El Museo Historico Municipal in Trinidad is housed in the Palacio Cantero, an enormous yellow house in the center of town, built in the 1830s by a slave-owning sugar baron. Most of Trinidad’s wealth and many of its historic structures bear a direct relationship to the plantation past–and slavery persisted in Cuba until 1886.  Among the exhibits are implements for subjecting human beings in bondage, handwritten accounts of an uprising by slaves, and a photo of the whipping of one slave.

And with parallel irony, the furnishings of the museum are genteel. There is a glass case of taxidermied birds, numerous intricate chandeliers and wooden settees (not to be sat on), and a piano. Behind the piano I met the first of several local women doing needlework and selling their products.

I asked Norelía and Evy where they each learned the techniques they practiced, and each one mentioned mother, grandmother, and “antepasados”–ancestors. Not as complicated as the one example of 19th-century table linen in the museum, which Norelía explained would have been part of a wedding trousseau, their work was beautiful and irresistible to a traveler with CUCs to spend.

It’s Cuba. 🇨🇺  About half an hour after taking this photo, I was using WiFi in my casa to post this entry, and suddenly all the electricity went out and we were plunged into darkness. Very localized darkness, really only a block or two of this small town. On another block someone started up a generator to keep their lights on. I took advantage of the darkness to take in some evening stars and a cooling breeze on the rooftop terrace.

New Year’s Eve, Cuban-style, at Fábrica de Arte Cubano. When we were leaving at 1:30am, the rest of Havana was waiting in line to come in, after celebrating with family. After all, this is the 60th anniversary of the triumph of the revolution! #fábricadeartecubano