CubaPLUS Magazine

It can be said that perhaps one of the best-known small streets in Havana is called Callejón de Hamel, where art and traditions live every day of the year.

If you visit Havana and do not visit the Callejón de Hamel, it is as if you had never been in the Cuban capital, because in just 200 meters of extension, sculpture, painting, Yoruba music, poetry and religion form a great mosaic of traditions.

Located between Aramburu and Hospital streets, in the capital's Key West neighborhood, the project arose on April 21, 1990, when the sculptor and muralist Salvador González Escalona created the first mural dedicated to Afro-Cuban culture with the aim of providing art to town.

There is practically not a day in which some artistic presentation is not held there, since the residents of the alley have music and singing impregnated in their blood, as they say, They cannot live without enjoying Afro-Cuban rhythms for more than two or three consecutive days. That is why this small street, more than a cultural place, has become a temple. for those who profess the Afro-Cuban religion as it pays tribute to that belief.

There is a space called Nganga which is a sacred place for the celebration of rites of the Palo Monte religion. In addition to this, all the walls of the houses along the alley have colorful murals that represent the religious and cultural syncretism of the island. The drawings reproduce different gods and orishas, spiritual symbols and animals, as well as poems or legends written about life, love and dignity

The name Hamel was adopted to remember the American of Franco-German origin, Fernando Belleau Hamel, who bought some land in the Key West neighborhood at the beginning of the last century to create a raw materials and foundry business and gave employment to blacks and chinese and even built houses for them, an action that was not forgotten by the beneficiaries.

Since its beginnings, more than 30 years ago, the alley has been the scene of artistic presentations with the performance of prominent musical groups and singers such as the extinct Merceditas Valdés and Celeste Mendoza, as well as Yoruba Andabo and Clave and Guaguancó, among many others.

However, it was not until 1993 that systematic presentations of shows for all ages began to be enjoyed there.