Day 17-Cancelled Interview & South Beach

Today, I was supposed to interview a 100-year-old Cuban musician who lives in Miami. Unfortunately, I got a phone call early this morning that he has been in the Hospital for several days. I am hoping that he is alright and that we can reschedule for a time before I leave Miami. After this interview was cancelled, I decided to take the rest of the day off and relax. Well, I wouldn't say that I relaxed all day, but got some things done in the afternoon and then went out in the evening. This afternoon, I went to La Casa De Las Guyaberas in a remote part of Little Havana, and purchased a guyabera, which is a type of button-down shirt that Cubans wear in Cuba as well as in Miami. It is designed to keep Cubans cool during extremely hot temperatures. I wanted to purchase one as a souvenir, as wel as to possibly wear in the future when I play with my Cuban band. After this, I met my friend Joel for Cuban food at a restaurant right next to my hotel. We both attempted to speak spanish to the waiters, and they were patient, but still spoke in english when necessary. I could see that they respected that we were trying.

Afte dinner, we ventured into South Beach to Van Dyke's Café to hear the Cuban group Conjunto Progreso, whom I heard last Friday night at another venue. The band was quite good, and I ran into Jorge Gómez, who I had interviewed in Miami Beach yesterday. He introduced me to the older musician in the group, Rolando Perez, and I told Rolando about my project. He told me to come to their gig next Saturday night at another venue in Miami, and we could do an interview during one of the set breaks. At the moment, I plan on going to this gig, but on the off-chance that I am not able to make it, I have his number as well to call him to set-up a time other than during the gig. I will be interested to interview him if possible. Also, I finally was able to set-up an interview with Trompetica (trumpet player from the Afro-Cuban All Stars). We will be getting together on Monday morning with a translator that I found from the University of Miami. I am definitely looking forward to this interview.

Overall, today was fun and eventful, but not extremely busy. Honestly, I am beginning to get a little burned out and tired after being here for a few weeks. I am by no means "sick of" my research project or of Cuban music, I'm just a little exhausted from all of the leg work I have done to make contacts, go to concerts and schmoozing with musicians to ask them to participate in my study, and making so many phone calls to set-up interviews and get information. I have 3 interviews recorded right now, and I will be happy if I can leave Miami with 6 interviews (3 more). I don't think that this will be difficult, and I will more than likely have a few more than this, but I think that is a reachable goal given the timetable for the rest of my trip. I will be taking tomorrow (Sunday) off to relax, possibly go to Joel's and hang out at the pool, get some reading done, maybe even go to the beach. I will make one phone call on Sunday to set-up an interview with an older Cuban musician for this upcoming week, but that is the only piece of "work" I will be doing. I will begin again on Monday, hopefully feeling refreshed and ready to conquer this last full week in Miami. I plan on concluding my research (interviews, researching in libraries, etc.) at the end of next weekend, and take my last few days in Miami to relax and act like a mini-vacation (I definitely feel it is well-deserved after all of the work that I am doing down here). 

I just realized that I should be working on a powerpoint project that is due on Tuesday (A "Work in Progress" research abstract, title, and information). I will work on this a little bit on Sunday, and finish it up on Monday. Goodnight....