Ruminations of an Expatriate

I ran across this very interesting article, from early 2006, about Cuba’s development of urban agriculture, including on roof tops, and alternative energy beginning during the “special period” in the wake of the end  Soviet subsidies.    Here’s a more recent article from the Baltimore Sun addressing some of the same subjects.

The Cuban News agency reports that:

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 20 (acn) With 17 cases reported in 2007 and only four so far this year, Cuba is ready to eradicate Hepatitis B transmission with a highly effective vaccine produced in the country, reports Prensa Latina news agency.

A government-sponsored immunization program for newborns began in 1992; that year over 2,100 cases were reported, recalls an article in Granma daily. At present, a great part of the population including all Cubans under 26 has been immunized and the infection rate has been cut by 99.2 percent in 15 years.

And

Production on a large scale of the Recombinant HB vaccine takes place in the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center in Havana (CIGB). The product is marketed in over 40 countries and, since 1992, the CIGB has produced almost 157 million doses to export and over 14 million for the National Vaccination Program of the Public Health Ministry.

Some 30 or so kilometers from Cienfuegos, up in the Escambray mountains, is water fall with a series of rather spectacular pools of clear, cool water, both above and below the falls. The falls, so we were told, are much wider and fuller during the Fall rainy season.

We had arranged through one of our hosts for Pedro to drive us to the cascada in his twenty eight year old Lada. Ladas are Russian made cars which resemble a 1970s Fiat. According to Pedro, a mechanic, during the 1970s Russia bought a Fiat factory. The Lada is the most common car in Cuba and are extolled by Cubans as “muy fuerte” and”muy economica”, strong and economical to operate.

Driving up the rather rough mountain road the motor of the Lada, which Pedro had overhauled last November, became a bit warm, so Pedro pulled over in front of the home of a campesino. There was a lean, muscular fellow in the front yard beating a pile of bean pods with a stick to remove the beans from the pods. Pedro asked for a bit of water which he dashed against the radiator and with which he topped off the reservoir. The campesino explained that he plants twenty kilos of bean seeds and harvests 200 kilos of the white with purple stripes beans. A young girl, the fellows granddaughter I assumed, sat on the porch and eyed us curiously during our visit.

The Lada having rested and cooled, we continued on our way. Pedro, a rather husky fellow, warmed up and became increasingly talkative during the trip and became down right gregarious during our time at the falls.

Pedro informed me, during the return trip, that if one needs to stop to urinate one indicates “I need to visit Miami ” and if one has a more serious bathroom need one indicates “I need to visit Chicago”. During the return trip we stopped at a gas station for refreshments and I told Pedro that I needed to visit Miami. He led me across the road and announced “Welcome to Miami, as he opened a gate leading into a pasture of grazing cows. He was quite amused, and we all wore out the needing to go to Miami/Chicago joke during the return trip.

Above the falls there was a grand vista through the mountains, including of these reservoirs below.

All-in-all it was another of those serendipitous travel experience.

Pedro can be seen in the photo below.

I spotted this Rhino sculpture through a window while walking through Centro Cienfuegos.

There is a Sculpture Park in Cienfuegos through which I passed each morning on the way from the casa in which I was staying to have breakfast with my brother at his casa. The park is spotlessly clean and just a block and a half from the bay.

Here are some of the park’s inhabitants. I particularly like the hands bench, upon which I noticed a couple of young lovers snuggling after dark one evening.

I spoke during my recent visit to Cuba with the son-in-law of Yolanda, the owner of the home where I stayed in Cinefuegos.  He works for the state enterprise involved in providing internet service and indicated that internet service will be available to all Cubans once a submarine cable from Venezuela is connected to the Cuban telecommunications system at a point at the East end of the island.  Currently, internet service is generally available to businesses and government agencies, though the owners of quite a number of the homes in which I’ve stayed have had computers and internet service, including the apartment in which I stayed in April, 2004.

Likewise I have encountered many folks with cell phones, mostly taxi drivers.   Last July a friend inquired in the CubaCell office in Playa Baracoa and was told she could obtain a cell phone.  Cell air time is relatively expensive as compared to here in Mexico.

One often hears USA government officials and political candidate  decry the Cuban government for restricting access to internet service, cell phone, and electrical appliances.  Cubans I have talked to have generally indicated that the restrictions have existed due to limitations of the capacities of the electrical generation and distribution, telecommunications, and cellular systems.  The limitations have been eased, in recent years, through improvements to those system through the partnering of Cuban government enterprises with foreign enterprises.

The Cuban government conducts an intensive electrical conservation effort through the distribution of compact florescent  light bulbs and more efficient refrigerators and other appliances.  Last year in Playa Baracoa trucks were driving through the streets unloading new refrigerators, manufactured in South Korea, to replace the existing less efficient models.

Further, I have found very little reluctance of folks to freely answer my questions relating to the political and economic conditions in Cuba.   A bar tender in Havana, during my most recent trip, without encouragement from us, began to tell us how inferior are folks from outside Havana  and how the Havana police were mostly from outside of  the city.   He said folks from Havana don’t like the folks from outside the city, though I think that racial bigotry may be a factor in such antipathy.  Our taxi drivers answered my political and economic questions without hesitation, as did the fellow who works for the state telecommunications enterprise and folks I met on the street.

I’m sure that it will come as no surprise to my five readers that what USA government officials and politicians have to say about Cuba is rarely true.

We stayed for two nights in the small town of Remedios, a few miles from the North coast about an hour’s drive North of the larger City of Santa Clara. Our hosts were Gregorio Fong and his wife Deisy in one casa and their daughter Greisy at the casa next door. The two house were until recently one house, which was divided, I suppose, so the family could rent four rooms. Casas particular are limited by law to the rental of only two rooms.

North of Remedios is a 50 kilometer causeway which connects a series of islands, “cayos”, and on our second day there we rented a car for a visit. It is not possible to hire a máquina for the trip as one must pass through a “punto de control” to pay the entry fee of $2 USA per car.

The rental of the car was a breeze. We had checked at the agency the day before to determine the cost and rental process, and was assured that a rental agency representative would call us the next morning at our casa, the phone number of which the agency already had. Later the same day Sr. Fong informed me that the agency representative had called and would stop by the house with a car at 7:30 the next morning.

Sure enough, the next morning a very pleasant fellow showed up with a small Hyundai and within five minutes had completed the paperwork. The car was $50 for twelve hours, including twenty letters of fuel and there was a $200 insurance deposit, returnable when the car was returned with no damage. I was the only authorized driver, and in the event of an accident in which I was at fault we would be charged a maximum of $350, unless I was drunk, in which case I would probably have to buy a new car and have problems with the police. The agency representative told me I could have two or three drinks and that the passengers were free to drink. If there was an accident not my fault the deposit would be returned. Fortunately there were no problems and our deposit was returned.

There are a number of upscale hotel developments amongst the cayos, some already completed. We opted to visit Cayo Las Brujas, the site of a less expensive hotel, a palapa restaurant, and an amazingly beautiful white sandy Caribbean beach. The water was the amazing turquoise color one might imagine of the Caribbean and which I think is imparted by the white sandy shallows.

Entrance to the beach was $5 USA and included two soft drink or bottles of water and a sandwich . We opted to order meals from a very pleasant waiter who speaks English very well.

Following a meal and a swim we drove to the end of the roadway where we stopped to talk to a couple of fellows who were harvesting sponges. The cayos are very much worth a visit.

Remedios is a quiet little town with two churches adjacent to the central park. Locals say that inside the church is amongst the most impressive in Cuba. Also adjacent to the park is the cafeteria El Louvre, which Sr. Fong informed us his dad had owned, along with a small market down the street, until the mid-1960s when it was appropriated by the government.  Sr. Fong’s father immigrated to Cuba in 1917.

We spent a couple of pleasant evenings sitting at the outdoor tables of El Louvre drinking Bucaneros and commiserating with the locals. There we encountered a fellow employed teaching young folks to play chess and who speaks English very well, though a bit of a Caribbean accent, it seemed.

I had mentioned in the previous post the opulent building in Cienfuegos with the Moorish arches on the lower floor and Gothic arches above.  The building, I was told, was built by a French fellow as a wedding present for his daughter.  So here are a few shots.

Moorish arches are also referred to as horseshoe arches.  The Gothic arches are the ones with a pointed apex.

I returned Friday from a two week visit to Cuba with a brother, a sister, and a friend of my sister. We paid the obligatory visit to Havana, after which we took a rather uncomfortable, dirty ride to Cienfuegos in the back seat of a 1950s Oldsmobile. The car’s original engine and transmission had been replaced by a belching Eastern European diesel engine, which made for a dirty trip. The standard back seat had been removed and replaced by two facing benches, so as to maximize the numbers of passengers which can be carried along the car’s daily route from the Havana train station to La Playa máquina terminal.

Máquinas are antique USA cars which serve as taxis for Cubans and which are prohibited from carrying tourists, though more intrepid tourists may often find a driver who will transport them. The trip to Cienfuegos cost $70. USA.

Cienfuegos, located upon a sprawling, undulating bay on Cuba’s South coast and known as Perla de la Sur (the Pearl of the South), is the most stunningly beautiful city I have visited in Cuba. The city is very clean, is traversed by a wide boulevard, and is home to a number of magnificent buildings, one, featuring intricate Moorish and Gothic arches, is perhaps the most opulent I have seen in Cuba. The lovely central shopping district was designated by UNESCO, in 2005, as a World Heritage Site.

The City was founded by French planters who arrived from Louisiana in the early 1800s. Cienfuegos Bay, one of the most important ports in the nation, is accessed by a narrow passage from the Caribbean which is guarded by the Castillo de Jagua, constructed in 1745 to protect the bay from pirates.

Excursions to the mouth of the harbor and back, aboard a lovely wooden boat constructed in 1994 and piloted by the same fellow for forty three years, can be arranged at the marina office for a cost of $10 USA. The price includes two sodas or bottles of water, and drinks may be purchased from the on board bartender. If you visit Cienfueos be sure to take the two hour trip.

We stayed in three different casas particular, the beautiful rear patio/garden of one, which I had reserved before leaving Xalapa, abuts the harbor. I stayed in the casa of Senora Yolanda who, when introducing herself upon my arrival, asked if I knew of the Cuban song “Yolanda” and was quite surprised when I began singing it to her. Perla and Orieste, hosts at the other casa are very warm and took particular interest in improving my brother’s Spanish.

Should you visit Cuba do yourself a favor and spend a few days in Cienfuegos.

Last July 28 I posted a report of my conversation with Juan Daniel and his predictions of what was in store for Cuba. Here is an excerpt:

Juan Daniel indicated his belief that the elections coming in October will be very important for the future of change in Cuba and that he thinks Raul will be elected as president by the National Assembly. He also indicated that Raul will likely oversee great changes here during the next four or five years when another, younger president will likely be elected.

I have just read a report at the Miami Herald web site that:
The Cuban government plans to ease restrictions on travel abroad, eliminating for most Cubans the requirement that they obtain “exit permits” and an “invitations from abroad,” the Spanish daily El Pais reported Friday.

The newspaper’s correspondent in Havana quoted “sources close to the government” as saying that the announcement is planned for the next several days or weeks.

This follows announcements in recent weeks that limitations of ownership of cellular phone and certain electrical appliances are to be lifted. The Cuban government has explained that the cellular telephone system and electrical generations, transmission, and distribution systems have been developed to the point that they can handled the additional loads.

You may remember that after the demise of the Soviet Union, and its subsidization of the Cuban economy, the Cuban government instituted reforms which permitted foreign enterprise ownership of up to 49%, of Cuban enterprises, which, almost without exception, are under state ownership. Consequently, companies from Canada, Spain, Italy, China, and other nations have taken ownership positions in the Cuban state telecommunications, electrical, nickel mining, oil exploitation, and other enterprises. The result has been great improvements in the telecommunications and electrical systems and in the economy in general.

It seems that Juan Daniel was right on the money. President Raul Castro is ushering in changes. It will be interesting to see what develops in the coming months, both relative to Cuban government reforms and to USA Cuban policy. Though, given the historical USA government policy prohibiting USA trade with Cuba, economic opportunities for participation in the Cuban economy have largely passed by USA enterprises.

Obama has expressed his desire for an end to the trade and travel restrictions, while Clinton has expressed her support for the status quo. I think because Clinton is running the traditional DLC type campaign which relies upon winning Florida, while Obama is pursuing a Howard Dean type “fifty state” approach, in which winning Florida is not crucial.

I believe that Cuba can institute economic changes which take advantage of capitalist incentives and the intelligence and innovativeness of the Cuban people, by allowing more private businesses and cooperative ownership than it now does, to advance the Cuban economy and the standard of living of the Cuban people, while maintaining the excellent publicly supported Cuban educational and health care systems.

We’ll see what develops.

In related news, the  San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the last of Havans’s  “camello” (camel, so named for the two humps) buses will make their last runs on Sunday.  The buses are being replaced by modern buses manufactured in China.

Everyone by now has heard the news that Fidel will no longer serve as president of Cuba.  The Washington Post this morning includes a very good analysis of what may lie ahead for Cuba.  The analysis seems to square with the analysis of Juan Daniel, a friend in Playa Baracoa, my conversation with whom I reported last July.

Agee, a former CIA operative in Latin America, was the author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary which “cited alleged CIA misdeeds against leftists in the region that included a 22-page list of purported agency operatives.”

“Agee’s U.S. passport was revoked in 1979. U.S. officials said he had threatened national security. After years of living in Hamburg, Germany — occasionally underground, fearing CIA retribution — Agee moved to Havana to open the travel site.”

I recommend Agee’s book to those interested in learning of some of the nefarious murderous, terroristic USA government actions throughout Latin America.

A couple of days ago I was contacted by friends in Merida who asked that I accompany them to Cuba from Christmas until the fourth of January.

So I will accompany Ariel, his wife Maria who is a Merida native, and Marie’s daughter Ana.  Ariel is Cuban and lived for some time in Florida, where he lost an arm in a truck accident, before moving with Maria and Ana to Merida where they live also with Maria’s mother.  Ariel’s family is from Guantanamo, to where we will travel with Ariel’s brother, who lives in Havana, to spend New Year Eve.

It will be quite different to travel to Cuba with a group of Spanish speakers and to spend time with Ariel’s family, rather than in a rental.

Merida, like Cancun and Veracruz, is home to many Cubans.  Such that there is a Cuban consulate in Merida, as there is in Cancun and Veracruz.

While in the D. C. area recently I paid a visit to the Cuban Consulate to have some documents “legalized”.

When I arrived at the consulate, after a short walk following my trip on the Metro train system from South of Alexandria to the Columbia Heights station in NW D. C., there was a line of folks out front on the sidewalk. I took my place. Soon an older gentleman arrived and indicated there was a staff meeting in progress and that normally there is no line.

While we awaited the opening of the gate a gentleman from the consulate approached and provided applications for “letters of invitation”, used to invite family members from Cuba for a visit. The husband and wife behind me, I could see, did not have a pen so I offered mine. A fascinating conversation ensued which was joined by others in line. Those with whom I spoke offered many uncomplimentary things to say about USA government Cuban policy (travel and remittance restrictions in particular), and about Incurious George.

Being somewhat slow it had never occurred to me that one result of the lack of USA/Cuban diplomatic relations is that Cuban-Americans must travel to Washington D. C. to conduct business with the Cuban government. Whereas, for instance, Cuba maintains consulates in Veracruz and Cancun, Mexico to serve the significant Cuban populations. Likewise, there is a USA consulate in Merida to serve the significant gringo population.

So the nice couple behind me, she of Puerto Rico and he of Cuba, had to drive fifteen hours from Florida to process a letter of invitation to the husband’s mother. Likewise the couple behind them. A number of others had flown in.

When it came my turn at the service window I was having trouble understandig what the very fast talking lady behind the glass was saying. I apologized, she told not to worry, and immediately the two couples from Florida moved toward the window and translated for me.

As it turned out the person with whom I needed to talk was not there, so I would return the next morning. I heartily thanked those who had helped me and received smiles from everyone in the room, perhaps they were amused by the crazy gringo, though I prefer to believe otherwise.

The next day, sitting while awaiting paperwork, I struck up a conversation with Roberto sitting next to me. He had swam from Cuba into the Guantanamo naval base in 1993 and was kept at Guantanamo for almost a year before he was permitted to immigrate. He indicated that he wants to go to Cancun.

I received my paperwork, said my “mucho gustos” (pleasure to meet you) to Roberto and others I’d met, and left the building. I had just closed the gate and stepped onto the sidewalk when I heard someone holler “Christopher”. I turned to see Roberto approaching. He asked for a phone number so he could contact me when he comes to Mexico.

I gave him a card and headed on my walk to the National Mall, grinning to thoughts of another uplifting travel experience.

Not far from Playa Baracoa, about fifteen minutes by car, lies the small town of Santiago de Vega and the opulent Church of Saint Lazarus, which draws hundreds of visitors each day.

The day I visited there was one person who drug herself along the floor, through the door and down the aisle to one of the seven or eight elaborate alters at which lots of folks knelt, praying and offering flowers and candles. Some folks removed their shoes before entering.

There is a spring that emerges in the rear yard of the church, the waters of which are considered by many as having special qualities, though I never did determine what the special quality is. There is also an enormous tree, perhaps twelve to fifteen feet in circumference.

Adjacent to the church is a hospital that provided refuge to and treatment for those afflicted with leprosy. Today leprosy has essentially been eradicated in Cuba.
According to Biblical accounts, contained in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus offered a parable of a poor man named Lazarus and a rich man. A poor leper, Lazarus, had come to lie at the door of a rich man who refused Lazarus succor, though the man had plenty.

Lazarus died and was transported by angels to the side of Abraham. The rich man died and was dispatched to the eternal torment of the netherworld, from where he espied Abraham with Lazarus at his side. The rich man pleaded, “Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.”

Abraham responded to the man “My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.”

It seems that around the twelfth century western crusaders founded a leper hospital in Jerusalem which was operated by monks of the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem. Given the Western powers’ interest in its part of the world at the time, during the Middle Ages the hospital received financial assistance from every European country and many of their royalty and other rich citizens. Many of the kings of Europe endowed the hospital with vast tracts of European land.

Leper hospitals were quite numerous in Europe during the Middle Ages, numbering in the thousands. Though many of the hospitals carried the name of St. Lazarus, the European “houses” were not dependencies of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem fell to the Moslems in the mid-13th century and the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem gave up the hospital and morphed into a military order to defend the remaining Christian possessions.

The Order gave up its military pursuits in the 14th century, except for a brief stint chasing pirates in the Mediterranean during the 17th century. Today the Order has priories throughout the world and is still associated with administering to those with leprosy.

The Church of Saint Lazarus in Santiago de Vega is an out post of the Order as was the leprosy hospital next door.

This little guy apparently thought that Life Long Harborite and I would be fun company and hung out with us for a couple of hours.

He showed us his skating prowess and LLH showed him how to do armpit farts.

I have had to repost this as something with the video player screwed up the formatting.

Each morning during my stay in Playa Baroaca, while enjoying my morning coffee on the terrace, I would bask in the early morning serenity and watch the boats coming and go.

Cubans learn dirty dancing at an early age. This dancing broke out amongst Katiuska’s family during her birthday party in Pinar del Rio.

The Royal Palm is the Cuban national tree.

Aside from being the most prominent tree on the landscape, the fronds are used to construct “palapa” type roofs and the trunks, which bulge at mid-height, are used for building columns.

Pons is a lovely rural pueblito which is home to about 1500 folks, amongst which is my friend Katiuska and her family. Pons spans the road from Pinar del Rio to Minas de Matahambre and on to Caya Jutias, the finest beach I’ve visited.

The town, surrounded by agricultural pursuits and home to a lumber mill, is lush with vegetation, as if the town were one big garden, through which chickens, turkeys, and an occasional pig range.

The yards around the houses in Pons are considerably larger than those found attached to homes in the larger cities, as I suppose one would expect, and typically include a variety of fruit trees and coffee bushes. Few houses, however, include vegetable gardens. There are fields of Malanga, corn, and other crop; but few domestic gardens.

A ten minute walk down the lane behind Katiuska’s house is a fine swimming hole, complete with cascades and rocks from which to jump into a wonderfully clean river.
The swim provided cool relief from the hot, humid afternoon.