Crowe's Cuba

In the summer of 2004, President Bush announced tough new restrictions on travel to Cuba, limiting who could go to the communist island, how much money they could carry and how long they could stay.

But before those changes were announced, Cape Girardeau orthodontist and photographer David Crowe visited, and his collection of 44 photos is on display this month at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri gallery and offices at 32 N. Main St.

Each of the photos seeks to show the real Cuba and is accompanied by a caption, sometimes telling the story of the photo and sometimes giving details the photo does not reveal. Even Bric Rothenberger of Cheekwood Studios, who makes prints for Crowe, was impressed with the stories.

"It is really strong," Rothenberger said. "It is a fun history lesson. You can go in knowing nothing about Fidel Castro's rise to power and learn all about it."

In all, Crowe estimates that he took between 350 and 400 pictures during his trip. He uses film, not digital, cameras. "I'm an old-fashioned film guy," he said. "Every time you take a picture, you have to make sure you want it."

The April 2004 trip was a cultural exchange visit approved by the U.S. State Department, Crowe said. A group was assembled by the International Business Program at Southeast Missouri State University. Crowe, who was teaching an adult education course in photography, joined the group.

The official position of the Cuban government under Fidel Castro is unwavering hostility toward the United States. "Billboards come in two flavors in Cuba and neither has anything to do with commerce," Crowe said. "They are either anti-American or they support the revolution."

One billboard, he said, morphed a picture of Bush into Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. But the messages on the billboards aren't carried over into the attitudes of the people, he said.

"The most striking thing by far is that the people were uniformly friendly and very interested in visiting with me and just extremely gracious," Crowe said. "You can tell they are living under very difficult conditions, but the spirit of those people is intact."

In 1959, Castro led his rebel group out of the central mountains into Havana, chasing the corrupt government of Fulgencio Batista from the island. Within a year, the United States began to impose trade restrictions, culminating in a full trade embargo in 1962. Those restrictions have remained in place, moderating at times and tightening at others, ever since.

From what he saw, Crowe said, it is the islanders, not their communist leaders, who feel the pain of sanctions.

"The Cuban people are suffering because of the disagreement we have with their government. But they are surprisingly resilient, and in spite of it all, they love Americans."

The admiration of America Crowe encountered is evident in a caption, called Good Luck, that accompanies a picture of two small coins held on a finger:

As we were preparing to leave the Necropolis Cristobal Colon, one of the largest cemeteries in the world, I noticed something on the asphalt in front of me. I reached down and picked it up. It was a well-worn five centayo coin minted in 1966, apparently made of a lightweight metal, probably aluminum. It appeared to have been on the pavement a very long time.

"Look!" said Nathan, one of the two guys who had joined me for the trip to the necropolis, "Here's another!" Moments later our friend Salvador found one on the asphalt as well. We soon noticed that scores of the small denomination coins littered the asphalt plaza just inside the gates of the huge cemetery.

"I wonder if people drop them on their way into this place for good luck?" I asked as we stood admiring the coins in our hands and on the ground. As I said this, a Cuban man who had overheard us pulled out his wallet, unzipped a small compartment and plucked out an American penny. He pointed to Lincoln's image on the coin and said, "This is my good luck piece."

The image of Lincoln isn't just an icon to that one Cuban, Crowe said. "The first statue you see in the museum of the revolution in Havanna, dedicated to the soul of communism, the very first thing you see when you walk in the door, is a bust of Abraham Lincoln."

Another group of Crowe's photos are views from the inside of a 1951 Plymouth owned by a man who became Crowe's taxi driver. While shiny on the outside, the car rattled, belched smoke and squealed as it came to a halt. The driver isn't a government-sanctioned taxi, so to make a living he had to be careful. He issued instructions for Crowe and his companions to take off their hats, not take pictures and not gawk out the window.

"It was like a bad spy movie," Crowe said. "We would dive into the cab as it pulled up, or walk three blocks before he picked us up because he saw a policeman."

Submitted photo by Dr. David CrowePhotographer David Crowe uses this photo as the introduction to hisdisplay at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri. Accompanying the photo, he writes about how he was able to travel to Cuba in 2004 and his feelings about trying to discover Cuba in a single week.

But the $10 fare for riding all day -- discreetly placed in the car's ashtray, not handed to the driver -- illustrates a major source of income. "The black market is everywhere in Cuba," he said. "This is what the people need to exist, to get the money they need to ultimately live on, to subsidize the stipend they get."

Crowe worries that Castro's death could lead to an overnight change of U.S. policy toward Cuba, flooding the island with cash from expatriates and American capitalists.

"It has to be done in a measured, careful sort of way," he said. "To infuse capitalism full speed ahead into a country that doesn't understand it, to a generation with no knowledge of private property ownership, is going to be awful. It needs to be done in a measured, careful, appropriate way so the Cuban people derive the benefit."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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