An art teacher and mural painter standing in front of his last work, the face of one of the national liberators.
Not far from here another latin American liberation protagonist Simon Bolívar has given his name to one of Santo Domingos many hopelessly poor slum barrios.
Click on photo for high res version..
1981. The combination Swedish trigger-happy tourist (that would be me) and a fragment of a second at the hundred and second flor of Empire state building resulted in this mirror reflection.
I still don´t know what´s happening in that scene.. are they about to kiss.. are they quarreling or what??
2008 the participants at the carnival in Hammarkullen, Gothenburg had luck with the weather.
three years later it was a bit different!
Pure fun in a plastic globe floating around in a pool
Göteborgs Kulturkalas (Cultural party). One week each summer with a never-ending number of activities for all ages. Last summer.
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..
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!!
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 
