Matanzas

In Matanzas there is an aging book that holds nearly one million medicinal formulas. The writing on it’s coffee brown pages has dissolved into nothing but faded lines but its binding is strong and holds together the pages and the wisdom as it did years ago. It is January 29, 2010, and I am in inside of a pharmaceutical museum tucked discretely in the corner of The Plaza De Armas in Matanzas, Cuba. The sun shines warmly through stained glass windows and we move freely throughout the space as though we are long trusted clients of the 1940s and 1950s. A round woman with curly red hair, an inviting voice and a proud smile tells us of the museum’s history as our eyes move through row after row of hand painted jars full of Azucar, Balsamo and Manzanilla. I run my fingers along the pages of the crumbling book. My mind wanders back in time but my nose stays caught somewhere between the musty books overhead and the vials of essential oils perfectly preserved.

Three days ago I was inside of the pharmacy in the Havana medical clinic. With a stomach bug, I stood awkwardly awaiting medicine as a woman dressed in green typed my information into a computer. There, fluorescent lights turned the walls a sickly green. Their sterility is illuminated over shelves and glass cases where products are arranged like jewelry, not medicine, side by side with labels that attract but price tags that limit function. I continue waiting as the woman in green keeps typing. She then begins talking in a quiet Spanish that I can’t quite understand under the buzzing of the electric lights. She hands me a bag with a bottle and some pills. The price is exorbitant for some but covered under our seguro medico. Nearby glances and stares make me well aware of the fact that my country of origin and student status has allowed me to bypass a line of waiting patients and suddenly it feels weird to be a tourist in the clinic.

 Back in Matanzas the guide tells us that even before the Revolution the pharmacists would give out medicine for to those who could not afford to buy it. Wealth was distributed before it had to be, and there was a rapport among those that circulated throughout the same painted jars and colored windows as we did. I forget that we are in a museum as the guide weaves us into the open kitchen and I stare through the skylight that goes for miles.