“Someone said there are only two ways to live your life: one is as if nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is. I’ve always been convinced Havana is an annexed colony of the latter…
“I was sitting in the rafters next to a father and son for the morning set of fights going on during the Cuban National Boxing Championships held at Kid Chocolate gymnasium in Old Havana. My high school gym might’ve cost more to build, but with hundreds of millions of dollars you couldn’t recreate what this place looks like.
“The murals and chipped paint and scoreboards and rafters and ceiling takes your breath away — yet it’s the faces in the crowd that steal the show. The tickets don’t cost anything for Cubans. Everyone can come. There’s no advertising anywhere. Even though there are Olympic champions in the ring periodically who could cash in to the tune of millions, most don’t. Nobody here is making a dime off world class ability.”
Brin Friesen writes about Cuba, and boxing in Cuba, in an excerpt from his ongoing memoir/novel The Domino Diaries, over at the Nervous Breakdown.
