Hector and
Elizabeth, could think outside the box. They saw art in everything…
possibilities and beauty in everything. In fact, this resourcefulness for art was
evident throughout the trip. I saw it in Havana with paintings made on
newspaper, decorations made from home appliances, figurines made out of soda
cans. I saw it at the Fabricas de Arte Cubano (FAC) with shoes serving as
canvases. And I saw it at a gallery that was inside what looked like an auto
garage, where screws and bolts were repurposed into something inspiring.
The day we worked on our own
handmade books, Rolando Estévez said something to us that I will never forget
(which I am paraphrasing and translating): “There is no such thing as an
individual work of art. Every piece of art, like life, is a collective work.
Even if you put your name on it 50 times, that work does not belong to you. You
made it and I made it and your classmates made it and the woman across the street
made it too.” Nothing had ever felt more true. Oddly enough, it reminded me of
an opinion piece I had read about cloning. The article argued that even if it
becomes possible to clone a human being, there is no way that clone will be
exactly the same unless you find a way to clone its surroundings as well: this
means every single person that the other human interacted with has to be cloned
and the people that THEY interacted with would have to be cloned and it would
go on infinitely. So it stands true that any piece of art that is created
belongs to the person who made it, to the people who gave that person the
physical materials, to the earth and to those who shaped that person into who
they are, however directly or indirectly. Life and art are constantly shaping
each other, and these people made me see that more clearly than ever.
Before I left, a good friend
of mine told me that I had to bring back some CDs. He told me that, because of
the embargo, there wasn’t as much cultural exchange as there could be and, by
the time the music reached the U.S., it wasn’t in its pure form anymore. It was
something that I didn’t quite understand, but it was a request that I knew I
would very likely honor.
I
am a lover of music. In fact, putting it like that is a bit of an
understatement (my roommate Joycelyn can vouch for that). I have been to a lot
of concerts and have explored a lot of genres, but Cuba turned out to be a microcosm
of sound and talent unto itself.
Some of those sounds were familiar. Of course, I have
listened to a lot of salsa and reggaetón throughout my life, and I’m pretty
familiar with mambo as well because of my family in Mexico (my grandma is a big
fan). Jazz? There is plenty of that in the United States. And I knew it would
be different… I did. I just didn’t expect to be blown away so thoroughly. I witnessed
a musician be so in sync with his instrument that it was almost as if it were
merely another limb that served to amplify the sound within his soul. It’s what
I saw in the saxophone player at the jazz club in Havana who played every note
so intentionally and still so unrefined and unfiltered. The very next day, a
couple of musicians casually entered the restaurant we were having lunch at and
played with an infectious enthusiasm that had everyone singing and having a
great time; I felt like I was in a completely different realm. I mentioned
before that it took me a while to really feel like I was in Cuba. It was this
moment when Cuba became real to me. This was when I truly realized I was
somewhere new. The feeling was so strong that I had to buy a CD, because I knew
I would want to come back to this reality. 
I would be remiss to glaze
over the incredible experience that was being on the second floor of the
pharmaceutical museum with my classmates, with poets that I had come to
cherish, with Dr. Cuesta and with Georgina Herrera (someone whose significance
I can’t yet truly fathom), listening to Lien y Rey perform. In the beginning, I was mostly excited to be
listening to live music, but I quickly became enthralled by this style that
seemed familiar but was new to me. Soon enough, I started to get overwhelmed by
the richness of both the sound and the lyrics which felt reflective of the
culture that I was starting to understand. The first couple of concerts I ever
went to, I was amazed and couldn’t believe that I was there, so I would focus
really hard on engraving every detail of the experience into my memory. It had
been a long time since I had felt the need to do that, but Lien y Rey gave that
to me. I’m excited to rediscover them and to learn something new about myself
again and again throughout my life as I listen to them at home or in my car or
at work. That’s the beauty of music: it changes as you grow.
With music, comes dancing, and
dancing is my favorite! It has always been a huge part of my life. When I was
little, my grandma used to teach folkloric choreography to my cousins and I,
and she would make outfits for us then have us perform it for our family. While
I’m not passionate enough about dancing to pursue it, I do enjoy any
opportunity to learn a new move or a new style, so I was very excited to visit a
country where I imagined the majority of the population would be proficient in
one style of dance or another. I very quickly realized that I was not wrong to
assume this, and I was surprised to find out that were some really talented
dancers within our own group!
The first people to blow me
away with their dancing were actually Dr. Cuesta and her wife Neysi. I knew
they would be good, but I didn’t expect them to be THAT good. I tried really
hard to follow the steps with my eyes, and I don’t know if I was just too tired
or if it was too fast but I’m sure I would have had a hard time keeping up.
Then there were the salsa and
contemporary dancers at the dance show in Matanzas. I realized not too long ago
that seeing any cultural display makes me emotional. It happened to me when I
saw lion dancers during Chinese New Year outside a restaurant, and it happened
to me when I went to Cancun and saw the Xcaret Mexico Spectacular. Still it
always surprises me when I start tearing up, and I was repeatedly surprised
throughout the various performances. I am not Cuban, but watching those salsa
dancers made me feel so much pride that it was overwhelming. And the
contemporary dance! My cousin and I used to spend our summers watching seasons
of So You Think You Can Dance, but this was the very first time I saw
contemporary dance live. It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had,
and I have Adrian, Hector, and Elizabeth to thank for that.
I
can’t talk about dancing without talking about Jean Marco Monclus, our lovely
salsa instructor whom I had the privilege of meeting long before our official
salsa lessons and who inspired me with his carefree attitude. I’ll admit, I was
skeptical upon seeing him in pajama pants and flip flops the first night we all
went out, but it didn’t take long for him to become important to me. He was
eager to talk about his life and his hopes and dreams. I expected to learn
about dancing from him, and I ended up learning so much more and making a
friend in the process.
I went to Cuba expecting to learn, but I learned more than I ever
expected. It feels like I lived a lifetime in a mere two weeks. I made so many
unforgettable memories and became close with people that I would have never
thought to approach back home. It has been a month since we’ve been back, and
my heart still feels so full. Before I left, I had a very two-dimensional image
of what Cuba would be. Now, Cuba is watching the sunrise in Varadero with my
classmates. It’s walking to the store with Joycelyn in the morning to find
water, and sitting at the parque de la libertad in the sweltering heat. It’s
having a conversation with Claudia, our waitress from Bistro Kuba, and dancing
with everyone at a gay club in Matanzas. I want to take a moment to thank you
all, because, you may not know it, but you have all inspired me in different
ways. Some of you with your passion others with your boldness, with your
creativity, your kindness, your openness, and your determination. I think I
have had a hard time adjusting not so much because I miss Cuba itself (although
I do), but because I’m afraid that I will lose the will to apply everything I’ve
learned there to my life in the United States. Yesenia said that a piece of her
heart stayed in Cuba, and I think this is true for me too. I just hope that I
managed to steal a piece of Cuba in the process, because I cannot bear to think
that I might one day let all that I’ve felt and learned fade away. Thank you
once again. I love you all.
