#atozchallenge: Q is for Quartets

Here's to a great AtoZ!

Join in the FUN.


This year I traveled to Cuba. You know, it's that little island that's spitting distance from Florida and should not be visited without special dispensation. I wanted to see it before MacDonald's arrived. I'm so glad I did. I learned a lot and I met some wonderful people. It seems they like us. Now there's a change!

I'll add a short T/F quiz to each post the same as I did last year about Burma, and I'll post the answers to the questions the following day. 




Answers to your T/F Quiz for P

FALSE 1. The average teacher in Cuba doesn't make anywhere near $100 a month. The information I got while there was they make about $15 a month.

FALSE 2. The government doesn't provide free transportation to workers to and from work to help them financially. Their transportation come out of their salary.




Two extra people stepped in to have their picture taken! 
Q is for Quartets

The Cubans are nothing if not musical, and everywhere you go you'll find groups playing great and very danceable music. Usually I found Quartets and they always had CDs available for sale. $10 seemed to be the going price. The quality of the home-made CDs is rather tinny, but the rhythm can't be beaten. 

The history of Cuban music is amazingly complicated. Spain brought its rhythmic flair. African slaves created many percussive instruments they remembered from their homeland. They formed social clubs called the cabildos and gathered together to play their music as well as socialize. Santeria, the religion from Haiti, added it's influence. The native folk music had its influence as well, and anthropologists are still tracing many of these early musical roots by talking to musicians today. They want to know what passed from Great-Grand Father to Grand Father to Father to Son. This crossroads of the Caribbean is a musical treasure trove of history.




Your T/F Quiz for Q
1.  The Chinese influenced Cuban music along with many of the other cultural groups that arrived on the island.2.  A TRES is a 12-string guitar that has very special tuning and is popular in Cuba.
Answers tomorrow.
Beware the White Rabbit (Anthology: They Call Me Alice), Leap Books, Summer '15
Sliding on the Edge, C. Lee McKenzie, WestSide Books, Spring '09
The Princess of Las Pulgas, WestSide Books, Fall '10
The First Time, Fall '11 (Anthology story: Premeditated Cat)
Alligators Overhead, Outskirts Press, Fall '12
Two and Twenty Dark Tales (Anthology story: Into the Sea of Dew