Havana Club, Nefertiti, February 2011. Gothenburg.
Tag Archives: Havana
Mirror mirror on the wall!
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
Mayari and Miringuita!
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
Café Concordia
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..
Encuentro con Eduardo!
Always when I go to Havana I visit Luyanó. It´s the “barrio” where I stayed on my very first trip to the city 1993.
Eduardo is the grandfather of the children in the family I lived with.
He invites you a glass of his home-made wine, and starts telling his story.
It´s more or less the same theme every time.. the Cuban history, the liberation from the Spanish colonialism and of course the revolution.
Eduardo has lived that history since the beginning of the last century!
Siempre cuando voy para La Habana, paso por Luyanó. Es el barrio donde
me quedé en mi primer viaje a la ciudad.
Eduardo es el abuelo de los niños de la casa donde yo viví.
Te invita un vaso de vino de la casa, y empieza a relatar su historia.
Es mas o menos el mismo tema cada vez.. La historia Cubana, la liberación
del colonialismo Español y por supuesto la revolución.
Eduardo ha vivido esa historia desde el comienzo del siglo pasado.
La Cubana!
There she sat in the car at the beach east of Havana.
I could not resist. Lots of tempting ingredients. The sun was low,
the girl was pretty and the car had all that pre revolutionary patina
that one need for a nice Cuban cliché.
-Do you mind a picture? I asked.
-No but you have to hurry up, my husband is coming back in a moment
and he is very jealous!
Oye papi..
Tonight in Gothenburg.. Manolito y su Trabuco!
You see a lot of it in Havana. People practising their musical instruments in parks, the Malecon and other places, to avoid irritation from the neighbors.
I was passing by the harbor in Havana late 1993 when I saw this guy rehearsing with his trombone.
I took some pictures, he gave me his card and told me that they earlier that same year had formed a new band that played salsa, timba style.
Several years later there was a concert in Gothenburg/Sweden with a popular Cuban group called Manolito y su Trabuco.
For som reason (deeply hidden in the memory) I searched for that old card he once gave me… and yes, there it was: Manolito y su Trabuco les desea feliz Navidad y un prospero año nuevo…1993!
Brought the photo to the concert and went backstage to meet him. There he was, Juan Carlos (30kg bigger) with his trombone. I gave him the picture, we had a laugh and a nice chat. He invited me to his place in Havana the next time I visited…. And I did, but that´s another story.
Manolito y su Trabuco started as a band 1993. Their first cd came 95. One of Cubas top 3 bands!!
Dead but happy!
The urge to share philosophical advice on social media seems endless.
Sometimes its interesting and thoughtful. A lot of the wisdom though are
more of the new age type and that´s when it starts to flip and get really amusing!
This is my contribution on this theme.. don´t worry be happy
Photo taken at Playa del este, Havana, Cuba.
Calle Melones, Luyanó
Hector and Rodrigo. End of 1993.The brothers playing outside their house on calle Melones in Luyano. Havana, Cuba.
Hector now living in the USA. Rodrigo, despite that KO punch, is a renowned ballet dancer travelling around the world..
Parents must be proud!
Håkan Rönnblad 
