I confess not without a certain melancholy: I’ve never enjoyed the Carnivals of Santiago de Cuba. In my only experience I was too young and I had no company of town friends or time to get into the classic Trocha.
I am encouraged, however, the certainty that the party is in that Caribbean city something that matters to most of the inhabitants of Santiago or occasional visitors. The boxes of food, spirits in navigable quantities, dancing or other activities as human as “hitting a girl”… are accompanied in this case by something else. There is a pride, a joy for the overflowing torrent of sound and gesture of the congas which is often lacking in many of the other festivals of its kind in Cuba.
My best experience in carnivals is with the celebrations in small and medium size towns in the province of Ciego de Avila, back in the eighties of last century. The carnivals were also the meeting place for many young people studying in different parts of the country and we converted the summer holidays in a round of relaxed meetings, healthy laughter, dreams that used to evaporate almost as quickly as the sweat of our shirts.
I tried for years to love Havana’s Carnival. I jumped small walls of racial, class prejudices, even the opposite poles laying in bookish culture and the simple tasty feast with friends.
In the capital the trend for a long time-my testimony excludes the last four or five years but no one suggests that the opposite is happening-has been to make of the carnival in the interests of sectors, neighborhoods, very specific tastes.
In the nineties I complained in writing that in Havana, capital of a country famous for its rich popular music, that there weren’t enough orchestras to dance to it. “As Holland without butter”, I called that old complaint.
Carnavalear is a verb that includes more than the longing of seeing floats pass. Even it is not mandatory that you are a street dance fanatic or “suffering” of a special thirst for the beer foam. It is also, and in my case particularly, to observe people together, yet separate revolting in groups, quartets, trios, duets; to attend various colorful ways to choose fun and company.
Photo: Yander Zamora
