Reporter Rachel Krantz spent some time in Havana this past fall, and contributed a series of photo essays and stories. We're running one each day this week.

You always call the same phone number to find the party. When someone answers the phone, you always ask the same question:

"Donde esta la fiesta?"

The answer is an address--sometimes familiar, sometimes a new location. But without fail, every weekend, some sort of secret gay party is thrown in Havana, Cuba.

One Friday in Havana, my friend Damian agrees to take me to one. Damian is 23-years-old, Cuban, a filmmaker, and gay. With medium brown skin and a wide, knowing smile, Damian charms most people he meets. Although he only wanted his first name used for print, Damian is open when he talks about what it's like to be young and gay in Cuba.

"The hardest thing is finding a place to have safe sex," Damian says. "It's hard for everyone, but straight guys, they could bring a girlfriend home. I couldn't do that, of course not. My mom doesn't let me, it's forbidden."

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Reporter Rachel Krantz spent some time in Havana this past fall, and contributed a series of photo essays and stories. We're running one each day this week.

In Cuba, students have to wear uniforms. Red uniforms are for 1st to 5th graders, mustard is middle school, brown is high school. Even medical students wear white lab-coat shirts. At about 3:30 everyday, the kids in red and mustard would get out of school, and I started noticing the magic of that time of day. I shot this series from the steps of a popular bakery where a lot of kids go after school to get a treat after school. Like most Cubans, these kids are amazingly expressive, talkative and full of energy. It made them and their guardians--moms, dads, grandmas, sisters, brothers-- a joy to capture. Most of all this series reminded me that no matter where you live, that moment of freedom when the bell rings feels just about the same.

Reporter Rachel Krantz spent some time in Havana this past fall, and contributed a series of photo essays and stories. We're running one each day this week.

A lot of my time in Cuba was spent on the bus. In Cuba, buses are known as 'gua-guas' after the sound the horns make. When I was lucky enough to get a seat on the gua-guas, I started noticing what an amazing window into everyday Cuban life the rides were. Where the bus would stop was like spinning a roulette wheel, the window framing a different and often beautiful image every time. I found that I could ride the same bus line and get an entirely different view of the city than I would on foot or if I had more than 10 seconds to frame a shot. These photos turned into this series I call 'Paradas', or 'Stops'.

Longtime contributor Rachel Krantz has taken the season off for a return sojourn to Cuba. Before her return, Rachel waxed poetic about "looking forward to not having a cell phone or much access to internet". Yet it seems the worm may have turned, as one of her recent blog posts reveals:

It's in these moments, where I'm ready to curse this country for it's lack of bandwidth that I feel most 'American'--entitled, impatient and hungry for some 'real' food. The very technology I felt was suffocating me back home suddenly feels absolutely necessary now that I'm more or less without it.

Here, communication is not seen as a right. It's a privilege. When I returned home to my casa particular, I started a conversation with the owner, Mauricio, about access to information. Mauricio is a kind man who obviously likes to play by the rules. He documents every guest and payment meticulously and does everything by the book. But ten years ago, he tells me, leaning in, he used to get illegal satellite TV.

Follow Rachel's adventures at her travelogue.

By Rachel Krantz

Since I arrived in Cuba 2 months ago, there are a couple things I’ve learned that have nothing to do with the Buena-Vista-Social-Club-cigar-smoking-Che-tee-shirt-wearing cliché. Of course, all things you can say about a country and its people are generalizations, but here are a few of mine that I never expected to make:

Jose Gabriel Capaz sometimes doodled as a kid but never thought about being an artist. When he was 14, one day, his uncle, who paints as a hobby, gave a landscape to the family and they hung it on the wall.

"I remember thinking, why can't I make something to put on our wall?", Jose says. "So I drew something for my uncle and he said I had talent and should start lessons."

Jose and some other kids in the neighborhood began classes with an elderly art teacher in the neighborhood. Of the 4 kids in the class then, one now takes care of birds, one works at a ration stand and one is sick with a brain tumor. Jose paints.

Jose grew up during Cuba's 'Special Period', which was the worst post-revolutionary economic period in the country's history. After the Soviet Union fell apart, Cuba nearly went right down with it in the 90's. The economic support Cuba had been relying on from Russia was pulled out from under them, and what was left was a severely dysfunctional economic system still struggling to function today.

During the Special Period, many people were literally starving, and the overall mood was similar to what you might imagine The Great Depression was like. Perhaps for this reason, much of Jose's art deals with themes of death, starvation and violence.