Resolver

Life in Havanna

”RESOLVER – Life In Havana” with photographs from Havana and text by Lars Palmgren. The pictures were taken in 2013 and tells the story about the daily life in Havana the time before Castro’s death.

Av Lars Palmgren

Cuba is a scarred memory of grand dreams. A monument to a time that has passed. A living fossil. But Cubans are not fossils, they live here and now. In a time of boundless patience. Patience is needed when waiting. And in Cuba, waiting is such a common condition that one easily forgets what one is waiting for.

But the stagnation of waiting can also be a glimmer. Because there, in the middle of a standstill, there is a movement that is not always noticeable, which the Cubans call ”resolver”. ”Resolver” means solving a problem – of any kind. ”Resolver” is the most common verb in Cuban vocabulary. But ”resolver” is not just an individual act, it is one invisible social web, a complex network of social relations. Officially, this social web does not exist, but it is the one that largely supports Cuban society. Without it, society would stop and loneliness become deadly serious. But the web is there. Both to solve problems and provide fellowship. It was also thanks to him that Fidel Castro’s death was received so surprisingly quietly. Life is no longer dependent on the historical leaders of the revolution. Cuba has almost imperceptibly become a country where life follows laws other than those prescribed by the revolution, laws that have nothing to do with law, but with survival. It is a change in many phases. But which in recent times, thanks to new opportunities to travel, has gained a new impulse that has connected the social fabric with the outside world and by just the speed has released a wave of creativity; everything from the home construction of three-wheeled bicycle taxis with parts that do not really exist, over an informal import industry that is almost as big as the formal one, to systems for access to the internet – without having to be connected. The ability to ”resolver” constantly surprises. And it is precisely from the hope that it will happen that patience is born, in the midst of the visible stagnation of waiting. Maybe there are even ways to slow down the decay and turn Havana into the pearl of the Caribbean that Cuba’s capital should be.