"Conga Lessons at the Bay of Pigs"

An Atlantic Productions Presentation
Written, Edited, Narrated by Peter Melaragno
Produced, Directed by Peter Melaragno and Charles P. Lyman
When: 11 am Saturday, March 20, 2004
Where: HCC Ybor Performing Arts Theater

In December 2002, three Americans traveled to Cuba under the U.S. Government's People-to-People exemption of the Trading With the Enemy Act, which at the time allowed for a variety of educational and cultural exchanges between the United States and Cuba.

The original purpose of the travelers had been to avoid the more than forty years of political drama inherent to American-Cuban relations.

Instead, they sought to immerse themselves in the musical culture of Cuba. They wanted to experience firsthand this small impoverished island with which the American government has all but totally prohibited commercial and cultural contact.

In Havana, the men stayed in what is known on the island as a "Casa Particular" (or private home) -- this one owned by an elderly woman named Estelle. Here they paid for both room and board while taking in the city's famously crumbling facades and its stunning Afro-Cuban music.

Later they headed south with a driver toward the Bay of Pigs and the cities of Trinidad and Santa Clara. Their final destination, however, was Santiago de Cuba, where they were invited to stay at another "Casa Particular," this one owned by Cesar. In fact, Cesar had invited the travelers to his family’s holiday feast and while the music and lilting rhythms of the island dominate most of this video, it is this day of Christmas spent with Cesar that gives these 52 minutes an unexpected weight.

Here, the American filmmakers realize that it is impossible for Americans to visit Cuba only for its music, that Cuban-American politics is the subtext of nearly everything.

Here, the momentous Bay of Pigs fiasco is recalled and the injustice of its aftermath on the Cuban people - continuing now for over forty-two years - is carved into memory forever.