Antonio y Ellagua

One afternoon Roberto and I were talking. He asked me if I wanted to go to a Santeria ceremony the next day. I asked if the students could go and he said "OK." WE commandeered a van the next morning and drove out toward Cojimar and turned off the road toward the beach. We ended up at a small beach with a Rapido and nothing else. The key thing at the beach was that a freshwater river entered the ocean there. The Babalao had told Roberto and Maria that this was the type of place they should find for the ceremony. Antonio, who has been pictured before, is shown here wearing his tee shirt I had given him a year or two before. It was for an exhibition and the photo on the shirt was made at the Tropicana. Antonio sang, chanted, drank rum and puffed his cigar for several hours non-stop during the ceremony. I don't know how much of this was real, how much for show, but it was a fascinating event.