Cuban bureaucracy; keep calm and carry on

The last few days, sparked by the safe arrival of Helen, have marked a change of pace on this enigmatic island; the end of my ‘work’ on the organopónico and life as I’d known it with Isis and her family in sleepy Alamar, and the beginning of our journeys further into the heart of the country. This also coincided with a temporary move to the capital, my 25^th birthday and some particularly trying efforts to renew my tourist visa. Since this blog would be both too long to bore you with birthday shenanigans and too short to translate the wonders and enigmas of Havana, I’ll not set my sights too high. Instead, I’ll attempt just to paint a picture of where these activities overlapped and leave it to Helen to eloquently translate the rest!

First and foremost, just to clarify, you really can believe everything you hear on the streets about this capital: Havana definitely has “a flavour all of its own”. Every other car really is a 1950s Chevrolet, the central buildings really are crumbling colonial mansions painted in sun faded pastel shades, and you really do turn the corner to find couples dancing salsa and sipping mojitos as the sun goes down. It’s beautiful as well as neglected and dirty, bright as well as smoggy and smelly, navigable at the same time as vast and expansive, loud and energetic whilst being welcoming and friendly. And like all cities this scale it takes time and patience to get to know. We didn’t have an awful lot of the former but we sure were ready to soak in the sights, smells and sensations.  

Our guide book suggests to allow at least a week for Havana, and to start off by getting one’s bearings through a city bus tour. We were trying to outsmart it with some alternatives. Firstly, despite not being particularly blessed with a sense of direction, living nearby had given me the chance to get my head around the key sights before Helen’s arrival. Secondly, we had some kind helpers: one day we were joined in town by Koral (from the organopónico) and her hyperactive but delightful son who acted as wonderful guides in exchange for copious amounts of ice-cream, and another evening a friend of Isis was under instruction to keep us company after dark. And finally, for better or worse, we spent two mornings racing up and down the length of Havana to sort out my visa, and in the process got to see some of the less noted everyday sights of the city.  

It also helped that we’d decided - partly out of necessity (I need a fixed address to give to immigration in order to renew my visa) and partly out of curiosity - to spend a few nights in the capital itself, and more specifically perhaps the most touristy but definitely the oldest and most enchanting heart: la Habana Vieja. The chance to experience the pace and wake up to a view of inner city roof tops, with their washing lines and sleeping dogs (note not too many green roofs in this part of town!) was – even in the two mornings of pouring rain – a real feast for the senses.  

And so it was when we woke up on the 7^th - rain sheeting in from all angles (strangely reminiscent of summer holidays in Wales) rather dampened plans of a birthday soaking in the sun whilst sipping mojitos on a rooftop bar. In addition I had the rather pressing issue of my visa to attend to, and unfortunately our plan to get up early, secure the stamp and be back carefree by lunchtime didn’t quite work out. Helen and I had both experienced Visa bureaucracy abroad to believe this wasn’t going to be easy, but we still had some hopes that this could be the exception. In fact, this could still go down as the worst yet.

Our first try failed outright. We’d been directed to the immigration office about 20 minutes’ walk from our casa particular. Not ideal in the weather but blessed with the impenetrable waterproof ponchos Helen’s mum had sent we set off in the right direction, only to be told upon arrival that immigration had moved: somehow it had been too good to be true! Instead of being in the centre of town it was now in the outskirts, around a 30 minute drive, and instead of having a system of one immigration centre per neighbourhood, it was now just one facility for Havana’s 2.2mn strong population.

So, with the knowledge of which local collectivo (a kind of local taxi that runs a certain route and is shared with other people) to get we set off again, headed up to the end of the route and walked the half hour to the centre - only to find it and be told that on a Thursday immigration closes at 12pm. Just Thursdays and Saturdays does it operate a half day, and not for love nor money - I did think now was the time for checking the corruption stakes but with no avail - arriving at 12.01 could get you in. Birthday luck hadn’t quite kicked in!

In the end we realised I couldn’t’ have done it then anyway. We knew there was a $25CUC price-tag on the visa but didn’t realise you couldn’t pay it up there in the middle of nowhere. Nope, it had to be done beforehand through a bank in town who’d take the money and exchange it for stamps. Yep, stamps just like those you put on letters. So, off we went to join the last person in the queue  (Cubans are even better at queuing than the English) for an hour or so, and then some, in order to wait whilst they looked for more $5CUC stamps. No bother, we’d done enough to get to do it tomorrow – or so we’d thought.

The second attempt didn’t end so happily either. In fact, when we arrived at immigration the next day they asked for something new: my medical insurance. They didn’t care for evidence of what date I was leaving and they weren’t even as interested as I’d imagined in where I’d been staying this last month, but they sure as hell were not going to let me through without evidence that I wasn’t going to drain them of medical expenses and not be able to cough up afterwards. The only problem: I didn’t have it printed out, and if you think immigration has a computer to hand, let alone a printer, think again! This was a job for the city centre - so back we went!  Fortunately we were travelling Cuban style so each journey cost less than one CUC rather than 8 to 10. Still, the price of connecting and printing soon took care of that!

On the third attempt it was all worth it though. Stamps, check. Passport, check. Insurance, check. Bringing Helen as proof that I was just a ‘normal’ tourist, and taking evidence of my return flight was not in the end necessary. All they did was stick the stamps onto a piece of paper, staple that together with the receipt from the casa particular and hand me back my visa with another stamp on it. No electricity involved, if you ignore the poorly connected air con. (NB if you’re a passport stamp collector you’ll be disappointed with Cuba. It chooses to stamp your visa not your passport so as to reduce conflict with passengers to and from the USA). Despite the stories I’d quickly dreamt up of where I’d been and what I had and had not been doing (i.e. not working, nor attending conferences, nor living with unregistered Cubans) we got off lightly – an unwelcome delay to our city adventure it was but after a drink or two it we agreed merrily that this was a fair price to pay for an extra two weeks exploring the island.

PS: An interesting addition to the last post on the internet: it seems that neither for love nor money can one find you an internet connection in the capital of Cuba after 6pm on a weekday evening even in the most expensive of tourist hotels. When we tried to find a means to buy some last minute scuba diving insurance we came up with blank walls on all accounts. Either: “there should be connection, there just isn’t now and who knows when it will be back”, OR, “Nope. Its 7pm now, the internet finished at 6pm – you can come back at 9am though”, OR  “all the internet cards have been used. You can connect by wifi though.” Unfortunately we weren’t in the habit of carrying a laptop around here on the off chance wifi will suddenly appear.  We gave up in the end but with a distinct feeling that such infrastructure could neither be efficient nor sustainable in the long run.

Hopscotch, marbles and dominos – the world before it become one wide web

Walking down the street here and you have to dodge kids playing marbles on the pavement and chalking the hopscotch grid road. Join your family or extended family on a Sunday afternoon and expect to spend a good chunk of time playing dominos. Whatever the pastime one thing is noticeably absent from the scene - for me at least – and that is the internet.

Of course for the majority it is not noticeably absent; the internet genie hasn’t been let out of its bottle yet and whilst it stays in there no one particularly misses it. Microsoft Encarta still rules the waves and emails are made possible through the use of a programme akin to Microsoft Outlook – which enables those lucky enough to own a computer to send their emails whilst preventing them from roaming the internet freely.  Furthermore, connecting times are limited – between the hours of 3 and 8 the airwaves are reserved for professional use only. If Isis wants to send an email it has to be after 8pm.

In the UK I’d dare to say a majority of professional work relies upon an accessible WWW; be it research, a functional internet… you name it we’ve built a world around the web. For this reason some professions in Cuba are permitted an almost free use of the internet -  I believe this includes politicians, doctors and some university professors. As a university student you can also connect. However, the days of whiling away hours surfing the net are a way away.  

This can of course be viewed as both a good and a bad thing.

Let’s lead with the good. Firstly, returning to the beginning of the blog, the absence of the internet can be seen as a small contributing factor to the continuing importance of time spent within the family unit.  If you can’t spend the evening on iplayer or chatting on facebook, you spend it someway else: Drinking a beer with friends, playing dominos, or sitting down as a family and watching a telenovella. I don’t want to take this whole ‘internet has ruined our ability to socialise and play family games theory’ too far, especially as there are obviously so many other factors involved, but it’s worth mentioning at least as an observation.

Secondly, together with the lack of advertising (there really isn’t any here unless its talking about socialism and year 53 of the revolution!), the lack of pornography in society is another interesting factor, and one which I think could have something to do with the noticeable absence of concern or preoccupation over one’s looks. Sure, there are magazines and images if you look hard for them, but what there is not is an idealist female or male image which penetrates deeply into society. It’ true that so far  I’ve not spent a huge amount of time with girls my age, and of course western films still depict a certain stereotype size zero’ belleza’ who we’re meant to try and aspire to become, but this is notably a society without pornography. It’s not that young people don’t care, but they’re not apparently being destroyed by a desire to seek perfection in their looks and relationships. Again, I’m only speculating but given the current interest in the effect of a proliferation of porn in western society, Cuba seems like an interesting point of discussion.

I’m sure there are more good things but I want to mention the bad before I lose you. The first is obviously the absence of the possibility to access the internet – free information does not exist. We raise up our arms in disgust when China censors Google, but this is a censorship of the world wide web for a whole society.  Cuban’s a curious people, I was told before I came and they themselves have repeatedly told me since, and who can blame them? Apart from what the government chooses to let onto the TV stations there is no chance for people to learn for themselves and get closer to other cultures and experiences through the internet. How can it be fair that I can sit down in the telephone centre and surf away, whilst others can only look on in curiosity?

Then there is the utility factor. The organoponoico has no web page because it cannot access the internet, but imagine how rich a resource it could be if it could develop one. An online bus timetable, the ability to make appointments online, to skype friends and family abroad, to see pictures and read tales…I could go on and on. There are no apps here – people survive of course, but they could do with for starters a happy medium between the level to which the WWW has penetrated our societies and the level at which they’re running at the moment, which is close to zero.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just frustrated because accessing the internet is such an expensive, slow and unreliable pain in the bum. It also just doesn’t seem to exist on Sunday’s. But at least I can do it I guess. This paranoid censorship may fit in with the rest of Cuban life but that doesn’t make it right.

What you can do with two currencies that you can´t do with one...

Take tourists for one hell of a ride, that’s what. Create two parallel worlds which overlap in the most curious and confusing ways, and make some money out of it.

I’ve just written about tourism so don’t want to overdo it. Permit me a quick deviation though to try and describe some insights I’ve recently gained on the price of being a tourist in Cuba.

Firstly, take a look at these few examples of the difference in cost for products and services:

Product/ service	Price for Cubans (MN)	In CUC/US$	Price for tourists (CUC/$USD)
Taxi Alamar to Habana	$20	$1	$5
Traditional Cuban lunch: rice, beans and chicken	$20	$1	$6-10
Museum entry	$10	$.50	$8
Ice cream	$.60	$0.0 something	$2
Beer	$7	$.30	$1
Bottle of rum	$48	$2	$4.50
Ballet performance	$10	$.50	$25
3 cigars of the best quality	$264	$11	$25

Before we go on I’m anxious to clarify that I’m not complaining about the necessity / morality of charging tourists more: when the average local salary here comes in at about 50 cents a day there is no way locals should be expected to pay more and every reason for tourists to contribute to the economy. Nope, the problem is often the situation and substance of the transaction. In other words, it just feels like one massive scam. Quite often you’re enjoying (or not depending on the quality and service) a coffee, show, bus journey or meal sat either across from or next door to a bunch of locals, but for 24 times the price. If the quality, service and experience were 24 times better, I’d cough up with pleasure. The problem is that is often is not, and what’s more, if you take your holiday in the world of in divisa currency (CUC) it feels like you’re losing the experience of being in Cuba.

It’s for this reason (and of course to try and save money when possible) that I’ve attempted so far to go native wherever possible – always carrying a wad of national currency around with me at least so that I have the option of what food, drink, transport and ultimately experience I want.  Having said that it’s not always that easy – most notably when the tourist prices are set in law, which basically means you have to be able to prove you’re a resident in order to pay in moneda nacionale, and otherwise the tourist way or the highway.  I might be learning to speak ‘Cuban’ (which essentially means I gesticulate wildly, no longer say the ‘s’ at the end of the sentence, and say ‘no, no, no, no, no’ when I mean “well, yes”), but with pale skin and light eyes, in the word’s of Salcines, “you’re not fooling anyone, kiddo”. I found this out the hard way.  

Having kept my eyes and ears open for any sign of ballet in Havana, (it’s not the season but I was keen to see one if I could find something) I stumbled across a matinee featuring young performers and decided to go along. Things got a bit complicated when I tried to buy a ticket though.

I approached a lady sat down in the foyer of Havana’s principal theatre and explained I wanted to see the show. She proceeded to look me up and down before confirming that I was not a resident in Cuba. At that she fetched a man to ‘explain the situation’. The situation, it transpired, is that tickets cost $25CUC, and I’d have to come back in one hour to buy them. This was curious – to me it seemed costly but with that kind of a price tag what national was going to be able to go and see the ballet? They couldn’t surely rely on a hoard of Canadian sight-seers to stumble upon a matinee performance?

Fairly determined I asked them to reserve me a place and went off for a coffee where I ran into Evelid, a local show organiser who asked me for a lighter. We got chatting – he was delighted to find a foreigner in one of the few local café’s in La Habana Vieja (Old Havana) and reiterated very emphatically the importance of paying for everything in moneda nacionale. He’d had a fair amount of travel experience and didn’t like it when people made a fool of tourists. When I explained I couldn’t have a beer because I was off to the ballet, he wasn’t impressed that I was about to pay $25CUC (“my monthly salary”) to see a performance that costs less than one CUC for a local. He was determined to help out and accompanied me to the box office to buy a ticket in MN – for which I gave him $2CUC and offered my sincere thanks. The only problem is, it didn’t work.

The moment I walked into the entrance to get my ticket torn off I was asked for my proof of residence. That’s how they make sure then I thought as I was rather aggressively told I couldn’t enter on this. Fair enough in a way – again, I earn more than them and can afford to pay more. But so much more seems wrong. Pretty annoyed I went outside and was approached by the man who’d told me to come back later. “We’ve been waiting with your ticket, do you still want it?” I explained my annoyance and he dropped the price to $15CUC, just like that. Again, curious. Even more curious was the way he took me into the theatre - I was told to wait, and then run when given the sign. That I did and we ran through the back door, through the dressing rooms and into the theatre. And once I’d got a seat he asked me for the money. Definitely not kosher.

I did get to see the ballet though, and I think I was the only foreigner in a crowd full of excited young Cubans sitting on their parent’s knee and enjoying the short matinee. International standard ballet this was not but it did teach me a lesson. There is talk of uniting the two currencies in the coming couple of years, but it remains difficult to see how they’d solve the tourist v local pricing issue, or indeed how a different currency would stand up to the test against any international market where at the moment neither currency means a thing.

Out in the fields and into the kitchen

Last week saw the rotation continue. I was lucky enough to coincide with a 3 day course given by the organopónico trying to teach 20 Mexican agriculturalists the merits of going organic (many left convinced of both the need and the possibilities, if unconvinced Mexico that was ready for it) and I also spent some time with ornamental plants team, discovering amongst other things the joys of the ins and outs of the plants-as-a-luxury part of the business. Hopefully I’ll be able to explain some more about both in time, but right now though to the two most memorable days.

Firstly, to the men’s work - at least it is men’s work here: working in the fields. On Friday morning we spent 4 hours pulling up peanuts in 30-35 degree heat. It was hard work but I loved it. That might have been in part because of the company: I was joined by 2 Mexican lads who were here for the course and had stayed on in Cuba and fancied getting their hands dirty. This livened things up but it was also very satisfying work: peanuts grow from the root of the plant and can be pulled up quite easily out of the damp red earth before being laid out in the sun to dry out. After a few days drying out they’ll be sent to the agro-production area for roasting and shelling. It being an organic plantation we also found all sorts of wildlife, including thousands of woodlice skulking amidst the humidity and darkness of the peanut roots. Being stung continuously by ants wasn’t so pleasant (there are small red ants here that secrete a painful solution when they walk you’re your skin which hurts for about 20 mins before going away), but if I was in any pain I wasn’t going to let on – I felt like I needed to prove that girls can do some hunting and gathering too.

Up till now it’s been no use explaining that despite being no super woman I have spent a fair amount of my (short) working life doing physical work – mostly shovelling shit on various different farms in the UK and abroad. “In Cuba it’s different though”, they say: “we look after our women”. By this they don’t really mean we don’t in the UK – indeed many people have no way of knowing the actual state of sexual equality or inequality in many other countries - instead, I think it has more to do with the immense heat and the nature of manual labour here. With very little heavy machinery or mechanical aid of any sort it really is a case of elbow grease and sweat, and many women either cannot or do not want to do it. Up to this point I’d been limited to the female tasks or to watching the men work, and had been reprimanded three times for carrying too heavy a load, because  “even if it I can manage now my arms will ache in the morning”.

Despite being fairly stubborn and taking enjoyment out of such physical work, I have to conclude that this attitude toward the division of labour isn’t a wholly bad thing. I have no first had experience of the situation in other ‘developing’ countries but we know that women are often relied upon greatly to do a vast range of manual chores that cannot be belittled. In Africa for example between 70 and 90 per cent of the work of transporting crops is done by women and children, who also do almost all of the carrying of water and firewood. Cuban women, by developing world standards, are highly liberated; they have access to the training and education they desire as well as the access to a wealth of jobs; such that now Cuban women make up 66% of the workforce. But as well as not making it to the fields they don’t reach hard politics either. Meanwhile they remain completely indispensible in the home, where life is reminiscent of the experience of many women worldwide juggling a career and a family.

This glimpse of the hard hard work (preparing the land, working the oxen, planting out, weeding, harvesting etc) was very brief, for the next day I was out of the sun and into the kitchen: where breakfast, lunch and visitor’s meals all come together. Fortunately I’d picked a good day to join the team: 2 groups of North Americans were arriving for a tour, making 65 in total. Add those to the 100 odd workers that need to be fed as well and you’ve got a mini operation. Again, just like wanting to work out the fields the team thought I was pretty crazy, but I was delighted to be able to help.

I’ve seen a few tours come and go here – in any one week there can be anywhere between 3 and 7 visits, many from North American’s coming to Cuba on an organised visit, some also coming as a bunch from further afield, and some individuals who’ve contacted Salcines independently. They have one thing in common though – they all say the meal they eat at the organopónico is the best they’ve had during their stay in the country. This has a large amount to do with the ingredients which, bar the rice and meat, are pretty much 100% organic and have travelled at most over 6 hectares to the kitchen. For $10CUC, most enjoy a buffet of the following:

Pork steaks / fish fillets (shallow fried in soya oil, which is how most meat comes)

Green bean salad (cooked  French beans are eaten a lot here)

Beetroot (by itself)

Avocado (we’re just coming into the season, hence it being on the menu. Eating here continues to be almost 100% seasonal)

Tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad (all from the organopónico)

Black beans (either served by themselves or with rice to make the traditional dish Congri)

Cassava (cooked until tender and then finished off with a tasty garlicky sauce)

Fried plantain (self-explanatory)

Vegetable soup (with squash, sweet potato, carrots, onions etc, and despite often being prepared for vegetarian groups, it is always made with a meat stock. Needless to say vegetarianism in Cuba isn’t yet much understood or possible to accomplish!)

Yellow, white or black and white rice (the yellow variety is cooked with vegetables and I suspect a lot of meat stock and fat, the white plain and the black and white is the congri)

A variety of fruit to be eaten with the savoury main meal, including mango, papaya, guava, pineapple

Mango juice (freshly pressed mango, sometimes with extra sugar for good measure)

It really is a feast, and I’m still not quite sure how they pull it off – both with the difficulty in finding those things they can’t grow here and the simplicity of the kitchen. For example, although the organopónico does rear cattle it can only do so from their manure since they’re on loan from the government who takes them back after a certain number of months to slaughter. (Incidentally, not only is it illegal to slaughter cattle but it carries a sentence 6 times lengthier than that of killing a fellow human being. Crazy.)

Indispensible to the operation though are the people. There is one male chef who deals with the ginormous pots of soup and beans, and behind him a team of not two but five fat and cheery (but somewhat formidable) ladies who charge themselves with the meat cooking, preparation and waiter service. The washing up duty is shared evenly and the female workers wash up on a rota the lunch plates.

Despite the challenge the feeding of the 66 everything was accomplished surprisingly smoothly. I played a small part as lettuce washer, potato peeler and mango chopper, as well as having some fun as bilingual waiter and washer-upper. Having experienced the kitchen on one of its busiest days I’d have to conclude it was just as hard work as working in the fields, except you get far more compensated for your work – in my case with lots of mango off-cuts! This may explain the correlation of skinny male farm workers and rather plump female cooks. I had fun but given the chance I’d be outside and back into the field like a shot!

Trust me, I’m a priest

Nope, trust me; I’ve had it all before. A priest wanting to show me churches that didn’t exist, a baker insisting to show me around La Havana, and a Mexican coming out of nowhere to take a close up of my eyes. If only I could get hold of some brown ones whilst I’m here – that way I just be able to experience walking down the street without every second man, woman and child stopping in interest or to mutter something under their breath. Never is it particularly threatening, and I appreciate in many ways I’ve asked for it – I’m white, western and have blue eyes for starters, and secondly I’m staying in the least
touristy suburb of Havana - the only way you’d run into a foreigner here is if their tour bus got lost en route to a beach on the East coast. But it can be tiresome and uncomfortable regardless, and hiding behind a pair of sunglasses or looking like a drowned rat in a waterproof forms very little in the way of camouflage.

Having said that, however, if for me it’s tiresome it’s still nothing to what Cuban’s have to go through each day to appease myself and the other Canadians, English and Europeans in their country. The state of tourist apartheid penetrates every aspect of daily Cuban lives and fills me with a mixture of embarrassment and shame whenever I come up against it. It’s time to talk about the bad stuff.

Most uncomfortable is the way a Cuban will be treated when walking around with a tourist. Take the baker wanting to show me around Havana. I can’t say I was super keen to oblige at first – I’d escaped Alamar for the afternoon and was looking forward to mooching around town, possibly checking out a few galleries and having a coffee or mojito in the afternoon sun. I should have realised I was stuck when he squeezed me onto the overcrowded bus and stopped me from getting squished every time the door opened. When I got off the bus we started to chat a little and I discovered he’d lived in this part of town for 10 years before – a bit of local insight seemed like a small price to pay for some lost peace and quiet.

And it was insightful – we wandered the streets, him pointing out things every so often, stopped briefly for an espresso which I was treated to (Cuban’s drink strong incredibly sweet espressos on the go) and then again for a beer which was 24 times more expensive (at $1USD) and I paid for. But, during the 2.5 hours we spent together we were stopped no less than three times by the police wanting to know what he was doing with a foreigner. To them Deni (24, dark and handsome) was either my boyfriend, prostitute or uninvited and unwelcome tag along. Each time they asked to see his ID card and on the third attempt they
detained us for a half hour whilst they recorded his card number and began the Spanish inquisition. In the end they reluctantly let him go with a simple warning; should happen to me (they’d also asked for my passport details), it would be his fault.

When I questioned him about this technique of policing the streets he simply denounced, “This country is a shit”. What happened to us is common and whilst it might be helpful in instances when tourists are being scammed by locals or have unwelcome foreigners, this lack of respect for a Cuban’s rights seems unpardonable. And a similar thing happens when I walk around with Isis in town. The other day she was about to buy an apple when the grocer looked through her and asked me what I wanted. I was standing well behind Isis and had not made a peep. “It’s the same in the hotels, in restaurants and pretty much anywhere”, she exclaimed, “It doesn’t matter if we are spending the same amount or not…it’s the same.”

If you grew up in the 60s to 90s, you feel it hardest, but many Cuban’s don’t know it any other way. In 1959 Castro spoke to the American Society of Travel Agents of the “sea, bays, beautiful beaches, mountains, fish, game and sun” the country had, but Cuba went
almost thirty years without tourism. Today numbers are recovering – some 2.43 million arrived in 2009 and contributed $2.4bn to the economy the year before – but the figures have since fallen and they remain a long way off Castro’s target of five million visitors by
2010.

What adds insult to injury is that the majority of maltreated nationals will not be able to experience it any differently, because they simply won’t be able to travel. A Spanish programme ‘Caballeros Viajeros’ is very popular here – it televises Spaniards travels to
major towns and countries around the world from every large to every small detail. Many people here are fascinated by it, but not Isis. “It depresses me, seeing all these places that I’m unable to visit”. Perhaps because she has been one of the lucky ones to experienced life in another country she finds it more painful than those who are (not quite) blissfully ignorant. There is a chance she might be able to go to the Slow Food reunion in Italy again next year, but when I asked if we might be able to work out a way for her to visit me in London, she simply raised her eyebrow and sighed. “This county would have to
change for me to be able to visit you in the UK. For starters they’d have to pay me a real salary for what I do.” Her lack of rights and possibilities mock her again.

Some people talk of change on the horizon. It is possible that both the USA and Cuba will relax travel restrictions, but who knows when or if that will happen. And until it does the country cannot (afford to) start to get its infrastructure up and running to cope with any influx – in high season its 47 000 hotel rooms don’t meet demand and many tourists continue to be put off by the poor food, outrageous prices and lousy service.

If Alamar is a microcosm of the less touristy areas in the country it will be interesting to see what happens when Helen arrives and we set off to explore. I already anticipate that any comfort her arrival will bring in numerical reinforcement will be lost by her blond hair and pair of bright blue eyes!

It might be world renowned but I’m still not sure I’d want to get ill….

In a diversion from today’s planned ramble I wanted to take a quick detour to talk about one of (two of) Cuba’s famous victories of the Cuban revolution: the health service. 

I feel somewhat inspired to do so after spending the afternoon in hospital. Just to confirm it wasn’t me that was being seen and neither thankfully/hopefully are either of the concerns serious ones. However, since I got to spend 4 hours waiting in a paediatric hospital and another couple in a gynaecological one, I feel moderately qualified to write on this experience, with the help of some information taken from some books I have here.

Just as famous as its reputation for bad food, good cigars and energetic ballet is Cuba’s magnificent record for healthcare. Once upon a time Castro had a dream that the country would become “the greatest medical power in the world”. He might not have been able to make the economy work but he sure did get somewhere with healthcare. Today Cuba’s welfare state is the envy of many countries in the developed world, let along the so called third one.

The state spends about 12% of its budget on healthcare – serving the people directly and training up doctor’s enmass: 70,000 to date in 20 medical schools worldwide (The whole of the African content has only 50,000). That’s about one doctor for every 170 residents. Plenty to keep on top of health in Cuba - immunization is currently 100%, every community has a family doctor and every town a hospital, and the life expectancy is 78.3 years – just behind only Chile, Costa Rica and Puerto Rica in Latin America and ahead of (you guessed it), the USA. The country also boasts state of the art technology, world leading research centres and is particularly famous for its treatment of patients with Parkinson’s disease and those needing eye operations.

But there is also enough to give them wings and send them to health-poor countries in the global south. Cuba’s willingness to share such progress puts many developed countries to shame; it currently has on-going medical programmes with 58 developed countries in the global south. 

This I knew before my visits and it had built my expectations up high. However under resourced the schools, shops and small businesses were I was sure that the hospitals would be the exception. Nope. I was quite shocked. 

Firstly, they were both hastily constructed and poorly maintained buildings run without air conditioning or functioning lifts – at least the lifts didn’t work when we were there. Isis friend who we visited is heavily pregnant but needs to be in hospital for the remaining 6 weeks because of possible complications. She shares a room with one other lady, two stationary fans, one bed side table and an army style mattress and pillow. There is one tele in the corridor, though it’s hard to tell exactly how this is used. Some people had brought in laptops but only since 2008 have people been able to own them so they’re not yet within everyone’s reach.  She was not complaining at all though. Indeed her only distress was that her 8 year old son was only able to visit on Sundays and even then he couldn’t come up to the 4^th floor to see her; she needed to be taken down on the mechanical chair because she isn’t allowed to be moving around. The one problem: the chair is out of order.

The situation in the paediatric hospital was similarly eye opening. Isis was meant to be seeing a consultant about some tests they did on Miguel Eduardo (her 5 year old). The consulting hours were 1 till 3, more or less. We arrived at 2 and the doctor had gone into surgery. There was no way of telling how long he would be but because he only sees people on a Tuesday, and there doesn’t seem to be an alternative phone/email/internet service to get hold of him, there was nothing to do but wait. Fortunately we both had some reading to do, but I was rather distracted by the kids being wheeled out of surgery on what looked like converted shopping trolleys without any electrical equipment hooked up to them and minimal bandaging. This was no ER. After 4 hours I went to look for some food in the ‘cafeteria’ – but it was empty and there was none. When our consultant (a tall, skinny man with a funny sense of humour – dad?) came out of surgery he saw us straight away.

Some of this concurs with the more painful side of healthcare here and outside Havana many reports are far worse. As in many other areas, resources are being shifted so that foreigners can be prioritised above national citizens in their own country. This is being reported particularly in surgical and advanced medicine fields. It’s also tough luck if you’re a Cuban needing pharmaceuticals. The country makes them but, de-ja-vous, they’re exported to earn some cash, and Castro refuses to permit imports for his people. I’m talking everything from Omega 3 capsules to life saving cancer drugs. Castro even rejected a large package of medical assistance from the USA in 1999 that was desperately needed.

Partly because of the unreliable nature of pharmeceuticals, partly because of a strong culture of inter-generational knowledge transfer, Cuban people are very into their medicinal plants. There is a section of the Organopónico dedicated to selling shoots, fruits, leaves and roots to numerous customers that arrive each day. When Ramón (an elderly gentlemen who plies me with fresh coconut water at every opportunity) was kind enough to show me some of what the allotment had to offer, I found the quantity, quality and promise of these plants fascinating. Some are specific to the Caribbean, some we know and use also (Aloe Vera and Mint are I’m ashamed to say the only two I recognised), and those I’d never seen I’m hoping to discover some more about - another culture that sprung up out of necessity has planted some very intriguing roots. 

Though glad to have been able to see the doctor this time Isis left the consultation weary and troubled. Her son needs an operation which, though small, requires a general anaesthetic – which obviously always carries an element of risk. Neither can she be sure when they’ll be able to operate. Next week marks the beginning of the summer holidays and getting anything done in the next two months is apparently 99% impossible. Though most people cannot and do not take themselves off to a beach resort somewhere it’s very difficult to pin people down, and with her studies at the university, job and family to think about, it’s another trial she needs to grin and bear.

From Propogation to Products

For the last week or so I’ve been alternating between two key areas of the organopónico: the propagation house and the agro-industrial business. It’s the journey from seed to supper really, only I’ve cut out a few steps in the middle (hopefully to be filled in later if/when I’m flight my way into the fields - the realm of what is strictly considered men’s work!)

I started the week where it all begins; sowing seeds. This might not be agri-business of the scale we’re used to but it sure is a business operation - when it comes to lettuce and spinach, it seems we couldn’t have sewed enough. In the summer when vegetables are difficult to grow, these still survive well and are subsequently in hot demand, but we were also working with peppers, mint and brassicas. Almost without exception the seeds are sewed directly into large polystyrene trays filled with a mixture of 45% vermicompost, 25% compost, 25% risk husk and 5% or less of home cultivated microrizas. This mixture thus comes with a high quantity of minerals, nutrients and microorganisms already in the soil and the fungal element increases the potential of the seedlings to further extract minerals and water. And boy do the seeds grow. 

Once we’d finished sewing one variety (anything from 5000-10000 seedlings within the team of 4 to 5) the trays are passed through a mesh grate into the large propagation house and lined up on the long tables within. There each tray is marked with their name and the date and either given a protective lid – another tray with small holes – to prevent the seeds from being washed away, or are left as sewn. And there they remain quietly growing away until they’re called up to be planted in the fields or sold to customers, at which point they’ll come out of there again – through the grate- where the same team will loosen the seedlings (pushing a pencil style stick through a hole in the bottom of each pod in the tray) to make it easier for the planting team to extract them in the fields.

The beauty of the propagation house is that between sewing and extracting, the process is fairly low maintenance. They do spray the seedlings with biological pesticides but by and large the space provides protection and the perfect germination area for the plants. Thus the largest human expense in germination is watering; to keep thousands of seedlings from drying out requires three to four watering’s a day – all by hand. Whilst the majority of the raised beds outside are connected to an irrigation network the seeds in the house are still watered by hand to allow for a variation in watering patterns. 

Just as I’d got the hang of this routine, as well as made some friends and caught up on what was going on in the sensational radio novellas (low quality Archers, I guess) I was swapping departments and radio stations! I was off up the hill to the back of the allotment to the part I was most excited about – the creation of products from excess produce on site.

In what is called the ‘pequenoagroindustria’ a team of 4 women and 2 men create a range of goods to sell, including: pickled cucumber, beetroots and carrots, garlic paste, passata and small packets of dried herbs such as turmeric, mint and basil. Unfortunately, despite these possibilities I didn’t have the best luck when I visited this team – my days there seemed to coincide with a mass restocking of dried herbs – which meant filling and sealing thousands of small bags of turmeric. This couldn’t really be helped but was a shame I didn’t see the team in full operation. But then again, since this what the team does on a regular basis, I did get the genuine experience and was at least able to see the turmeric production line from root - which gets cut and left to dry in the sun - to powder as it gets ground up in a  machine.

Indeed all was not lost: I made an ace friend in Koral (will share some info on her shortly) and was fortunate in the last few hours of my last day to be part of what seemed like an impromptu operation to pickle a small quantity of cucumbers and French beans. Given this was a enough to make 15 units it was not unlike the kind of conserving that could take place at one’s home, though perhaps not quite as fun as I’d imagine a pickling session to be – blame it on the midday heat, a stressed boss and being one man down!

The produce from each department (seedlings / bags, jars and bottles) are either used on site or sold to the public. The quantities are small but they are an important perennial revenue stream for the Organopónico. One problem with the summer, bar the intense heat obviously, is that income from such ventures generally drops. There is less produce to pickle or conserve in some way and less people are keen or able to grow vegetables from the seedlings created here. To the propagation team this is a blow indeed, since a percentage of their wage which they rely dearly upon to supplement their income (whose baseline sits around $17USD a month) doesn’t materialise. Work continues though, people remain mostly cheery and you get the impression they’re still happy to be a part of this fascinating cooperative.