Photographers Blog

By Desmond Boylan

Recently I was at the beach on a very hot and sunny day in the province of Matanzas, east of Havana, when a group of tourists arrived in a bus. As I watched, two of them sneaked behind a bush, stripped to their underwear, slipped their clothes to their companions, and had a quick dip in the sea. They were obviously nervous, watching out so that they wouldn’t be spotted by their minders. I realized that they were Americans, and that by taking a swim and committing an act of tourism, they were breaking the laws of the U.S embargo. They were breaking the law in their own country, and they knew it.

United States citizens are now allowed to fly in directly to visit Cuba under a cultural program bound by strict conditions, the main one being that they are not allowed to practice tourism. By following the rules they will not be breaking the 60-year trade embargo imposed on the island under U.S. law. At last U.S. citizens are allowed to visit this forbidden country, listed by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism along with Iran, Syria, Sudan, and North Korea, but they have to behave themselves.

The sneaky swimmers spoke in a nervous whisper, twisting their mouths as if someone could read their lips from the distance. As they glanced over their shoulders, it was like a massive crime was being committed with a long prison sentence as punishment for being caught. There were rumors among them that minders were infiltrating their groups and posing as one of them. If it were true, anyone could be a minder reporting back to the U.S. congress on illegal tourist activities engaged by American travelers with the aim of stopping these tours and tightening the embargo once again.

A known fact is that thousands of Americans have been breaking the embargo in increasing numbers by flying into Cuba via transit stops in the Bahamas, Mexico, and Europe. Cuban immigration authorities don’t touch their passports, but give them entry and exit stamps on a separate paper. In their passports they only have exit and entry stamps from the intermediate country, so technically they could have been on the moon, on mars, or floating in the ocean for the undocumented days.

But many U.S. immigration and customs officers checking passports on return know very well where citizens have been. Occasionally they ask questions about popular Cuban products like cigars and rum, and sometimes people are discovered and fined. In spite of that, it is a known fact that it is happening, and if the U.S. really were to enforce the law and build prisons to lodge all Americans visiting Cuba, another problem could be added to the list of ills in the U.S. economy.

By Desmond Boylan

Absolutely no choice. This photography blog post has no pictures. (Part 1)

I was recently driving towards Havana on a small, quiet country road in central Cuba. As I came onto a long stretch there was a truck moving slowly ahead of me in my lane, that suddenly stopped on the right side. I approached slowly knowing that in Cuba there are big potholes, very scarce and slow moving traffic, and cows, horses, hens and even children crossing the roads at any time, always without looking.

I put on the indicator to overtake the truck, but I noticed there was some unusual movement off to the right among some people beside some small country homes.

What happened next was an extremely intense situation.

I suddenly saw two women, one of whom was holding a newborn baby still attached to the other by the umbilical cord, and both were yelling for help. I will never forget the expression on their faces. They had tried to climb into the truck cabin but were unable to. They looked at me, screaming for help. Before I could stop the car completely, the three passengers in the back seat of my car had already jumped out and helped in the mother of the child, followed by the other woman holding the baby. The woman holding the baby turned out to be the other’s mother, so I now had three generations of a family in crisis in my backseat. Dangling between them was the umbilical cord with the baby turning purple. I am not a doctor but common sense told me that there was no time at all to lose. I put the car in first gear and before the doors were closed I accelerated down the road blowing the horn and flashing the headlights continuously. I reached 120 kilometers per hour in a few seconds, and kept it there.

I live in Cuba, cigar country by excellence, and I do like the smell and taste of burning cigars. I like the look of cigars, I like their tan color, and I like the way bugs and mosquitoes keep well away from me if I am smoking one. I like holding a cigar, I like the smell left inside empty cigar boxes, and I even like collecting the empty boxes. I really like giving good cigars as presents to friends who appreciate them.

In the rest of the world there is always an air of indoor exclusivity, mysticism, complicity, conspiracy, luxurious pomposity, deep conversation, relaxation and a feel-good atmosphere around cigars. In Cuba, cigars mean something very different; they are a celebration every day, all the time. Apart from the ever-present feel good and cool factor, cigars are a normal part of daily life, can be found everywhere and are accessible to everyone. Here, they are not exclusive, and can be acquired for any price from a few cents to around $25 apiece.

Years ago I once carefully packed my suitcase in Havana with over three hundred hand-rolled, fresh Creole cigars, the ones typical Cubans smoke regularly. These are the type sold without the nice wooden boxes and rings, with a slightly rustic look but wonderful taste. I flew from Cuba through Europe, half way around the world to Asia, with the cigars for my own consumption and as gifts to friends who loved them as much. I calculated that in my suitcase there were around 45 meters of cigar if I laid them end to end, and I thought that was a lot.

Cuban pruner or “desmochador,”  Omar Aguilar, carries his ropes on his shoulder as he walks through thick bush in a forest of Royal Palm trees. He is cool, walks slowly like a tiger looking for prey, but he is not hunting for animals.  He is hunting for a plant to feed pigs with. His job is to climb Cuban Royal Palms, the tall, majestic, hurricane-proof tree, and carefully lower its fruit to the ground.

The Cuban Royal Palm grows wild all over the island and offers food for animals, berries to produce palm oil, fiber to make waterproof roofs, strong rope, hardwood and even brooms to sweep floors.

Omar looks up to the high trees to spot the branches with ripe berries. When he locates a worthwhile one with at least three clumps, he hugs the tree with a short rope stretched between each hand, adjusts his grip with his right knee and left foot and, as if it were the easiest thing in the world, he starts climbing the trunk step by step.

Nobody in Cuba or elsewhere believed the international press would be photographing former Cuban leader Fidel Castro again, in 2010.

Since 1959 and even before, he has been killed and buried many times by rumors, reports in the media, his enemies and circles of opponents to him.

“He is dead”.

“He has been mummified”.

“He died and the government is not announcing his death just yet”.

“He is dead long ago and the pictures are just photo tricks”.

“He is dead and he has a double”.

Constant rumors, hopes, plans, talk and wishes for his demise, have even been occasionally echoed by some mainstream media, triggering Fidel Castro’s death celebrations in Miami among right wing circles and the hardcore Cuban exile community.

There was great interest in the visit to Mexico by Cuba’s foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque, especially since Mexico’s previous President Vicente Fox had broken off diplomatic relations with the island nation. Adding to the expectation was the fact that the minister’s first attempt to visit Mexico this year was canceled when Cuba was hit by a hurricane.

Perez Roque’s trip was finally reconfirmed with a packed agenda, with one event closely following the next. The first was a visit to the monument to Cuba’s independence hero, José Martí, followed by a visit to another monument to Mexico’s own hero, Benito Juárez. The monuments are not far apart, but because of the tight schedule most photographers assumed that Perez Roque would be driven between them and they went ahead to take an early position. To the surprise of a few, including myself, the minister decided to walk the distance.

As I was running alongside the Cuban delegation, between them and other colleagues that had taken up a position on the sidelines, Perez Roque suddenly turned to me and said he’d like to take pictures of us for a change. He asked me for the camera I was carrying in my hand, exactly the one with the short zoom that I needed to shoot him from so close, so instead I offered him my second camera equipped with a longer zoom.