I have been a teacher for 26 years, a Headteacher for 11 years and, at the age of 50, this much I know about the nature of power. Once or twice in life you make a wholly unexpected, yet highly significant, connection with an individual: so it was for me with Eduardo, our tour guide in Havana. An ex-teacher, I gave him my copy of Why Don't Students Like School.
Eduardo
I always believed the aphorism, Power corrupts (and absolute power corrupts absolutely) to be true. Well, now I'm not so sure. On the way to Havana Eduardo happened to cite Frei Betto, a Catholic Priest and Liberation Theologian, who said this: Power does not corrupt; power reveals you as you are...
Old school is sometimes best. I contemplated purchasing a new SLR camera for the trip to Cuba, especially as I was about to turn fifty. However, the shop assistant made me feel so hopeless in the shadow of his overwhelming expertise that I decided instead to tidy up my twenty-eight year old manual Minolta, buy a couple of reels of black & white film and stick to what I know. Here's a glimpse of Havana through my SLR's 50 mm fixed lens.
Havana's water system
The ubiquitous Beckham
Seat covers at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba
Early morning at the HNC
1953...?
The (American) symbol of Cuba...
Gangsters
Our cab driver Moises
It's not all romance, however, as Simon Reeve illustrates quite beautifully... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LoFX3uhctI