On my walk home the other day I was suddenly filled with photojournalism vim and vigor and decided to do something I have wanted to do since I got here – photograph an old men’s club.
Every evening groups of domino players spring up on the Havana sidewalks. They gather in the same spots, under the same trees, around the same rickety tables, by the same light of the same flickering streetlamps. Some of the tables don’t have legs and so they play late into the night with the top carefully balanced on all eight knees. No matter how late I walk home at night I am haunted by the distinct clicking of dominoes being shuffled on a plywood card table.
This particular group is a staple on my walk home from the university. They are a particularly jovial bunch with a very nice setup and I’ve been wanting to photograph them since my first month here. Lucky for me I’ve always got along well with old men.
I walked up, we exchanged greetings and launched into the traditional five minute conversation of what country I am from, do I like Cuba, where do I live, does the heat bother me much? (The answer to that question is always a very emphatic yes from the Northwest girl)
Then they offered me a chair, I asked permission to shoot, and I was in.
They all jabbered at me with their old men voices and yelled at each other when I didn’t get it.
“You’ve got to slow down you old codger, she can’t understand you when you talk like a maniac.”
And then they would continue on at breakneck speeds. Unlike everything else in their lives, Cubans don’t believe in taking language slow.
They kept trying to convince me that the old man in the corner spoke English and I decided not to argue that point. He, like every person in Cuba, spoke proudly of the friends and relatives he had living far away in the American city of Miami.
The man to my left gleefully thumbed himself in the chest and said “Champion!” in accented English. He was, conveniently, also the one keeping score.
His friend across the table kept losing miserably and all the men razzed him about being nervous in front of the camera. He groaned and said “Am not” and then kept losing.
…
I now have a group of friendly old men to say hello to on my walk home every day. I stop and watch a game or two, they ask how the Spanish is going and I make some new grammar mistakes in response. It’s a good life here, paced to the sound of clicking dominoes shuffling on an old wooden table.
Kesia Lee 