The first stop on our global pi lgrimage is Cuba, a sizzl ing country that offers a kaleidoscope of colors and textures, people and pol itics, and a nation teetering on the brink of massive change. We aren't here to swoon around the myth of Che Guevara or resolve the secret of Fidel Castro's resiliency, but rather, to chase icons of another sort: Divas.
By truck, steam engine, and an ingeniously held-together '51 Chevy, our cross-island road trip is sure to reveal plenty of Cuban Divas as well as the mysterious island that has been a non-country to Americans for forty years.
The fi rst stop is Havana's Chinatown and renegade Afro-Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando. Although crumbling like all of Havana, the neighborhood is alive and filled with old Spanish mansions sprinkled with Chinese characters. Tenacious when faced with a daunting
lack of resources, Gloria starts film projects even if doesn't have the means to finish them. "I have faith that ' will work out somehow." Gloria tells us she doesn't h the riqhtto wait; there are chapters of the African Dia she must record before they slip away. "When I talk a Afro-Americans, I am not only referring to the people of the United States, I am including the people throughout Central and South America, throughout the Caribbean. We have a common history," she says.
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