Santiago de Cuba, Nov. 29, 2001

It's six in the morning in Santiago de Cuba at my neighborhood telephone company where you can get online. We drive all the way to Matanzas today, near Havana, and before heading out, I want to share some images of our most amazing days so far. The Afropop Music Seminar in Cuba in Oriente (eastern Cuba) ranks right up there with Mali Magic 2000 and Madagascar 2001 for sheer intensity. We have seen three groups each day in Guantanamo and Santiago and many of us are already dreaming of coming back to Oriente. (Stay tuned on that one!).

Last Sunday, for the drive from Havana to Trinidad on the south central coast, and then later to Santiago and Guantanamo in Oriente, we were joined by Dr. Jose Millet who is a musicologist and anthropologist. He is a wiry and wired gentleman passionate about his native Santiago and Oriente. On board the Afropop bus, Dr. Millet gives us talks on the musical context and blood soaked history of this region that gave birth to the wars of Independence against imperial Spain in the 19th Century, and also harbored Fidel Castro and his comrades during the Revolution of the 1950s. Names of national heroes, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, Antonio Maceo, Jose Marti, Maximo Gomez, become dramatic stories of freeing their slaves and fighting the Spanish together. The towns we roll through -- Camaguey, Las Tunas, Bayamo -- come alive with accounts of slave revolts and musical innovation.

We are reminded that slavery did not really end in Cuba until 1886!! And African slaves from Yorubaland in West Africa were coming almost to the very end. Ned Sublette, translating for Dr. Millet, points out that Cubans quote their national heroes and poets when talking about history and life today, not Marx or Lenin.

Jumping forward to our experience in Oriente, we went to the famous barrio of Los Hoyos when we arrived at night where the Tumba Francesa were waiting for us at their music house. Yet another thick story of revolution as the Tumba Francesa are descended from the slaves the French planters brought from Haiti fleeing the Haitian Revolution that established the first independent republic run by blacks in the New World. As Ned observes, the courtly dance of Tumba Francesa say Europe, and the drums say Africa. Tumba Francesa members pull us out to dance at the end of their presentation as the neighbor kids look on.

The next day we drive through the lush rolling hills and valleys planted with sugar and coffee to Guantanamo. Members of the British West Indies Society -- a kind of mutual aid organization -- are waiting for us there. These are descendants of indentured workers who came to Cuba from Barados, Trinidad, Jamaica and the Bahamas. The group Jaguey, led by Ernesto Savon Ciril, puts on an excellent performance including a fire dance, a Tete (or Maypole), and for the finale, a powerful dance drama evoking the first slave revolt in Cuba. In the end, the master is killed.

That afternoon we enjoy the local son club where a mixed-generation son group takes us though the evolution of the tradition and then insists we join them dancing under the grape arbor. Back to Santiago the next day, we go to Casa de Religiones Populares where Dr. Millet and his colleague Abelardo lead us through this museum's rich presentation of santeria--Cuba's evolution of the ancient Yoruba religion on Nigeria--and also the much more secret palo religion with its shrines and arrangements of feathers and stones and drawings. This is Kongo culture.

Down the street is Casa del Caribe where the impressive group Kokoye perform for us and wind up doing a carnival comparsa featuring the Chinese cornet. Yes, the Chinese came here too. That afternoon we drive up into the Sierra Maestra mountains to visit the Basilica a la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, protector of Cuba and known in the Yoruba religion as Ochun. Nearby we visit a palenque, a historic place of runaway slaves. As the bus pulls up the home of Juan Gonzalez Perez we hear strong drumming, singing and bell playing. This family mixes Kongo, Yoruba, Vodu and Christian motifs and religions. The drummers and dancers in their 20's are so joyful. We are swept into the scene. It's funky.

From there, we go straight to a house of Afro-Haitian descendents where the Grupo Mystere perform vodu and gaga dance. Wow! Beautiful. Grandma and kids sing together. The guys play weatered drums. The old priest presides next to the altar. We all drink aguadidente (moonshine cane liquor) and dance. This is our most magical day in Cuba yet...and there's more to come...stay tuned when Afropop hits Matanzas. Meanwhile, hear are more images from the trip so far...

Contributed by: Sean Barlow























































Contributed by: Sean Barlow