Among the huts and paths, screened from the sky by hibiscus planted by the revolutionaries for concealment, I can almost see the young men and women in their insurgent green uniforms, and hear their quiet, urgent voices discussing ambushes and battles, logistics, tactics and triumphs, Batista used thousands of troops and aerial bombardment in multiple attempts to defeat and destroy the revolutionaries, but his forces were outmanoeuvred and outfought in these valleys, Inexorably, it must have appeared, the initiative swung towards Castro’s side. Deserting troops and inspired locals came to join his forces. The conviction, morale and military ability of the men and women began to dominate.
And now here I am, where it all happened. Fidel’s hut -bed, bookshelf, writing table, back steps – could be a writer’s retreat until I see his secret trap door and hiding place. How incredible it must have been to be one of his companions. There were so few of them to start with: their self-belief and determination extraordinary. And here in the Sierra Maestra, the scale of Castro’s achievement, which took him from a shack to the world stage, still seems astonishing. Homeward bound, fly to Havana the beautiful, the pulsing, the seductive. Havana the rich, once. ‘Before the revolution, the city was as glamorous as Manhattan,’ says Johnny Considine, an Irishman who has chameleoned into a habanero.
‘Car companies and fashion houses used to launch new products here before New York,’ he says. ‘Some of the richest men in the Americas were Cuban sugar kings. And, of course, it’s always been a sexy place.’ The eternal dance between men and women is the power, and in some way the point, of one of Cuba’s many mighty musical forms, the rumba. My dance lesson takes place in a tiny room in one of Havana’s crumbling mansions, long since divided into multiple dwellings. My tutors are Vladimir Quevedo – tall, slim as a ballet dancer and tremendous fun – and Arianne Jimenez, a dance teacher, guide and spectacular mover. They take me through rumba’s rhythms, challenging me to beat out different tempos to which they dance. ‘It comes from the street; the dancer impersonates different characters: the drunk, the child, the chicken and the rooster,’ Arianne explains.
All you need is two sticks, a conga and standing room. How they dance! They become the beat and the characters, Vladimir the cockerel, Arianne the hen. The small space fizzes with energy and movement. Tapping out the rhythm on the claves I feel the joy of being one of the hundreds who, at any given moment of any day or night, are making the music of Havana. Leaving Cuba, I find myself feeling protective towards its people. There’s an antique innocence to the country that most of the rest of the world has left behind. The perennial cry – ‘Go to Cuba now, before it changes!’ – is nonsense. The country is in the slow midst of great change. It needs us, but not to help it become more like the rest of the world. In society, family and openness of heart and spirit, Cuba has more to teach than to learn.
