Babalaos, baptisms, and drag queens - oh, my!

Hey, everyone!

These past few days have been hilarious experiences of culture shock! The night before last, my group attended what was supposed to be a “party for Ochun,” who is a deity of the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion.

A little background on Santeria: Santeria is a Yoruba religion that was brought to Cuba by African slaves. It is often combined with espiritismo, or spiritism. Each Santeria deity is in control of certain areas, such as life, death, the home, or feuds, but there can be multiple deities in charge of a single area, unlike Roman or Greek gods. The deities of Santeria are all represented through various colors, which Santeria believers wear as bead necklaces or bracelets. As an interesting consequence of being pressured into becoming Catholic by their masters, slaves fused the deities of Santeria with Catholic saints, causing many families to simultaneously practice both Catholicism and santerismo without any feelings of contradiction.

People wishing to become santerismos go to a babalao, or Santeria priest, to go through a ritual and be assigned to one of 29 or so deities. New initiates dress all in white (covering their head with a white cap, wearing white stockings and white shoes, etc.) for one year, and then receive their central deity, whose colors they wear all the time to gain their favor and blessings. It’s so interesting walking around the city and seeing how creative people can get with the all-white wardrobe mandate.

Anyway, getting back to the party for Ochun, Linda, our resident director, had a friend whose father was a babalao, in addition to being a son of Ochun (assigned to Ochun), who is a very powerful Santeria deity. But, instead of having a seriously Ochun-focused party with dancers embodying Ochun, as is tradition, Linda’s friend Jenny decided to host a drag queen party. It was my first time attending any sort of drag-related thing, and let me tell you, it was quite the experience!!!

The three drag queens that came out onto this open, fenced-in rooftop where the party was held were all very strong personalities. Two of them gave our friend Harry a bit of a show, which was really hilarious for all of the rest of the program participants, but perhaps a bit traumatizing for Harry, who left with three lipstick marks on both his cheeks and his forehead!

Yesterday, as a bit of a change of pace, I went to a baptism with Linda and Chino, who was another one of Linda’s friends, to a Cuban baptism, which was awesome. We walked from the church to Linda's friend, Javier's, house for an after-party, where tons of people were crammed into his house. Three couples were salsa dancing in about 15 square feet of space, which I found pretty impressive.

Linda's friends were all hilarious, and when I told them I was part Sicilian, they all laughed and said, "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, mafiosa!," because Cuba has a long history of Mafia involvement. A good time was had by all. :)

I'm going to try and post some pictures, we'll see if it works. :)

Much love,
Christina :)