These are the tobacco leafs of Viñales and Pinar del Rio. Does not get any better than this! The quality of the Cohiba, Montecristo, and the Partagas cigars, all depend on the meticulous work of men like this guajiro!
Viñales valley, Cuba. (Click on Viñales tag to see more pictures)
At the end of 1993 I stayed in Luyano, Havana. It was the “período especial”. Several years of hardship for the Cubans.
This particular picture was a result of an hour or so waiting at the Calzada Luyano for something to turn up (it always does in Havana!)
I caught the attention of the father passing by with the daughter sleeping in the bicycle carriage just in time to make him stop and give me the chance to take some pictures.
It could have been a propaganda picture for the … government campaign at that time “one liter of milk per day to each child”
2010. Seventeen years later I found the Facebook group “Solo gente de Luyano”
(Just for people from Luyano)
added the photo (also the one where you see the father) and the comments and additional information poured in!
Click tag Luyano to see more material from this part of Havana or just check this link
Daysi Rivas : AYYYYYYYYYYY DIOS MIO HE VISTO ESTA FOTO MUCHAS VECES Y AHORA ES QUE ME DOY CUENTA QUE ES OMAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MI AMIGO DE TODA LA VIDA,………………. PERO ESTA FOTO TIENE UN MONTON DE AñOS, QUE SERA DE LA VIDA DE EL?????????????
Oh my God I have seen this photo many times and now I understand that it is Omar!!!!! my life long friend …. but this photo is very old, what has happened with his life?????
Want to see some Cuban rumba? Callejon de Hamel in Havana is the place to go!
Like colors? Here`s another one red, green, blue.
A guajiro lights his homemade cigar in the Golondrina cave. Viñales, Cuba.
Click on Viñales tag for more pictures from this part of Cuba.
Playing in their house at Calle Melones 360. Havana, Cuba. 1993
Here´s another picture and more information of the brothers.
You can also click on tag Luyano to see more photos from the barrio
Jugando en su casa en Calle Melones 360. 1993. Aqui otra foto y mas información de los hermanos.
Tambien puedes hacer un click en el “tag” Luyano
This guy had a really hard time to let go of the mirror…
Walking down Porvenir street my left eye suddenly get a glimpse of an interesting hairdresser scene. Immediately an intensive negotiation process starts in my mind between the photographers ambition to achieve a good picture and my instinctive inhibition against sticking my camera under the noses of people I don’t know. The photographer wins the battle but a small sacrifice is needed…
I turn around, walk back and step into the hair salon asking.. can you cut my hair
Havana, Cuba 1996. Click on the picture for full size view
One day when walking around the Viñales valley in western part of Cuba, I met these guys. They did not say much but gave me a pineapple as a gift.
The three guajiros represent the male core of the Noda family. They work the land all day long and
when night falls they go home to their numerous family’s. Three houses in a row, very basic. They are poor but generous. I have returned to the Nodas several times. I especially remember the day when Pedro (on the right side) took me fishing.
We where quite a few persons that set off for the adventure. Pedros wife, two daughters, a son some boyfriends etcetera.
Pedro as head of the family described extensively all the elaborate moves you need to apply to catch fish in that lake. The kids did not bother much.
After several kilometers walk we arrived. With a serious look on his face Pedro stepped out in the water and began his quest for the first fish.
He struggled for an hour or more trying all the tricks in the book but NADA, nothing!
Meanwhile his twelve-year-old daughter started to pull up one fish after another.
She caught 11. Her father got nothing!!
Anyway.. Pedro is not the sulking type. While we tasted the delicious fish prepared on open fire, he took charge of the entertainment by singing, with lots of feeling, a poem to “Mother”
Nice day indeed!
The place to go in Cuba if you need to lower your blood pressure!
My first trip to Cuba 1993 I lived with a family in the district of Luyano, Havana.
This was the so-called “período especial” and in practice it ment a decade of misery for the Cubans.
Mayari sat at the corner of Municipio and Melones trimming the hair of his dog Miringuita.
Of course I could not resist picking up my camera!
Seventeen years later I stumbled upon a page on Facebook “Solo gente de Luyano”
(Just for people from Luyano) The fantastic thing I realized a little later when I started to
contribute my photos (most of them almost forgotten and deep down in some old analog archive) to the group, is that the responsable person for the site was Reynier Perez.
Reynier was just a kid back in 93 and lived upstairs in the same house where I stayed and I had caught him in my pictures playing with the children of “my” family. (i´ll post some of this in the future)
Internet, Facebook can sometimes be a fantastic media to reconnect people. Many Cubans have left their country and are spread out all over the world. On “solo gente de Luyano” they can make contact with old friends and neighbors!
The additional information I get referring my photos from these comments in the Luyano page
increases the documentary value a lot. The picture of Mayari for instance no longer just represents an image of an odd character!
Listen to the following quotes (translated from original Spanish)
Yanliet Linares: Sitting outside of what used to be his house. An unforgettable personality from Luyano
El Lachy Pons: A personality from Luyano. He is dead now.. lived a block from my house
Claribel Alvarez Sosa: Mayari was well known? “look at me women, play with me, look here I am single now”. Fantastic personality, a skilled tailor and as you say Reynier he liked sports and he participated in competitions, he was strong
Armando Mandito Valdes: The old Mayary lived beside my house. Sometimes they came and emptied his house. It was filled to the ceiling of stuff that he found walking around. It could be of use to somebody . I lived close by. I moved to the states 1980, never saw him again. HE WAS A GOOD PERSON
Eduardo Somoza Rios: He used to whip me when we played chess, the day I beat him was our last match
Yohandra Ramos: He died some time ago, he lived near my house
Grettel Llana: My God whats he doing to the dog????
Grettel Llana: Looks like he wants to cut his tail..
Yanet Viamontes: Por dog!!
Reynier Perez : I can assure you that MAYARI never would cut the tail of the dog because it was his only friend he spoke to him and prepared food for both of them. The hands holding that scissors is hold by an excellent tailor.. a surgeon with his cloth
mayari, the revolution gave him everything ?????? (ironically)
Keyla Roymer Barrientos: mayari, everybody knows mayari, this is great!! What memory’s really this page is really good
Old friends having a conversation
Where the Concordia and Soledad streets meet in Centro Habana you find Café Concordia.
This is Cayo Hueso, one of the citys most run down quarters. No paint on the walls and many houses collapsed completely. Lots of people moving around “resolving” or searching for food!
In the books Trilogia sucia de la Habana by Pedro Juan Gutierrez you can get a pretty god idea of how the Cubans gets by in the area.
Café Concordia is state runned and the clients are supposed to be the locals of the “barrio”.
A tourist entering here is an exotic creature! But I felt that this could be a nice place to get to know people and take some pictures. So I had to give it some time to survive that feeling of being an alien.
I ordered a beer and after a while I had a nice chat about the legendary Cuban mucisian Beny Moré
with another client!
I came back almost every day during a week and the first excitement about
my visits calmed down. Took a lot of photos and got to know some of the other regulars.
When the evening approached they told me to go home because this is not a healthy neighborhood for me with that expensive camera and so on..
Håkan Rönnblad 