A Summer Sunday at the Maxwell Street Market

CHICAGO: From 7a.m. to 3p.m. every Sunday, the United States’s longest-running open air flea market has much on offer—from household cleaning supplies to incense sticks and essential oils sourced from the Far-East, and Victoria’s Secret lingerie to rare vinyl records from decades ago.

The 105-year-old Maxwell Street market carries its legacy name despite having had to move twice: In 1994, the City of Chicago moved the market from its original location, citing the expansion of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Again, in 2008, the market was moved a few blocks further east, to its current location on South Desplaines Street.

Tighter security and regulations bolstered each move, despite vendors and visitors alike claiming a loss in the market’s original feel and flavor.

Once the hub for Jewish immigrants arriving from Europe in the late 1800s, the Maxwell Street market also proved a haven in the 1920s for many African Americans moving up north during the Great Migration.

Over the next few decades, the market would provide them employment; some would even jam here in their spare time, creating what has come to be known as the Delta-style blues or Chicago blues.

Today too, most of the hawkers here—a little over 100—are immigrants. The food in the market is mostly Mexican.

Outside the Maxwell Street market, there’s a buzz of rumors about the city administration’s deliberate neglect towards it.

Inside, a thick and quiet silence has descended over it, enveloped by a blanket of summer humidity — Maxwell Street’s trademark blues too have been sidelined. ▪️

A Sunday Side Gig

HAVANA: From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Sunday, friends Gabriel and Dani spearfish by the coast of a fairly well-to-do neighborhood in Havana called Miramar. In Cuba, most people have a few side-hustles to make ends meet. This is theirs.

If they catch an octopus, they could sell it to restaurants nearby for as much as $3.50 a pound. In a country where the median monthly wage is about $25, this is a lot. Especially if Gabriel and Dani get lucky and catch even just more than a couple.

It’s not all work though. A little after 1 p.m., they kick back for a little Sunday picnic lunch. They invite me to join. I politely decline, telling them I fly out in a few hours. 

"Come back soon," Dani calls out in Spanish. "We are here every Sunday afternoon. No exceptions!" ▪️

You’ll never see Fidel Castro on a pedestal

HAVANA: As we walk through the Museum of the Revolution, where Cuba’s one-party government celebrates its continuing struggle against tyrannical forces real and imagined, we pass a sculpture with three figurines, the heroic triumvirate of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos.

They stand as if charging ahead, wind in their hair and a sense of purpose in their chiseled frames.

Some of us wander off to take pictures of the imposing former presidential palace that houses the museum. But the guide gathers us here, and invites us to pay attention to this carving.

“Remember this sculpture,” she says with an unmistakable hint of devotion in her voice. “This is the last one of Fidel Castro that will ever be made. He made sure of it.”

At Castro’s direction, the Cuban government passed a law shortly after his death in 2016, that prohibited the creation of images or representations of him. Raul Castro, who became president in 2008, told the nation of his brother’s wishes.

As she speaks, it occurs to me that this was Fidel’s act of ultimate sacrifice. A man who all but single-handedly shaped Cuba’s life for decades, whose face still stares from billboards, and whose trademark beard is still mimicked by 22-year-olds with skinny faces, makes clear that Cuba is bigger than him and the power of his last name.

**

Later that evening, a colleague and I meet Luis Manuel and Yanelys Leyva, an artist couple working with Cuban artists and writers to create collaborative spaces of free expression.

The young couple meets us in a chic café and bar, where you can choose to sit in a low-ceilinged top floor area reminiscent of an attic, a breezy patio, or an underground space with the feel of a tavern.

Luis Manuel, tall and broad-framed, leads the way downstairs.

In the dim light, cocooned in a wooden booth, they start the conversation talking about their latest project. “We recently did a show in the Centre Pompidou, France,” Leyva says. “It was a satirical piece called Fidel Castro’s Last Words.”

But when the idea first occurred to them in January, they had to get the explicit permission of the Cuban government before they could put up the show.

“It’s a problem,” she says. “Because if you’re an artist and you want to work with the image of Fidel, it is illegal. It is prohibited.”

And just like that, a hero’s sacrifice in the tour guide’s world, plays out as state censorship in Leyva’s and Manuel’s. ▪️

This piece was first published here.

Havana: Giving visitors what they want

HAVANA: It’s a sunny Sunday in the Cuban capital. The calm waters next to the Malecon twinkle lightly in the glare of afternoon sun. In the neighborhood of Vedado, there’s barely any traffic, and even less public activity.

Except, of course, in the vast parking lot and public square a few steps outside the Jose Marti Memorial.

One after another, four or five big blue tourist buses come to a halt. A cluster of tourists descends from each. Feet barely on the asphalt, they are suddenly excited, for parked strategically near the buses are vintage America cars. In pastel hues from sky blue to powder pink they’re begging for attention, with suavely-dressed, charming and eager chauffeurs standing alongside.

More such taxis whir past the tourist throng, bathed in candy colors of purple and yellow, their speakers blaring years-old songs by American pop bands like Maroon 5 and Beyonce.

In terms of ambience, this might be what most tourists expect of Havana. And this is exactly what Havana will give them. Especially in return for $50 joy rides – more than twice the average monthly Cuban wage – on a circuit around the capital city’s broad avenues.

Never mind the billboards in praise of Fidel Castro, leader of the anti-capitalist revolution. He died in 2016. Never mind the towering nearby memorial to Jose Marti. It was closed this day anyway. ▪️

This piece was first published here.

Shrug if you’ve ever tried the internet in Cuba

HAVANA – If you ever had a dial-up computer connection in the mid-1990s, you’ll know the trials and tribulations of connecting to the internet from home in Cuba. A screech, another screech, a dial tone, a few beeps. A few minutes later, you’re on line.

But spend time in Havana’s “internet parks”- a playground, a street corner or a public square with a government-provided modem – you might learn more patience than dial-up internet ever prepared you for. When it works, it goes something like this.

At the WiFi park near the Melia Cohiba hotel, an employee of ETECSA, the Cuban telecommunications agency, sitting in her little porta-cabin with a desk and chair, will sell you a prepaid WiFi card. The official cost is about $1.15 per hour in a country where the median monthly wage is about $25. But if she isn’t there and you don’t want to stand in line at a phone company store, a freelancer will sell you one for $2.30 or $3.45, depending on your bargaining skills.

Then, you activate the WiFi on your phone or laptop and wait for it to detect the ETECSA network. You meander through the park, waiting, as your Fitbit buzzes in joy at meeting the last step of your daily goal. When the signal is weak, you find yourself raising your phone, Lion King style, hoping it catches something.

You punch in the 12-digit username and 12-digit password and tap acceptar. A blinking wheel-icon starts to turn, as does your hamster brain, racing with everything on your to-do list of emails, follow ups, checking in with family. You may even indulge in the fantasy of a little social media time.

“No,” you tell yourself. “Focus.”

An error message pops up. “Unable to connect to ETECSA.” It has been 20 minutes since you bought the card.

A family of three-father, mother, and son have joined you in the little park now, with a tablet and a smartphone.

They go through the same motions. The little boy gives up, and starts playing with pebbles instead. Mom and dad, though, are trying to instill in him the values of not surrendering.

“Por favor,” you say, sticking your phone and limited Spanish into the ETECSA official’s cabin. She points nearby, to a place with better reception .

“Gracias,” you say.

As you leave the cabin window, a 17-year-old boy named Mauro joins the line. He tries to convince someone buy him an hour of wifi. He can’t buy one till he’s 18. “Please?” he says in English, pushing back long curls that fall into his eyes. He needs to get on his social media.

Mauro is holding a skateboard. His lithe frame radiates a sense of speed. Even when he’s standing still, in a queue, to get a WiFi card that may not even connect him to the slow WiFi signal.

Another 20 minutes later, there is no signal and you give up.

“It works, but somewhat, sometimes,” Mauro says. He shrugs, just like the lady inside the ETECSA cabin, and crosses the road to leave. ▪️

This piece was first published here.