Saturday, January 17, 2009

I don't practice Santería


Although Afrocuba is 3 hours long we usually never have to sit through all three hours because it ends early. 
We are watching the first story of Lucía now for film class. It looks like it's going to be interesting, to say the least. 
This week has been truly interesting. It all started when I spoke to Maria about religion and she told me that she agrees more with the catholic church than she does in Santería because she says that she doesn't agree that the Santeros should charge more money for the religious rituals they perform. They are usually supposed to charge in Monedas nacionales but they have started to charge in CUCs. Speaking of which, we are actually going to have the chance to have our shells read and if we choose we can pay an additional fee and find out who our guardian orisha would be and get a necklace prepared for us. Also, related to this, we were able to attend one of the ceremones called a Tambor in which the Orisha Yemaya came down and possessed someone so she could talk through them with our Prof. It was three hours of drum beats and dancing and awkwardness. Also, I had a bit of a headache and the drumming DID NOT help. We did get some fun pastries and cake afterwards that made me shake from the amounts of sugar, which made me feel like I was on the Lindsey Lohan diet. 
On our way home we stopped by the Callejón Hamil where an artist named Salvador something or other painted the whole street with murals that deal with the different cults of Santería. It was pretty cool. They have Rumba tomorrow from 12-3 so that might be fun. The artwork was really spectacular. It was very indigenous feeling with a strong sense of Cuban pride. The amount of effort that man must have put in is truly remarkable. 

The best part was that I saw a chinese crested mutt, I was just excited to see a chinese crested (hairless dog), and the dead chicken on the side of the road. All in all a good day.

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