This morning, we met up with J at 9am outside of the Capitolio and treated ourselves to a fancy breakfast of coffee. It was this lovely European style café across the Plaza Vieja from the place we had beer on the first day. My café frio was spectacular and I then followed it up with a café con leche that rivalled some of the best coffees I had in Italy. That place will definitely become a regular stop.
Walking around this city inspires me to write again. J pointed out the building that Hemingway used to stay in and write. It’s no wonder that he was so inspired here. Everywhere I look is a scene from an unwritten short story.
After coffees and desayunos, we were led through la Habana vieja by J who showed us a few key spots and then we found ourselves a maquina (taxi) to go out to immigration to get our cards made. A loco maquina ride along the malecon brought us to a different part of the city and we found the immigration building. A lovely lady named L had us fill out little forms and took the pictures that we had made yesterday of our red sweaty faces. This trip, with a follow up trip will hopefully, eventually result in our carnets, basically cards that show that we will be working in Cuba and are valid for approximately one year. As far as J has explained, the cards allow us to prove that we are “cubano y cubana” and let us pay in moneda nacional instead of tourist dollars.
J also showed us where the CIDA office is, where we can print off papers and access skype (the only place on the island).
We headed back downtown towards J’s place and were dropped off a few blocks away from her and her baby daddy’s aptmt. We stopped at a Mercado and bought some lunch makings. Bocadillos con guacamole, pepinos, tomates y huevos fritos. Amazing. All of this mixed with a nice cool breeze and cold water. It was the equivalent of heaven after a sweaty, humid hot morning in the sun. By lunchtime, I was delirious and provided the entertainment for the rest of the group.
We were waiting for O, our local jefe for two hours. Since the four of us were falling asleep, J thought it was a good idea to head out and lead us to where we could grab a maquina to go home. O’s place just happened to be on our way to the Capitolio where we get the taxis from so we popped our heads in the door to see if she was there. She was. We ended up meeting with her for a painful hour and a half while we tried not to fall asleep. Talking with her got me excited about the project again. She put me on the track of a natural purification method that involves using the seed of a plant called Moringa. I’m going to do research while I’m here and experiments in Gtmo to see if it would be a valid tool for the campesinos. If so, we can get the empresa to grow the tree in the state nurseries and we can encourage the farmers to grow them as well.
I finally managed to drop enough hints so that we could make a graceful exit from O’s house and head home. We made our way back to our hood and walked up the street to get some pizza for dinner. The closer place that we had been to before was closed so we went up to the other one. We got three big pizzas. Definitely not as good as the other place. That, and M found a staple in his pizza. As P was trying to make us look on the positive side and said that at least we hadn’t found hairs, I pulled out a long strand of hair from my pizza. So… next time we go to the other place.
After food we all came back and showered and napped. Except for the energizer bunny. She didn’t nap. At around 10, the boys came up and we started off the night with some LMFAO style shots.
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