Santa Teresa
Convento Santa Teresa de Jesus. This early colonial church and convent forms the heart of this city block in old Havana. Once this closed walled community housed one nun per cell, now it is a dense microcosm of a city within the larger city. Sometimes there is an extended family to one cell. The cloisters are cut to a slither as each cell extends out to make a low kitchen and an extra room above. Fresh water is collected in buckets from the roof organised in a more orderly fashion than the ad-hoc wires and pipes snaking through the compound. The courtyard, roof and other rooms serve for yet more dwellings. The variety, contrast and strength of spirit amongst this close-knit community living in one another's pockets is extraordinary. The ancient gates in the enormous walls that once served to lock the nuns in and the world out, seem to have found favour with a community as a means for self containment. While I was there a karate lesson for the tenants began. They were good and there were a lot of children.
There is considerable interest in 'restoring' this convent, which probably means rebuilding it to look as it once did, so that it can serve as a hotel. These people need a better place to live, sanitation wouldn't go amiss, this is their opportunity. I don't envy the challenges faced in trying to relocate these disparate people and build them a place that could come close to sustaining this strength of community.