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The San-Havana Project began three years ago as an attempt to connect San Antonio artists one-to-one with Cuban artists but has since grown into a small-scale humanitarian effort to support people they met during repeated visits to Cuba.
Angela Martinez came up with the idea and has been to Cuba five times, mostly over the last three years. She cites the old saying to describe what the Cuban people are going through: “May you live in interesting times.”
By nearly any measure, those times are here, especially in Cuba. Photographer Anthony Garcia of Jo-Jo Dancer Photography has been on most of those trips, and credits all involved for their creative ways to do the nearly un-doable.
“It was just artists helping artists, really,” Garcia said, adding that Havana is facing severe shortages of electricity and food.
Martinez’s first visit came just before two of the most high-profile events in recent Cuban history.
“The first time I went was in 2016. And so the two things that were about to happen is Obama was going to come, and the Rolling Stones were going to come,” Martinez said.
Former President Barack Obama visited Cuba in March 2016 to begin normalizing relations, and the Rolling Stones played Havana that same month.
“There was just so much optimism in the air,” Martinez said.
Garcia said that today, that optimism has faded.
“These are people that are going without food, and now, water. It's a sad situation,” Garcia said. “They don't have the electricity to get the water pumped into the storage tanks above the buildings.”
He said shortages create a snowball of unintended consequences that extend far beyond any one need.
Garcia went on to note the quandary Cubans face.
“They can't get food that will go bad, and it's hard to cook food without electricity, if their ovens are electric or gas,” he said.
Daily life in Cuba is shaped by multiple factors, including the U.S. embargo.
Garcia said residents have become creative in order to get things done. “They'll sleep with the lights on so when the electricity does come on, the lights will wake them up, and then they can do the things they need to do,” he said. “(They) make sure that the phone (is) being charged, they can cook, [do] laundry, or any of the little things you might want to take care of when you have electricity.”
Fuel shortages are severe, with gasoline reported to reach as much as $33 a gallon.
One consequence is that those vintage American cars from the 1950s that Havana is known for are largely parked due to lack of fuel.
Angela Martinez explains how one problem leads quickly to another.
“They don't have enough fuel to operate the garbage trucks, so there's garbage piling up on every corner, and then they're having a structural collapse of the water system. So there's water leaking everywhere,” she said.
Those leaks create an environment where mosquitoes thrive, and the diseases they can bring are concerning, including dengue fever and chikungunya.
Anthony Garcia notes that in years past, Cuba’s health care was rated highly. Not so now.
“They have the doctors, and they have the knowledge. They just don't have medicine. There's just no ointments, no aspirin, no penicillin,” Garcia said.
Martinez noted that many Cubans have found a way to other possibilities.
“One thing that's happened is there's been a mass exodus from the island. So they've lost a lot of their doctors, a lot of their artists, a lot of their specialists,” she said.
The stories from the San-Havana group convey a growing sense of urgency as shortages worsen. Martinez heard from a Cuban friend last week.
“I did want to share a text from my friend. She said, ‘Today we're at the edge of something very awful and painful.'"
Garcia said there are ways to help.
“These artists would like help. Whether it be paint and various art supplies and music gear. I've taken plenty of guitar strings and guitars and horns just to help,” he said.
Martinez notes that initial objectives changed over time.
“Our goal was to go in and help the artists, but we've ended up making so many friends over there, and we have these probably six pockets of families that we're going and like taking supplies,” she said.
Their goal now is simple: help the friends they’ve made.
