The Trip To Cuba Of A Young Woman From The United States

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

[Interview and video recorded, directed and edited by Fedora Rivas]

The trip of the American student Eva Ringquist to Cuba should initially be an opportunity to learn Afro-Cuban folk dances with local teachers. The two months he spent on the island turned out to be much more than that.

The daughter of a Swedish father and a Venezuelan mother, the 19-year-old was already used to living in other countries and adapting to other cultures. That is why she did not miss the possibility of accompanying her father, a professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, when she visited the island in 2016 to study Afro-Cuban percussion and music.

Her experience living in private homes of Cubans, attending classes with local dancers or attending events away from the tourist circuit captured her in a video she shared with People en Español, and in which she relates a journey that changed her life and allows her to see to the Caribbean country through their eyes.

"The overall experience of living in this country and seeing how society works made a deep impression on me in many ways," explains the psychology student, who resides in Boston.

Through his immersion in Cuban society, he tried to understand the contradictions in which the ordinary Cuban debates and the difficulties he faces within an authoritarian political system and an economy in perpetual crisis, in which the most basic articles are scarce, as well as the attitude and festive spirit that he maintains despite the precariousness that surrounds him.

The camera that accompanies Eva on her tour of Cuba captures a time-worn paradise with dilapidated streets, old-fashioned cars, empty stores and insufficient infrastructure. "There are many buildings in which you would never think that someone was living because they are in ruins, but [you find] that three or four families live there," says the young woman.

It also includes the smiles of the children playing in the park, the music that fills the bumpy streets with atmosphere and the warmth with which it is received by those who cross its path. "Everyone was very hospitable and welcomed me, but they are also a little crazy," he jokes. "There is an obvious sense of spontaneous festivity in the culture."

Eva, who also studies dance and was an award-winning gymnast as a child, traveled to the city of Matanzas to learn the basics of Afro-Cuban music and dance, and attended private classes in Havana with a Yoruba dance teacher, who also taught mambo steps and salsa. "This experience and this trip will influence my way of dancing in the future."

In her reflections at the conclusion of her stay, Eva is inspired by the adaptability of Cubans and the spirit with which they face their difficult daily life, which she considers to be a mechanism to compensate for a reality that they cannot change. "Instead of living in that angry environment all the time, they accept it as a method of survival, and that's sad," he concludes.