Cuba, 1992

A foundation wanted me to continue making images they used in books on appropriate technology for underserved populations.  They supported an innovative center for disabled children in the mountains of Sinaloa, Mexico but the last leg of travel to this remote village had become unpredictably dangerous due to narco-traffic related violence.  Having mentioned a wish to go to Cuba, they sweetened their proposal with the offer of a modest month’s worth of expenses so that I might continue from Sinaloa to Merida on the Yucatan, and from there to Havana.

In La Habana, everyone I met wanted to change pesos for dollars.  I had some small US currency and was prepared to change singles and fives, figuring that I could find something useful or interesting to buy with my Cuban money.  As it turned out, there was almost nothing.  Small food shops required ration book coupons and the few stores with anything for sale were hotel shops that accepted only U.S. dollars.  By the time I realized this, I had accumulated about fifty bucks worth of pesos.  What could I do with them?

In my travels, I keep an eye open for local photographers.  I discovered that mornings near the old Capitol building (modeled on our own congress in Washington D.C.) a man appeared with an apparatus for making photographs by means of a paper negative.  His was a marvelously complete camera and darkroom in a box perched on an ancient wooden tripod accessed by putting his arms into black sleeves that penetrated the light tight box where he processed, first a paper negative image which he then re-photographed to produce a positive print for the customer.  A tin cup with water, strapped to one of the tripod’s legs, served as the final wash.

It is an elaborate process, a cross between dance and a magician’s act that produces eccentric little black and white prints that look like they’ve come from another era.  Best of all, the magician accepted payment in pesos.

On a journey like this I rise early, usually at first light.  For some hours, I prowl around exposing film before the light becomes too harsh for my purposes.  There in La Habana, about nine or so I’d swing by the old Europa Britannia Hotel; too expensive for me to stay in this renovated jewel but they had an excellent and inexpensive buffet breakfast.  I’d arrive just as the European and Japanese tourists were boarding the buses for the day’s sightseeing.   After a few days, friendly waitresses began bringing me delicious leftovers from the previous night’s dinners.  Soon they were making me lunches to take for later.

Before heading back to the Hotel Lido to wash clothes, write letters or take a nap so as to be ready for another working wander through the good light of the late afternoon, I got into the routine of stopping by the old Capitol to get my picture taken.  I’d found a way of putting the pesos I’d acquired to good use.  Even better, I was supporting a fellow photographer.

As we got to know each other, we got playful.  I brought my black beret and with a bronze star and posed near an old Chevy on the bleak Havana streetscape. I fancied I looked like Ché in the little print that came out of that time machine with sleeves.

We talked about our lives and the photographer told me that he had two sons living in New Jersey.  They owned homes, had new cars and each made more in a year than he’d earned in a lifetime.  Did he wish to go and live with them, I wondered?  No, he said, sadly they were lost in the quest for money and had little time for family and friends.  Just then, two people approached whom he obviously knew well and was delighted to see.  Before beginning the handshakes and elaborate ritual of Latin greeting, he turned, griped my arm and said quietly, “Aqui yo tengo compañeros.”  Here I have companions… Here I am not alone.

When I got back to my room I washed some socks and put the little paper print in the sink to give it a more thorough rinse.  I mailed a letter the next day to my friend Ed in New York with stories of people I’d met in Cuba and the paper negative photograph on which I had written: Minor Heroes of the Revolution.  Ed would understand that I was speaking of the photographer, living there in hard times, making art.