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| Eagle flys over Che Guevara memorial in Santa Clara, Cuba. Photo: Michael Shess |
Editor’s note: On a daily basis
from June 1 thru June 30, 2015 Pillar to Post online magazine is featuring
articles, photos and insights resulting from a recent group tour, an adventure
we dubbed: the April 23 Brigade’s Tour of Cuba 2015.
THE BEASTS
Urban cats and dogs aren’t as
skittish in Havana and the rest of Cuba because the numbers of vehicles are
much lower. They don’t have to cower
from the cars just to get by. Cats earn
their keep by chasing rats, while dogs are universally unemployable.
In Cuba,
chickens are free-range, but parrots are doomed to cages. Horses are mass transit in the countryside
and beasts of burden in the cities. Cows
are skinny. Killing a cow in Cuba will
put you behind bars longer than a homicide conviction. Oxen will have steady jobs pulling plows or
trailers until Cuban farmers can afford tractors and trucks.
Pigs are
eaten so are fish.
Some dogs
are into show biz while others laze around the beach or find a place to nap any
place they like even a crowded sidewalk.
Peacocks
find work as photo shills for hotels and restaurants, while pen hens stay home
with the kids.
One eagle
in Santa Clara flys over a statue of Che on a regular basis, while a lone wren
finds a comfortable perch on the long silenced propeller blade of a captured
Bay of Pigs fighter.
No one on
four legs or with feathers or fins seems to be in a hurry. Nothing much else has changed.
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| Really, do you have to take my picture? |
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| Mother and son, Old Havana |
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| Happy trio at a roadside cafe between Cienfuegos and Havana, Cuba |
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| As Jimmy Durante used to say: "everybody's getting into the act." |
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| Peacock on the grounds of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba Photo: Michael Shess |
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| Pea hens at the Hotel Nacional |
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| Mass transit, Trinidad, Cuba |
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| Chicken refused to answer why he was crossing the road |
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| Oxen out number tractors in rural Cuba |
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| Bay of Cienfuegos was bathwater temperature in April |
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