Today started like any other day
with an amazing breakfast made by my casa mom, Angelita, and then we drove to
the Jose Marti Center to have class. After that we went to La Luecita for a
lunch that was made right in front of us. One of our own, Jordan, even got to
help the chef prepare the vegetables for a beef and veggie stew sort of main
course that was paired with a chicken dish and then rice and beans and banana
chips. Everyone loved the banana chips, including me, but the next course
wasn’t as welcomed by the majority. In Cuba, they like to pair sweet and sour
things together. For dessert, we had sweet papaya with grated cheese on top.
Papaya generally is not very sweet, in my opinion, but here they prepare it by
picking and slicing it before it is ripe and boiling it with honey, sugar, and
cinnamon to make it sweet and mushy. Its similar to fruit cocktail. Now can you
imagine fruit cocktail with shredded cheese on top? I couldn’t either. Cubans
apparently love it, but a lot of us just couldn’t get into it!
Then we traveled to Callejon de Hamel. Callejon
de Hamel is an alley in Havana dedicated to the afro Cuban culture. Something I
noticed immediately was all of their seating and some decorations were made of
bath tubs! I found that to be so creative and practical, the decorators found
use of a bathtub beyond what I’m sure many people would have. Actually, I’m not
so sure about the practicality aspect… I asked RJ to take a picture of me
sitting on one of the bath tubs, so I plopped down and immediately my bottom
and legs started burning! I jump up and told RJ how hot it was and he told me
he would take the picture quickly so I braved the heat for a few seconds for
the sake of commemorating the bathtubs benches. If I would have thought it
through, I would have realized that the sun had been beating down on it, so of
course it would be hot, but that didn’t register ahead of time! Luckily, I
fully recovered from the surprise and the heat! The alley was very colorful and
had quotes in Spanish and unique decorations posted throughout. One of my
favorites said a phrase along the lines of the bad actions of a man are never
forgotten and the good actions live forever. If you think about it, they really
mean the same thing, the different actions are just framed differently, but I
just took it as everything you do matters. Your actions show people if you are
good or bad. Callejon de Hamel was very festive and overall a very interesting
place to spend time. I still have some plans for tonight, but it has already
been an exciting day!
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