In January, I traveled with about 30 people from around the world to Cuba for a week-long cultural immersion with the Lila the Series organization. 

 

I went with specific intentions: 

 

 

I decided when I was young to make my passions my profession. My connection to the arts is relevant on many levels. On the micro, I started drumming when I was 2, because my mom was a drummer. My uncle was a guitarist and gave me one when I was 8. My grandmother was a beautiful singer; so much so that her brother, a guitarist who moved to New York to play professionally, wanted her to come with him. I have told the students that BIPOC people are often asked to sacrifice some part of themselves in order to succeed. I had to sacrifice my accent. My grandmother’s brother had to sacrifice his close family ties. 

 

On the macro, I am a descendant of the Gullah and Geechee. Though my family lived inland, we are descendants of those who lived on the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. I have ancestral ties to the Yoruba, a West African tribe mostly around what is now southern Nigeria, who put emphasis on artistic and cultural exploration. The musician Fela Kuti and the writer Wole Soyinka are of Yoruba descent. 

 

I knew this history before stepping on the island. I also knew that those of African descent across the Americas, from Savannah to Cuba, to Brazil, share ancestry. We’re like cousins, not the same but related. We share ancestral grandparents. Those ships that arrived on the shores of the Americas came from similar places in Africa. 

 

My week there was a radical experience. Radical in the sense of returning to the roots of something, of who I am. I grew up surrounded by Afro-Latin rhythms and playing them by ear. In Habana, I learned some of the techniques of Afro-Cuban drumming, which I did not learn as a child. We had the rhythms, but did not know the techniques behind them. I also saw children dancing Rumba and realized that not only did those moves look familiar, but I had also done some of them without knowing they had any tie to this Afro-Cuban genre. I did those moves because my body wanted to, because my body was tapping into that subconscious memory. 

 

This is ancestral memory. A memory that is etched in our bodies, blood, and souls. A memory that nothing and no one can remove. It remains, even when we don’t recognize its roots.  

 

I dove deeper into the practice of Santeria. I had a little familiarity with Orishas from artists like Celia Cruz and Desi Arnaz. They both made songs honoring Orishas, and Desi’s version of Babalu-Ayé is the first song I remember learning on drums. On the trip, we participated in rituals and learned dances for Oshun, Yemeya, and Shango. The artists who taught us those dances carry those dances in their bodies every day. Through carrying the dances, they carry the energy of the Orishas. 

 

I also had the opportunity to work with high school students at the Conservatorio Amadeo Roldan. It was good to be with young people who have also decided to make their passions their professions. One of the many gifts of music is that you can connect with others through jamming- improvising, experimenting, and, most importantly, having fun. You can enter an energetic and intuitive state with people of any age and life experience. I was fortunate to have these experiences since childhood, playing with my mother and her friends. To now give that same support to students is life coming full circle. 

 

I remember our guide, Dayramir Gonzalez, teaching the students about owning the stage when performing. He talked about the difference between learning an instrument as a hobby and music being a part of who you are. He demonstrated how to play with your entire body, to come on stage and gain the attention of the crowd from the first moments. Watching him gave me some clarity on what I needed to focus on in my own classes. That I, too, came from a background where music is a part of who I am. And to carry that energy into my classes. I realized it is also my job to teach students the art of performing in addition to learning their instrument. To teach them how to connect with both physical space and the audience. To translate their passion into an energy that the audience can feel and tap into. And to teach them how to live this artistic way of life.

 

I cannot romanticize the island. I cannot talk of the beautiful experiences without talking about everyday struggles- about power outages from fuel shortages, families struggling to get food and begging for money, and trash that had to be left in the street. We had the privilege just as tourists, but as tourists from the US. How much a dollar was worth compared to the Cuban peso, how freely I could get on the plane to and from Habana, and the ability to hop on a plane and “go back home”. Our hotel owner asked me how my trip was going. I told her my time in Cuba was beautiful. She said it’s different when you live there day to day; it is much harder. 

 

As much as I don’t want to be a stereotypical tourists, coming to this island to extract some experience or special gift, it is unavoidable. Because I do not live there, have not grown up there, and have no family ties there. All i have are ancestral connections, and the images through media and music. As I type this, Cuba is facing even longer power outages and less access to supplies. It is the current target in a long history of “Western” powers treating Latin America like their own backyard, doing whatever they wish to the land and people. Two things can be true at the same time. I can have an ancestral tie with Afro Cubans, share distant ancestry, be on a journey to rediscover roots and history that systems tried to hide or remove. And, at the same time, carry a huge privilege through my US citizenship, still be unable to understand the intricacies of life there, still be at risk of falling into the trap of othering and romanticizing the space, as so many United Statesians have and continue to do. 

 

There is so much to unpack, to unravel. It will be months, years, before the trip fully integrates for me. 

 

There are the practical things I will teach students:

 

- The drumming techniques

- The Rumba and Salsa dances

 

There are also the spiritual things:

 

- You must know where you come from to know where you are going

- You have 2 schools, the classroom and the streets 

 

This is the first draft of a longer piece about this trip. Unlike in a song, there is no smooth resolution. There is only sustained exploration. 

 

By Liz Rhaney