Cuba night

Last night J and I went to the “Cuba Night” fundraiser event downtown at the Unitarian Church. Its purpose was to raise some money to assist with an upcoming trip to deliver some humanitarian aid to Cuba. This upcoming trip is organized by Pastors for Peace, and will begin later this month.

There was Cuban food (which was pretty good), and an official from Pastors for Peace gave a speech about the problem of the Cuba economic embargo and the importance of resisting this unfair embargo and trying to provide humanitarian assistance to Cuba. This was followed by a great performance of Cuban drumming by a small ensemble of local percussionists including Hiram Jimenez and Jonathan Kline. In his introduction to one of the percussion numbers, Jimenez pointed out the great similarity between Cuban rhythms and Yoruba rhythms from Nigeria, due to the fact that many Yoruba people from Nigeria came to Cuba over the past several centuries (brought there as slaves by the Spanish). And I did notice that much of the drumming that these guys were doing sounded a lot like some recordings of Yoruba drumming from Africa that I’ve heard.

The drumming was followed by a very interesting performance/demonstration of salsa rueda by the Pa’lante rueda group from Cornell. After that the rueda caller, Nikolay, invited everybody to come up and have a beginning lesson in rueda, which I participated in. The wheel consisted of a lot of absolute beginners who had never danced before, as well as a few experts like the Pa’lante people, and a few fair-to-middling dancers like myself. It was somewhat chaotic at times but everybody in the wheel seemed to be having fun nevertheless. Then there was open dancing for a while, to recorded Latin music, and then Nikolay called another rueda circle, but this one for more advanced rueda dancers. J and I danced in that rueda wheel and I had a lot of fun with it. It was interesting for me to dance with the Pa’lante people, who I don’t normally get to dance with. They are extremely good.

I think that organizations like Pastors for Peace, and all other groups that are trying to resist the economic embargo on Cuba and provide humanitarian aid, are doing really good work. The American embargo on Cuba is inhumane and unjust. The USA maintains normal diplomatic and economic relations with many countries that have FAR worse and more oppressive governments than Cuba does. That the USA has singled out Cuba for this harsh treatment, from all the other nations on earth, makes absolutely no sense.