March 22-23 Classes and Concerts

22 Marzo 2010
Monday was full of class and reading. This is quite a heavy workweek with long hours of classes and longer readings.
23 Marzo 2010
Today we had the morning off and I did some reading, and then went to the vegetable market with Katie. It looks like Guavas are coming into season. Some species of mangos were new too. We walked back to the hometel with four bags full of fresh fruit and vegetables for $ 3.50. I am now trying to get all of my work done early (slim chance) because this afternoon I have a marine biology tutorial right before an outdoor concert by Calle 13 that I expect to be packed. One friend in FEU told us there were likely to be tens of thousands of Cubans there. This may be an exaggeration, or perhaps will be true. We’ll see.
Also, evidently, there was an earthquake in Santiago de Cuba. We’re going there for a week starting this Saturday (the 27th) but there doesn’t seem to have been much damage or any death as a result and there have been no repercussions on our part of the island.

Calle 13 was awesome. I expect that there were 10,000 people there. Katie thought it was more like a quarter of a million. The band performed a mix of trova, rap and reggaeton and the entire crowd got really into it. It was also highly politicized: Calle 13’s songs demand “Puerto Rico Libre” (like Cuba Libre) and talk about Puerto Rico as a colony of the US. We just walked back to the hometel (it took more than an hour) and now its back to the books.