Pope John Paul's visit to Cuba has stimulated quantities of comment on Communism and Catholicism, secularism and spirituality. But this tidy duality ignores an important part of everyday life in Cuba, a set of religious observance that has apparently flourished despite government decree. PNS correspondent Kimi Eisele, who reports on a first-hand encounter with Santeria, is working toward a master's degree in geography and Latin American studies at the University of Arizona.

As Pope John Paul visits Cuba this week, I can't help but think of what the priests will think -- not the Catholic priests, but the priests who represent a religion that has survived, and thrived, on the island for almost two centuries.

I mean the "babalaos," the "fathers of secrets," the santeros -- high priests in the Santeria Order.

Santeria combines the ancient Yoruba religion with Catholicism. And for all the celebration about the "return" of Catholicism to Cuba, it is Santeria that has actually preserved bits and pieces of the religion over the years since Fidel Castro proclaimed Cuba atheist -- though maybe not in a way the pope and his followers would appreciate.

Santeria evolved in Cuba shortly after African slaves were first brought there in the early 1800s. As in other parts of the Caribbean, while slave labor ensured economic development, African culture and religion merged with that of the Spanish.

In Yoruban religion, some 500 deities known as "orishas" represent natural forces, human archetypes, and personal guardians. About 22 survived the journey to Cuba where slaves disguised their worship by giving the orishas the names of Catholic saints -- Chango, god of thunder, became Santa Barbara, Ellegua, the divinity of beginnings and ends, St. Anthony of Padova; Babalue Ayes, orisha of disease became Lazarus.

Last December, Castro met with Cuba's Cardinal for the first time in 12 years, and the island celebrated Christmas for the first time since the revolution. Still, pure Catholicism may take a while to catch on. Santeria runs deep, and even though some 40 percent of Cubans are baptized Catholics, most integrate the orishas into their beliefs.

It would be hard not to. The orishas are pervasive, and many claim one or more as personal guardians. Mine is Cuba's patron saint -- to Catholics the Virgin of Charity of Cobre; as an Orisha "Ochun," goddess of money, sensuality and love. Not such a bad deity for a young woman.

I know this because, last summer while visiting Cuba I went to see a santero, in Regla, a center of Santeria, a 30-minute ferry ride from Havana. There is a small sanctuary near the dock were almost everyone stops to pay homage to the Virgin de Regla, with her long blue dress and small black face. We meet a gray-haired woman on a bicycle, dressed in white and wearing strands of different colored beads. She is a saint -- one can become a saint in Santeria through certain spiritual cleansings -- and she directs us to a santero.

In the santero's living room black dolls are displayed on the floor and on the furniture. A bookshelf-turned-altar holds ceramic saints and a replica of the black virgin from the sanctuary. Small shrines for the orishas are decorated with stones, shells, and other items. In a corner is a large drum draped with beads and surrounded by red objects, a shrine to Chango.

The saint introduces me to the santero. A tall, thin man wearing shorts and no shirt, with colored beads, representing his own orishas, he lights a cigar, seats me at the table, shuffles through a deck of cards, jiggles a handful of shells. His fingernails are long and yellow. He does not blink.

I have not come with a specific problem, but I inquire about my studies, the next few months, about love.

He flips the cards and throws the shells on the table, over and over. He is silent, thinking, and looks up at the gray-haired saint from time to time. "Lots of copper," he says several times.

Then he tells me I will inherit a house, that people talk about me behind my back. That I believe things I want to believe but might not be true.

He tells me to find five brass bracelets and wear them as a tribute to Ochun, whose color is of honey and the sun. Then I will be protected, true to myself.

Mine is not a difficult consultation. No complicated prescription is required, no cleansing, no sacrificial goat. The santero doesn't ask for money, but I leave a small offering at the shrine to Chango. It's enough to know that mine is the deity of grace, feminine sexuality, and sweetness.

My Cuban friends are thrilled. One says she knew it all along. She gives me honey lotion, to spread over myself in the spirit of Ochun.

Now, months later, I have not yet bought the bracelets -- sometimes I blame bad luck on their absence -- but I like to remember my orisha from time to time.

I don't practice Santeria, nor do I practice Catholicism. But this week I'll be thinking of those in Cuba that do both. And about a religion sturdy enough to survive the slave trade, Spanish colonialism, a U.S. protectorate, and Castro's revolution.

That may well say something about the resiliency of the Cuban people themselves. It could be the spirit of the island comes from knowing you are different from the rest of the world, from believing that faith will get you through.

And while the world watches the brief encounter between a Communist and Catholic, there's sure to be comment on the grand return of religion to Cuba. When that happens, I'll remember the santeros and the saints, and think about how it has really been there all along.