Cuba: "They're Talking About a Revolution" - still

Committee for the Defence of the Revolution ("CDR")

Every block has its own CDR committee and President.  Over 90 per cent of the population are members of their local CDR.  Cubans are reluctant to criticize either of the Castro brothers at the best of times - their names hardly ever came up in conversation while we were there.  They certainly would not make anything but the most flattering remarks in front of their block CDR President.

Here's a CDR poster that we saw:

If you squint hard enough you might be able to see "56"  in the top left corner of the poster - honoring the 56th anniversary of the Revolution.  After 56 years, are these CDR committees defending a "revolution" or the status quo?

"D Day" and the U.S. Embargo / "Blockade"

Cuba's D Day (December 17) was the day that Obama and Raul Castro spoke on the phone. 

A lot of Cuban Americans (e.g.http://babalublog.com/ ) feel that Cubans have once again (the first time was JFK and the Bay of Pigs) been sold down the river by an American President.  Obama is relaxing the embargo despite the fact that there has been no improvement in the human rights situation on the island.

The alternative perspective is that the U.S. embargo is the single best propaganda weapon in the Castro brothers' rhetorical arsenal.  The fact of the embargo is always there, whenever they want to demonise America.

Here is one poster we saw on the day of the May Day parade in Baracoa:

The fact that it's a blockade is news to me - likewise the genocide.

A Revolution built on "Productivity and Efficiency"

Here is one of the Baracoa May Day banners that we saw:

By the way, I have no way of proving it, but my gut tells me that the guy in a "80" shirt is plain clothes.

Apart from maybe the security forces, "efficiency" is perhaps not the first word that comes to mind.

In Havana there were great plans to renovate an old building and create a gleaming new "Hotel Packard" complete with ivy growing up the side.

This was the vision:

Here is the reality:

Well at least the ivy's growing.

Bed and breakfast owners struggle to purchase functional bathroom fittings from the government.

Hey there's a tap, there's a basin - what more could you want?

One thing the country is efficient at is producing ballet dancers.  Cuba produces ballet dancers the way the Dominican produces baseball players - in both cases it's a ticket off the island.

We were lucky enough to see a gorgeous production of "Don Quixote".

Given the world class calibre of the production, I was surprised by the casual manner in which it was promoted.  Here are the notices outside the theatre:

I have seen better publicity materials for a primary school Nativity play.

About those Bulgarian peas they serve at your Cuban all inclusive:

Many visitors wonder why, in such a fertile island, tourists have to eat processed peas from Bulgaria.

Part of the explanation is straightforward - farmers produce only what the government orders them to grow.

The other half of the explanation I got from reading the Economist, once I got home.  The government entities responsible for importing goods get hugely subsidized exchange rates.  Cuba is actually the only country I know, that goes in for "reverse protectionism", i.e favoring overseas producers at the expense of its own farmers - must be nice for the Bulgarians.

Our cab driver looked like Dr. George Clooney

Ok our cab driver wasn't quite as good looking as George Clooney, but he was a pediatric doctor.  As such he recently got a 150% raise, bringing his monthly salary up to $60.  His real source of income is the money he makes from driving cabs.  He told us that his routine consisted of a 24 hour shift at the hospital, followed by three days driving a 20 year old Lada.

I was affronted for his dignity at how he had to earn a living.  We watched him wait patiently while four young backpackers argued among themselves as someone tried to wriggle out of his $2 portion of the fare.

He told us he could boost his government wage to US$400 a month.  However he would have to travel overseas to earn that.  The state would make around ten times that from hiring him out to foreign governments.

There are more doctors in Cuba than the whole of Africa.  Our guide in Havana told us that in his daughter's district there were 5,000 students vying for 15 places at the University of Havana in Psychology, 50 in Law, and 1,000 in Medicine.  He said "well if she does not get into Psychology or Law, she can always do Medicine"

Even though the standard of living in Cuba is not that high, I am amazed that it is not a lot lower given the massive under employment that we saw - the old Soviet ethos of "you pretend to work and we'll pretend to pay you".

How does Cuba support this lifestyle with an unproductive economy?  My theory (which received some verbal confirmation) is that the economy is supported on the back of hard working Cuban doctors operating in places like Sierra Leone and Venezuela.

The "Militarization of Information"

Yoani Sanchez is the dissident author of the Generation Y blog ( https://generacionyen.wordpress.com/ ).

Like 99 per cent of Cubans she does not enjoy regular access to the internet.  Consequently she is forced to blog "blind".  She smuggles her messages to the outside world by e-mail and memory sticks but then cannot read her own posts.  Getting her voice to the outside world requires considerable ingenuity as well as the courage to risk personal injury at the hands of the security forces.

In an arresting turn of phrase, she states:

Information is militarized and guarded in Cuba as if there is a war of technology, which is why those who try to find out are taken, at the very least, as spies.

Michele and I experienced all the frustrations of trying to go online.  Here is Michele using her I-Pad outside the "Etecsa" (government telephone company) office in Vinales.  Some kind person at Etecsa left the wifi router on and Michele was able to use her US$4.50 an hour internet card.

At that price, an hour on the internet costs around a quarter of a normal Cuban's monthly salary.  Hence we were confused as to how these locals (sitting around the corner from Michele) could afford to surf the web:

Feminism and Cuban airports

In her "Female Caricature" blog Yoani Sanchez harpoons the idea that women in Cuba have any real power - ( https://generacionyen.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/female-caricature/ )

The most powerful personalities we met were usually women - but that is a different concept.

At both airports we went to, the women customs officers were nearly all young and very attractive.  For uniform, they were required to wear short skirts and rather odd looking fishnet stockings:

I do not know what happens to their careers once they lose their cheer leader looks.

The questionable taste of the uniforms was nothing compared to the souvenirs the government was selling at the airport gift store:

Tourist Apartheid

Tourist apartheid, whereby Cubans were legally barred from entering decent hotels, cocktail bars etc, was only abolished five years ago.

In practice, differences in affluence, as well as the ingrained attitude of Cubans to their own people, mean segregation is still very much in force.

Here is the beach we stayed at:

Here is a beach used by Cubans:

Here is a bus that we rode - pretty comfortable although I never had the courage to visit the toilet with its rusting outside bolt:

These are the buses that the locals use:

The home of an ordinary Cuban

An "ordinary Cuban" is someone who does not have access to tourist dollars.  The "One Percent" in Cuba consists of the Communist Party elite and those employed in tourism.  For example we met one electrical engineer driving a vintage Cadillac taxi, who reckoned he made US$1,500 a month - 75 times the average Cuban wage of US$20.

These pictures were taken on a bad day for the family.  Their twenty year old fridge had just broken down.  The good news is that there are actually fridges for sale in the government stores.  The bad news is that they cost over US$500.  This family (having no relatives in Miami) could never dream of coming up with that sort of money.

Their pride and joy was a new LG twin tub washing machine of the sort that our parents used to use in the 60s.  Their son went to work in Venezuela to pay for it.  He said he would not risk his life going back there again.

It was not all doom and gloom.  Every July and December there is a big boozy fiesta to celebrate the killing of the piglet they have growing in their back yard:

Bookshops, where "History is told by the Winners" - over and over

Entering a bookshop is a joy because you know there will be authors you've never heard of, ideas you've never thought of.  The opposite is the case in Cuba.

If I blow up the words on this journal, you can get a flavor:

Che Comandante

Not because you’ve fallen

Is your light less towering.

A flaming horse

sustains your guerilla sculpture

between the winds and the clouds of the Sierra.

Not for being quieted have you become silence.

And not because they burn you,

They conceal you under the ground,

They hide you 

In cemeteries forests, wastelands,

they’re going to keep us from finding you.

Che Comandante,

our friend.

The United States laughs

With its rejoicing teeth.  But suddenly

It turns restlessly in its bed

Of dollars.  Its laughter

Hardens into a mask,

And you great metallic body

Rises, disseminates

Sometimes, I could just kill for a full stop.

The "Bandit Wars" of Fidel and Franco

More faithful readers might recall that Michele and I had the great good luck last year to go on a walking holiday hosted by Chris Stewart, author of the best seller “Driving over Lemons”.  Digressing for a second, Chris is one of those rare authors who is as affable and witty in real life, as he is on the printed page.

In this photograph, Chris is providing context to the plaque put up in memory of two Guardia Civil officers shot and killed in the Alpujarras mountains.  After the Spanish Civil War, some Republican combatants fled to the Alpujarras rather than face certain death at the hands of Franco’s victorious Nationalist forces.  Local villagers, Chris explained, were not allowed to buy more than a day’s worth of provisions at a time, so that they would not have enough food to share with the fugitives.  In the end the fugitives were nearly all hunted down and killed.  But of course the only memorial we get to see, is to two Guardia Civil officers from the victorious side.  Losers do not get to write history.

Ironically, given the very different  ideologies involved, history repeated itself in Cuba’s so called “War against the Bandits” (1959 to 1965).  The “Bandits” in question were insurgents who did not share Fidel’s ideology and who hid out in the Escambray mountains.  According to Wikipedia, “Castro employed overwhelming force, at times sending in as many as 250,000 government troops.[11] The insurgency was eventually crushed by the Castros' use of vastly superior numbers. Some of the insurgents ultimately surrendered, but they were immediately executed by firing squad. Only a handful managed to escape.”

The only reason I became aware of this tragic chapter, was that we bumped into a woman whose two brothers were “Bandits” killed by Fidel’s forces in 1962.  Her father survived but was sent to prison in 1965.  The conditions in prison were not easy.  He died shortly after being released in 1982.  This woman eventually made a life for herself, but only by rigidly refusing to ever breathe a single word on the subject of politics.

Pets in Cuba

One endearing habit that Cubans have, is to take their caged birds for a walk:

In Cuba, even the dogs need identity papers: