July 22, 2010 · 2:34 pm

Es Cuba Mi Amiga*

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I love Latin America. I’ve been traveling there as tourist, scholar, reporter, and guidebook writer for 30 years. I dedicated my absurdly expensive stint with higher education to its history and politics. I’ve visited almost every country and know many intimately. Each is different and captivating in its way, it goes without saying. But of all the countries south of ‘El Norte,’ none compares to Cuba.

I should know, I’ve been living here since 2002.

I speak Cuban and know the best scams. (You won’t learn ‘¡¿cuál es la mecánica asere?!‘ studying Spanish in Antigua, homestay or no). My family has a ration book and I commute to meetings in ’56 Buicks. I know where to buy condoms for a penny and procure black market gas. Like anywhere, such practicalities can be learned over time. But the charm of a place, the underlying magic that makes here thrum at a higher frequency than there, dwells within the people.

—–

Bright and early Monday morning, I make my way in a tinny old Lada to the travel agency. Like everywhere in Latin America, errands are best run in the morning lest the lights go, the building springs a leak, or the workers take a 6-hour siesta. I’m not surprised to find the agency next to the Artificial Rain Augmentation office. Es Cuba, after all.

At 8:45 the small, windowless room is already packed – there are four times more people than chairs. As usual, it’s sweltering and the air conditioning is broken.

A bleach blond with two young girls in tow is ceded one of the coveted seats. Her daughters play tope, tope, tope while she chats with the agent. Purchasing a simple plane ticket here is a slow, inefficient process. There’s not a computer in sight, just a single phone, and tickets are written out by hand. Transactions are in cash, meaning at this moment there are of thousands of dollars secreted in bras, stuffed into envelopes, and tucked inside jackets all around me.

To pass the time, we talk about the weather, where to buy rice, and the new soap opera. Those keeping mum are either not Cuban or have been gone so long they’ve lost their local chops – talking to strangers while waiting is both hobby and sport here.

The dyed-blond mom isn’t having much luck today. Each time Inés María tries to ring the central office – where the computers live assumedly – the line is busy. She replaces the handset and asks Blondie what grade the girls are in. With each new client’s arrival, the office grows hotter. A woman wearing the agency’s colors enters at half past nine, proffering a tiny cup of sweet dark coffee to Ines María who immediately offers Blondie a sip.

‘It is so hot in here,’ Inés María says to everyone and no one. She picks up the phone, determined to resolve the problem.

‘Hola amor. This is your colleague in the sauna calling. Can you come check on this AC? It’s so hot I’m ready to take my clothes off in front of all these clients and it’s gonna go porno. It won’t be pretty!’

She signs off with kisses for Mr Fix It’s family and wishes his grandmother a quick recovery.

Blondie’s girls are getting restless. The older one says she has to go to the bathroom.

‘It’s right down the hall, sweetie,’ Inés María tells her.

Typically – for Cuba – the 8- and 6-year old leave without adult accompaniment to find the public bathroom. We resume talking about the weather. Suddenly the younger girl is back.

‘Mom, she needs toilet paper,’ she announces to the now overflowing office. ‘She has to poop.’

Needing a personal, portable supply of toilet paper; talking openly about bowel movements; sharing conversation and coffee with strangers while waiting a couple of hours to purchase a plane ticket: this is normal. This is Cuba.

*This post will appear in the forthcoming ebook anthology of top Latin American bloggers being edited and published by Steven Roll of travelojos. If you’d like to be notified when it’s released, drop me a line.

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July 16, 2010 · 1:00 pm

Coño, It’s Hot

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‘Going native’ is a slow, oftentimes imperceptible process. You might not even notice the subtle adjustments – those natural-for-the-context changes that living in a foreign culture forces over time.

For me here in Havana, the first manifestations were in my wardrobe: hemlines got shorter, heels got higher, and everything got tighter and scandalously more scanty. Gradually, I came to grasp the necessity of the visita (see note 1) and found the natural rhythm of Cuban time (15 to 30 minutes late as a general rule. Such tardiness differs from the Cuban no-show which is a surprisingly common trait to which I have yet to warm). It took me longer to get used to discussing menstruation and death with acquaintances and even strangers, but eventually I did.

But I resist some. I’ve always said aloud and to myself that the moment Cuba and its peculiarities compel me to lie, I’m outta here. And I’ve never cottoned to the homophobic slant and slang which is still horrifyingly acceptable here. Yes, Virginia, maricón is a dirty word.

Some cultural tendencies however can’t be resisted indefinitely. They creep in and over you, like moss enveloping a stone, until one day you realize, ‘I’m doing it.’

Last year, after seven summers, I started complaining about the heat.

‘!Dios mio. Que calor!

and

‘!Que calor, cojone!’

and

‘It’s really hot, isn’t it?’ I’d start asking in that Cuban way that awaits no response.

It’s probably not surprising that I first perceived the change in my demeanor last summer: August 2009 was the hottest in 40 years. We’re talking triple digits in the shade. What my friend Ian calls a 24-hour Bikram yoga class. This might not sound bad to you. Maybe you’re reading this in an AC’d office or riverside on your iPhone. Perhaps you’re in cool Buenos Aires or at altitude somewhere in the Alps or Andes. If so, count your blessings.

At 9am here, the mercury is already past 90°F and the soupy air is a challenge to breathe. Even moving at a pace I call Cuban summer slow, rivulets of sweat cleave my chest and hair is plastered to my neck. It makes people, myself included, a little loco this heat. Tempers tend to flare as temperatures rise and drivers act stupid. I don’t know why, but as a rule, the hotter it is, the worse people here drive. And at ridiculous speeds. The only thing I can figure is that they’re trying to get as much wind entering their vehicle as possible since few cars here have AC (see note 2).

It melts gum and trashes elastic this Havana heat. All my bra straps are buckled and my husband returns home from work with salty white Rorschach stains on his Angela Davis t-shirt. Upper lips are forever beaded and hand fans work furiously during these dog days of summer. Chocolate, needless to say, doesn’t fare well.

Cold showers don’t help – I’m sweating even as I towel off. Besides, ‘cold’ is a misnomer since here in Havana, most water tanks are on the roof, beholden to the sun’s brutal rays. What comes from the shower pipe in July is too hot to handle. Ironic: in the winter I can’t get a hot shower and in the summer I’m jonesing for a cold one.

Things that usually come easy to me – sleeping, thinking, fucking (not in that order, obviously) – are nearly impossible in this heat. Cooking is also a bitch and I often wonder why gazpacho and ice coffee haven’t caught on here. These are the things that expose Cuba’s isolation. Our lumbering Russian AC, circa height of the Cold War, helps only a little. Maybe I’ve got the Cyrillic knobs and levers figured wrong?

Summer in Cuba, it must be said, is a hot, gnarly bitch. But you take the good with the bad and I think I’ll do just that: the hubby and I have an after-work date to get wet at the local swimming hole on Havana’s western shore.

Stay cool!

Notes

1. The ‘visita’ is a key cultural concept here and a major factor in contemporary daily life – it’s one of the few things that can’t be politicized, legislated, or blamed on the embargo. At its most basic, visiting is a friendly ritual that keeps people connected and informed (or at least gossiping). It’s rarely scheduled, but is rather a spontaneous drop in on friends and loved ones to chat and catch up while drinking dollhouse-sized cups of sweet dark coffee. Some of my favorite people to visit are Teresita and Carmita.

2. But some unexpected ones do: I was stunned silent the other day as I climbed into a collective taxi on my way home from a meeting. It was a ’56 Buick with all leather interior and kicking AC the driver had rigged himself. Those clever Cubans!

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July 12, 2010 · 9:44 am

The Corrective Cut

“Tell me the truth. You took scissors to your own hair, didn’t you?” (see note 1)

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“Ay querida,” I tell my new favorite hairdresser in that mix of English and Spanish that comes naturally to the bi-cultural. “Is it that bad?”

She meets my gaze in the mirror and gives an unequivocal nod.

Ingrid grows wide-eyed as I explain Anabel’s lazy layering technique and scissor-happy strategy – indignities which were foisted on me nine months prior in an upscale Havana salon.

“Tsk tsk,” is the sum of her response. Seems there’s some sort of unspoken hairdresser solidarity that prevents her from dissing a faceless colleague, despite the butcher job she will now proceed to try and fix.

We talk at length – about my lifestyle, my outlook, and my hair-related derring-do. How short am I willing to go? Bangs or no bangs? Ingrid blanches when I tell her I don’t own a blow dryer. Luckily she recovers quickly.

“I’ve cut lots of Chinese hair – don’t worry. We’ll achieve maximum volume with the cut. No extra product or tools needed.”

And she gets busy. It takes over an hour and some clever techniques to correct the god awful mess I’ve been sporting since October. It immediately becomes clear, however, that this is simply the first of a pair of corrective cuts I’ll have to endure (and pay for) to repair damage done to me in that private Havana salon that shall continue to remain nameless. Even in Ingrid’s able hands, my head is somewhat of a lost cause – the layers are so drastically uneven they remind me of the laughable styles favored by the pseudo rebels at 23 & G (see note 2).

Sure, Ingrid’s work is costing me $45 instead of the $5 I paid the bedazzled bunny of a hairdresser Anabel, but it is worth every penny. Even here capitalist truths rule: you get what you pay for.

Thanks mujer for the killer haircut and for finally giving me something positive to say about Miami! (see note 3).

Notes

1. If possible, Ingrid’s question was even more endearing than my 12-year old niece’s observation from a week before: “Aunt Conner! From the back you look like a teenager!” Bless both their hearts.

2. Calles 23 & G in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood is where tweens and teens congregate by the hundreds to get tipsy on rum, flirt and maybe sneak a couple of cigarettes. All very vanilla, but interesting to see what the Cuban youth are up to these days. My conclusion? Not much.

3. If you ever have a longish layover in Miami, head to Angelo’s Hair Port in Terminal E and ask for Ingrid. Tell her the NYquina who lives in Havana sent you!

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June 25, 2010 · 12:56 pm

Slowtown

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Occasionally people ask me how I do it – how I can afford to travel without having a “real job” (and I’m unsure if freelance writing, no matter how lucrative, will ever be considered “real”). Even more to the immediate point, people wonder how I can afford to live in Cuba given our hand-to-mouth subsistence existence. In my mind, there is no puzzle. The answer is obvious, simple even. Keep your overhead low. If you control expenses and practice thrift, there’s likely to be more left over to play with.

This strategy isn’t for everyone. It helps to not be attracted by things, I suppose, to not be predisposed to accumulating gadgets, jewelry, or art let’s say (see note 1). Not being a clothes horse helps, as does not drinking; the hooch can add up – just ask my husband or my good friend 007. In my case, it helps immeasurably that Cuba is a low overhead kind of place. Paradoxically however, so much obligatory, by-default low overhead has created an insatiable desire in Cubans to (over)consume. And it matters little what: life-sized plaster Dalmatians, karaoke systems, plastic flowers, gold chains, shoes, sugar.

To get by and get the stuff they want or need, Cubans are en la lucha. Technically this means to be ‘in the struggle’ or ‘fighting,’ but the short phrase contains a universe of problems and difficulties, entire galaxies of uncertainty, frustration, and doubt. But being en la lucha also implies a certain pro-active approach, an intrinsic motivation to ease those troubles and doubt. And not only yours, but those of your family, friends, and neighbors as well. It means you have to inventar, another concept which, coupled with la lucha, encapsulates modern Havana (see note 2). I suppose it’s what outsiders call resourceful. The bottom line is that having so few resources forces you to rely on what’s available.

Here in Havana, relying on what’s available means depending on local suppliers, talent, and ingenuity. The precise elements that have helped create Cuba’s biotech sector, software development capabilities, and organic agriculture model. We are, in short, a slow people, living in a slow town. It’s everywhere: keep your eyes peeled, your nose poised, and your ears open on your next visit and you’ll slip easily into this local world.

From yogurt to honey, bookshelves to shoes, industrious Habaneros provide. Eat locally? We do (and must). Support local businesses? Each and every day. Know your supplier? We invite her in for coffee and a chat. I love this about Havana. I love that it disproves all the neo-liberal vitriol about Cuba not having private industry and small businesses. The place is crawling with entrepreneurs and private concerns. You just have to know what to look for and where to listen for them.

A high pitched, not entirely unmelodious whistle announces the knife sharpener, reminding me of my childhood. Rolling up on his bike and parking in the chiffonade shade of a palm, he sharpens our knives, cleavers, and scissors. By peddling the whet stone around until it gains enough speed to throw off sparks, he deftly angles the blades this way and that until they’re so sharp you have to take care dicing onions and aji cachucha for the bean pot. While he sharpens, we chat. About baseball, the weather, and how’s business?

The same can be said for yogurt. Made fresh in small batches, we ring the doorbell of our yogurt connection whenever we need to re-up. Within moments he lowers a basket on a rope from his third floor balcony. We put 20 pesos (see note 3) and an empty 1-1/2 liter soda bottle in the basket and give the rope a little tug. Up goes the basket to the third floor. When it’s lowered once again, it holds 1-1/2 liters of the thick, rich, organic yogurt that has my chicken Marsala and cucumber raita fast gaining fame in these parts (see note 4).

Once my imported granola runs out, honey-laced yogurt is my go-to breakfast. Happily, our honey is also produced on a small scale by local beekeepers. Sold in recycled Havana Club bottles for 25 pesos, the amber liquid comes rimmed with a dark band of honeycomb flakes and other natural detritus like the odd bee’s wing. The best honey moves sluggishly when the bottle’s inverted, slowed by its viscosity. Marketing fuels sales; one guy sings of his honey’s Ciénaga origins, another’s bees are sustained solely on chamomile blossoms, supposedly giving the golden elixir subtle floral undertones, though I’ve yet to detect them. Organic, from-the-source food procurement happens daily here: I regularly fry fish caught by my neighbor and eat mangoes from my boss’s backyard tree. Five blocks from my house there’s a friendly old fella who sells homemade wine and vinegar while nearby a wrinkled veteran peddles roasted peanuts from a metal box with a brazier burning live coals on the bottom.

And it’s not only food. Without leaving my living room, I get offers (sang up from the street) to reupholster my sofa and restore my mattress. Need a coffee table or TV stand? No problem. Just dig out that business card the neighborhood carpenter slipped under the door the other day. A favorite sundress can be repaired or replicated by the seamstress two doors down and a pair of sexy, strappy sandals procured from the family of renowned cobblers who pass through every now and then.

And so it goes. Our coveted Bic lighters are refilled at the market in that ingenious Cuban way, our aprons are made by friends of friends, even car parts are fashioned by machinists pounding them out in their garage-cum-workshop down the street. I love living here and living slow.

It’s funny though. As the ‘developed’ world moves snail-like towards this model, Cuba is fast moving away from it. Inevitable? Probably. Lamentable? Definitely.

Notes

1. Art is a different ballgame, actually. I would buy pieces that really move me – and living in Cuba, believe me, I’ve been moved, repeatedly – if I could afford it.

2. I’ve said it many times before, but it bears repeating: what I know intimately is Havana, a reality which in many ways can’t be extrapolated to the rest of Cuba. Just like New York isn’t the United States and Port-au-Prince isn’t Haiti (especially these days), Havana can’t be considered representative of Cuba. Nevertheless, after hanging out with doctors from Holguín who own a cow or two to provide milk for their family and naweys from Guantánamo who earn their living initiating foreigners into Santería, I suspect that la lucha and inventing are fundamental in those far flung places too.

3. About 85 cents USD.

4. This is one of the six or so dishes on my private restaurant menu. Known as a paladar in Cuba, my husband and I fantasize about opening a low-key, high-standard private restaurant serving a selection of my top tried and true dishes. In addition to this Indian delight, other candidates include tea-smoked chicken, snapper Veracruz and veggie lasagne, plus desserts like dulce de leche cheesecake and blondies a la mode. We could even spin off the ex-pat cookbook! Interested in investing? Contact me.

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June 7, 2010 · 10:47 am

The Newborn, The Survivor, & The Runner-Up

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It’s hot. I’m tired. I’m working mucho and earning poco. I miss my familia. And I still haven’t had a vacation since Haiti. I worry. For Cuba. For Guatemala. For Haiti. For the turtles caught in the oil spill.(see note 1)

I, for one, (and maybe you too), could use some levity right about now. So here you go, three little stories – all recent, all true – brought to you by your friends here in Havana.

1. It’s a girl!

It took her a little longer than the usual 40 weeks to join our world but my niece Isabella finally made it here on May 27th, right around cocktail hour. Thatta girl! She weighed in at 7 lbs, 6 oz and is long like a string bean and as pink and soft as a baby should be.

It’s fitting that her first breath was taken at the Hospital Maternidad Obrera in the heart of Marianao where numerous cousins, aunts, uncles and more distant relatives of hers were also born. I got the shooting-up-of-eyebrows response from more than one Cuban when I mentioned the hospital attending my sister-in-law. I had heard stories and Marianao does have a certain rep (not entirely unjustified). I knew a couple of the other hospitals in the barrio (El Militar and Juan Manuel Marquez, a pediatric hospital which I never, ever want to see the inside of again. Not due to the conditions, but rather the trauma and sadness that haunt those halls) and they definitely have their shortcomings. Isabella, however, was my first birth, and I wasn’t acquainted with this maternity hospital.

The parents-to-be actually chose Maternidad Obrera, which was a surprise to me, until I learned it’s one of the few Havana hospitals where the father is allowed to be in the delivery room.

I was encouraged.

The expectant couple was also taking birthing classes at the hospital administered by a real pro – one of those buxom, loving nurses with a brood of her own and decades of experience helping mothers-to-be enjoy safe, fearless births.

“You have to be able to anticipate and interpret your baby’s needs,” she told her class. “He won’t pop from your womb saying ‘hey ma! give me a buck for a pacifier!'”

Each class ended with breathing and yoga exercises. Nurse Betty encouraged fathers to attend. And they did: with jeans slung low enough to flash their knock-off Hilfiger briefs and bloodshot eyes hidden behind absurdly large, white plastic sun glasses, Marianao’s machos came to learn birthing techniques alongside their jevas.

I was encouraged.

When we got word the caesarian was underway, we charged towards Maternidad Obrera. Architecturally it’s fascinating, with curves like those the women inside had lost long ago and stone benches built into the walls of the waiting room. It had received a recent face lift, including a new paint job (baby blue – machismo, as a rule, still rules…) and was, I have to say, spiffy. There was a pair of moms to each small, clean room sharing an en suite bath. Each baby had a crib pushed up against the wall at the foot of her mom’s bed, alongside a couple of chairs for feeding and visitor time.

It was still muy Cubano of course: stray dogs wandered into the lobby at will and visitors – even expectant moms – smoked strong black tobacco cigarettes inside the hospital. The bathrooms often had no water, but you guessed that already, right? Men with cameras slung around their necks peddled portrait services room to room ($1 for standard snaps; $2 for Photoshopped shots, including one that pasted your baby into the arms of Jesus) and the baby blue halls echoed with the click, click, click of female visitors arriving in their come-fuck-me-shoes.

My favorite folkloric moment though, was when a leathery guy came into the room displaying scores of azabache on a hangar. $1 a piece for these small, safety pin charms that get fastened to the back of newborns’ shirts to ward off the evil eye. The hospital itself also offers on-site ear piercing which is either charming and handy or disturbing and invasive, depending on your perspective. Isabella’s parents went for it, though for me she was just as beautiful as could be before those gold studs got punched into her little lobes.

2. Two – always better than one

Not too long ago we hosted a small, lively dinner party. There was me, my husband, our friend Camilo the taxi driver, Yusleidy the actress, and Miriam the veterinarian and cancer survivor. Our conversation ranged far and wide over the terrain of contemporary Cuba. Camilo and the hubby tussled over the music scene (my guy: “it’s vapid.” Camilo: “you’re too nostalgic.”); Mirima lamented the disappearance of black market yogurt; and we all agreed the national volleyball team has a hard season facing them.

In a quiet moment, Yusleidy launched into a tirade about the state of Cuban television. She knows of what she speaks: with that universally winning trifecta of youth, beauty, and talent, “Yusy” is an actress who’s known success on Cuban stage and screen. But her three current projects have been shelved for lack of funds and the one that did get the
green light got away. She let loose her frustration over my Chicken Marsala.

“He gave the part to Fulana de Tal. She can’t act! The only thing she has going for her are those huge tits!”

“Two! Two tits!” interjects Miriam, she of the recent mastectomy. “Tremendous advantage!”

The table erupts into howls of laughter that continue as Miriam regales us with another breast-related tale.

One night during her second round of chemo, Miriam went out with friends to a trendy bar. It was precisely for these types of occasions that she donned the red wig that trailed halfway down her back (children’s birthday parties were another – ‘don’t want the bald lady scaring the wee ones,’ she tells us). Leaving the trendy bar to hop to another, a strapping fellow leaning against a lamp post apprised my friend.

“Come with me baby and I’ll give you a big surprise.”

Miriam imagined getting him alone and stripping off her wig and whipping out her falsie.

“My man, the surprise I’d give you would be bigger, much bigger!”

3. And the winner is…

I have a friend I call 007. He’s one of those cool, super mellow fellows that gains entry into the best parties, rarely gets ruffled, and never misses a beat. He may or may not actually be a spy.

So it was totally par for the course that he would attend the Miss Africa Beauty Contest held last week in Havana. Most of the contestants were students from the Latin American Medical School (see note 2) hailing from countries such as Namibia, Nigeria, Guinea Conakry and other hard-to-locate countries. The contest was hosted at the Meliá Cohiba, one of Havana’s few five star hotels.

“Swanky,” I say to 007.

“Terrific spread. Plus all the red, white or rosé you could drink,” he responds.

I was intrigued.

“What were you doing there? Aside from drinking your fill?”

“My friend was a contestant.”

Why was I not surprised?

“Did she win?”

“Second place.”

This also was not a surprise. 007 knows a lot of beautiful women. Second place netted his friend a BlackBerry. The winner took home a laptop and third place, an iPod Shuffle. Not bad for being beautiful.

“There was a question and answer session too,” 007 tells me.

“What did they ask?”

“Idiotic stuff about Africa like who is hosting the World Cup and what was the only western hemisphere country to send troops to Africa in the 70s.”

But just in case these African beauties didn’t know South Africa is soccer central these days or that Cuba helped liberate Angola, they were given a little help: when 007 went to 2nd place’s home afterwards to celebrate, he spied her pageant materials on the kitchen table, including the list of questions and answers she’d face after parading about in a swimsuit.

In case you had any doubt, Havana is full of beautiful females these days.

Notes
1. Is it me or is it feeling more and more like end of days here on our one and only planet? Oh, those Mayans have me worried with their December 2012 hocus pocus.

2. The Latin American Medical School (ELAM) was founded in Havana in 1998 to provide six year medical school scholarships to poor kids from around the world. To date, nearly 10,000 doctors have graduated from this school completely debt-free. They are expected to practice in remote and underserved communities once they finish. If you’re interested, I’ve written extensively on this socially responsible medical school for my day job.

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May 17, 2010 · 10:15 am

The Greening of Cuba?!

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My knickers are in a bit of a twist over here and it’s not due to the chronic butter shortage or colossal heat (both of which are cause for loud complaint, believe me). What’s got me riled up these days is more macro. Regular readers know that I (try to) let most of what Cuba hands down roll off my back. But I could go to the mat on this one.

Golf.

Cuba recently confirmed what rumor had held for a couple of years already: moving forward, the cornerstone of the country’s tourism strategy will be to develop 10 golf courses across the island. This grand plan was revealed by tourism Minister Manuel Marrero at FIT – Cuba’s international tourism fair (see note 1). I had hoped it wasn’t true. (I also hope to win the Pulitzer and earn the Cuban Medal of Friendship someday. Don’t mean it’s gonna happen). But this golf scheme seems particularly hair brained to me.

Let’s review the facts, shall we?

WATER
A conventional 18-hole golf course requires 312,000 gallons of water a day (that’s 1,181,048 liters for my more advanced readers) to keep it green. I knew they were resource-suckers these playgrounds for the rich, but 312,000 gallons a day?!

Meanwhile, back on our little island…

“a [Cuban] government report released in mid-April said large areas of Cuba have been suffering the effects of a prolonged drought that began in November 2008. The shortage of rain has led to a significant drop in water levels in the country’s reservoirs and has hurt the availability of groundwater, affecting water supplies for more than 500,000 people…The Meteorology Institute’s Climate Centre, said that the overall scarcity of rainfall from April 2009 to March 2010 ‘has affected 68 percent of the national territory’…while 2009 had the fourth lowest rainfall total in 109 years, according to official sources” (see note 2).

LAND
An 18-hole course requires between 140 and 200 acres (57 to 80 hectares) of land – half of this is maintained turf. Multiply that by 10 courses and you’ve got a healthy chunk of Cuba’s territory. Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t that land be put to better use raising cattle or homes?

PESTICIDES
Keeping those greens green requires about 30 different types of pesticides. These poisons have the potential to contaminate ground water while destroying wetlands, mangroves, and other habitat. And they’re seriously bad for us bipeds too: a scientific study found golf groundskeepers have higher mortality rates than the general population for lung, prostate, large intestine, and brain cancers, with some non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma thrown in for good measure (see note 3). Meanwhile, a study has yet to be conducted on golfers, who are also regularly exposed to these toxins.

The pesticide question scares me – have you ever seen them fumigate for mosquitoes here? Clouds of chemicals shot from a “bazooka” into each room of a closed home without a scrap of protective clothing or gear in sight. Worrisome, this pesticide-dependent “sport” called golf.

PUSHBACK
From the Bahamas to the Philippines, environmentalists and land reformers are saying NO! to golf courses (sometimes violently). Given global trends, Cuba is appearing pretty backwards with this golf strategy (see note 4). I’m a golf dissident, I admit, but given the few facts I’ve presented here, shouldn’t we all be? Maybe if there was more information available about this strategy, it would temper my position: where will these courses be located? Who’s designing them? Will alternative methods be employed?

Alas and alack.

Golf is a multi-billion dollar business and Cuba needs revenue. I get it. But so that we might be as forward thinking in our backwardness, I’d like to offer you, Mr. Minister, the following policy recommendations:

– Employ alternative designs that use fewer chemicals
– Consider going organic – Cuba wouldn’t be the first
– Use only drought-tolerant grasses and native plants
– Irrigate with grey water
– Conduct independent feasibility and environmental impact studies for each proposed site (and be prepared to follow recommendations, including scrapping plans for sites that threaten habitat, migratory flyways, etc)

I repeat: I think the Cuban golf strategy is folly. Who’s going to play Pinar del Río when there’s Pebble Beach? Or Holguín instead of Augusta? Some, I’m sure (including those people of color and Jewish-ness denied access to US links). But enough to sustain and make profitable ten courses?

And is this what we really want? Throngs of sorta sporty men in pastel plaids and unfortunate loafers laying claim to thousands of Cuba’s green acres for their individual pleasure? The whole plan just seems too extreme, too contradictory.

Leading up to the Cuban tourism fair, Spanish golfer Álvaro Quiros gushed: “golf could become a new attraction for tourists visiting Cuba because of…the magnificent climatic conditions on the island all year round” (see note 5). Excuse me, Álvaro? Have you heard of a hurricane? How about drought?

Extreme, contradictory and…hair brained.

And while I’ve got your ear, Mr. Minister, would you please consider putting an end to the capture and use of dolphins for those swim with dolphin programs? Or haven’t you seen The Cove?

Notes

1. The week-long affair was themed ‘Authentic Cuba,’ which is hilarious for so many reasons. And ironic: how, exactly, is golf (and yacht clubs which also figure in the grand plan) ‘authentically Cuban?’ But as always, truth is stranger than fiction and the irony of the ‘Cuba auténtica’ press junket/dog and pony show was summed up by a Colombian journalist who whispered dramatically to a reporter friend of mine: ‘do you want to sit in on this interview? I’ve got a guy who’ll talk about the bad things in Cuba for 10 bucks. You pay five and I’ll pay five.’ On second thought, this is probably the most authentic Cuban thing that happened during this journalist’s island jaunt.

2. For full article, see Drought Looming again in Cuba

3. For more see www.beyondpesticides.org/news/daily_news_archive/2004/09_23_04.htm

4. Ditto the blind acceptance of Styrofoam. Until a handful of years ago, I never saw one piece of Styrofoam here. Now it’s everywhere and will be for generations to come. There are advantages to a one-party system. You can integrate health and education efforts for example and you can ban bad shit like Styrofoam with the stroke of a pen. Whatever criticisms you may have of Cuba, who can argue with the wisdom of keeping this evil out of our midst – especially on an island? What, after all, has Styrofoam ever done to improve our lives?

5. This, along with the golfer’s other assertion, that “golf helps to improve the health of practitioners, encourages personal relationships and caring for the environment” qualifies, in my opinion, as some of the stupidest shit ever uttered by a professional athlete. No small feat.

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May 8, 2010 · 11:15 am

DIY Project – Where We’re At

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August, 2012

It has been a while, friends, and quiet on this particular collaborative front. I’ve been crazy busy with all sorts of projects and plans and hadn’t been to my post office box in too long, when I popped in last week. Holy cojones! was there alotta loot in that cajita of mine. Here’s a recap and thanks to these nice folks for taking part; your postcards are in the mail soon!

Letter sent by K Clark

Sent from: New Orleans, 05 Mar 2012

Received: 27 March 2012

Highlight: It’s from NOLA, that’s highlight enough for me!

Letter from R Martynuik

Sent from: Alberta, 28 April 2012

Received: 15 May 2012

Highlight: This was a long, funny letter from someone who caught the Cuba bug, bad not too long ago. I was delighted to receive something from Alberta since Ive been cooking up an article based there for about a decade now…This letter has put gas in my tank to get on it. Thanks chica!

Labor Day Update

So Ive been kind of remiss in my upkeep of the DIY project. Sorry about that folks. But Im back in the saddle and I have to admit, things are arriving (both here and there) with an alacrity hertofore unknown. Case in point:

card sent from reader John
Sent from:Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia on May 20 (that’s how far behind I am!!)
Arrived Havana: June 14, 2010
Highlight: At 15,000+ kilometers, this is the longest travelled contribution to the project.

Shortly after John’s card arrived (and for those of you shaking your head about my slacker approach to the DIY project, please note in comments below that I DID comply with promised card from Havana to Oz, which arrived within 20 or so days. not bad for half way ’round the world!), I got one from DRUM ROLL PLEASE…..

BONNAROO STATION

Funny thing is, it was sent from said station (so says the stamp) on June 30, 2010, but arrived in Havana on July 1, 2010. Two days to hop the Straits? Me thinks there was a lot of blue smoke billowing about that Bonnaroo post office!! Thanks C & N for the card. love it!

NOTE TO READERS: Next year is 10 years of Bonnaroo. Ive never been able to attend. I WANT IN. I have a ride. I have the gear. I have the gumption and you KNOW I have the dancing shoes. I am looking for a sponsor to help get me and the hubby (rock festival virgin! help pop his cherry!) to TN. Ill blog about it. Ill write articles about it. You’ll be the famous patron! You’ll create the memory of a lifetime. Whaddya say?! Contact me here if you’re interested!

+++++

QUICKIE UPDATE

Went to old 6464 yesterday. What a haul! A new issue of Good
and three postcards.

Seems things are going along smoothly:

1. From Heathrow

2. From Connecticut

3. From Moscow

All postcards took 2 weeks to arrive.

thanks for participating folks!

+++++

It’s been a long while since I’ve been to the old PO Box – since before Haiti, which in psychological time is like dog years. It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about it. On the contrary. My dear friend A out in LA told me she sent me a package – full of well-crafted novels and thought-provoking magazines no doubt – which is my porn (and as rare here in Havana).

So it was with baited breath (and sweat-slicked back: summer has suddenly descended on Havana and things are heating up. Coming out of the shower sweating is a bitch – something I’ll kvetch about in a subsequent post) that I rolled up to Box 6464 at Havana’s main post office. I should point out here that my movements were being recorded. Not by any sinister state apparatchik, but by journalists Ken Hegan and Robin Esrock.

Seems I may be leaping on to the boob tube sometime in the future and we spent a day together filming us doing Cuban things – resolving, shopping, smoking – to see if I’m what? Photogenic? Informed? Funny? It was a gas, no matter. Anyway, these two cool cats are here for FIT, the over-the-top dog and pony show of a tourism fair in Cuba – more on this in a later post as I’ve much to say on the issue.

Back at the post office, they were as excited as me, I think, to see what treasures the box held. Lo and behold, major treats awaited! One was a letter from a reader participating in this DIY postal project whereby we’re testing the Obama and Castro administrations’ pledge to improve postal services between the two countries. This little card is significant for several reasons: first, it’s from someone I don’t know, so that’s a first. Second, it’s from South Florida. We’re talking 90 miles away people; this innocuous envelope took over 3 weeks to get here. It was sent on March 8 (International Women’s Day incidentally, when I was dancing salsa with my doctor friends in our Port-au-Prince tent camp) and arrived on April 1. This means it traveled, on average, 3.75 miles a day. Joke’s on me, I guess about improved postal relations.

Thanks O Anderson of Ft Lauderdale for participating in our little experiment. A postcard from Havana is on its way!

The other surprise was the arrival of my issue of Good Magazine. If you don’t know this publication, get with it NOW. This is the Slow issue, dedicated to slowing down, slow cities, slow food and all that jazz. It was slow in getting here too, but I’m not complaining. Better late than never. And as I started pouring through its fascinating pages (this is after Ken, Robin and I had freckle bonded and gorged ourselves on Coppelia. That is to say, long after the camera was switched off) and what do I see on page 12, in the Dialogue section? A postcard I sent to the editors on September 29 last year imploring them to keep publishing the print version.

I feel like a butterfly somewhere just flapped its wings and the wider world is going to start (re)exploring the art and joy of letter writing. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m retro or pre-curve. Can I be both?

+++++

UPDATE FOUR! (post Haiti)
Finally! One of my postcards sent up north arrived (and with comically large pope stamp which contrasted nicely with the B&W image of the rebel army in the Sierra Maestra).
Sent from: Habana Cuba on February 14 or so, 2010
Arrived in Queens, NY: March 23, 2010

UPDATE THREE!
Well folks, I’m hours away from taking off for Haiti but I wanted to let you know I had a nice little (record-breaking!) surprise in my PO box today. In the interest of brevity (haiti prep continues apace!):

Card with lovely family photo from A Lee
Sent from: Albany, NY on December 10, 2009
Arrived Havana: February 19, 2010 (slowest to date!)
Highlight:Stamped with a never before seen message in bright red ink: “Missent to Bermuda.” This is one well traveled card!

A Lee – you’ll have to wait for me to return from Haiti for your missive from here. So far, none of the people below have received theirs as far as I know

!UPDATE DOS!

Hi folks! New development on the DIY project front…

Postcard from LP colleague Zora O’neill
Sent from: Bali, Indonesia on January 20, 2010
Arrived Havana: February 13, 2010 (note: this is the date stamped on the postcard as being received at my post office, not the day I went around to collect it)
Highlight: The stamps are beautiful, four color floral affairs and the 1657 temple on the postcard is a wonder. Also, this is the first item I’ve received from someone I’ve never met.
Upshot: Nora, fellow LP writer/blogger and New Yorker is a fast rising star – thanks for taking out the time from Forkin Fantastic to participate in our little project! Also, her postal travel time is neck and neck with the goodies from LA – and came WAY farther.

UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!

I’ve got mail!

Well, a big hola to all my readers (and writers) from across the Straits. I’ve at last been able to visit the old P.O. Box and what a haul! Our little DIY US-Cuba postal collaboration is bearing its first fruit. Interestingly, only items from the two coasts have arrived (once again, proving that middle America is a wasteland. Kidding!). Interestingly de nuevo, only items from people I already know happened to get here. Random, but at least it was speedy.

So here are the preliminary results:

Package from my dear friend AD
Sent from: Los Angeles on December 14, 2009
Arrived Havana: December 28, 2009
Highlight: A package! What more do you need to know? OK, it contained a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace that I can’t wait to read (can I BE him? please?) and a super cool envirosax reusable shopping bag unit with 10% of the sale going to the surfrider foundation (www.surfrider.org). I had to pay 1.5 pesos (that’s about 6 cents USD) to get the package from the nice lady behind the glass. Like all packages entering Cuba, this one was opened by customs, inspected and resealed with the aforementioned official form inside detailing what is/was in the package and the state in which it was found. Interestingly, for the first time, there was a problem with the form. Namely, it wasn’t mine! Instead, the form corresponded to Zeida Paez Garcia in Matanzas. Her package contained bags and jars, books, magazines, catalogs, and postcards. I like the contents of my package much better, sorry Zeida.
Upshot: Nothing cheers up like a package from a friend! AND it seems LA PO wins for speedy delivery – just two weeks (or maybe that it was a package had something to do with it)

Long, fun letter from my creative friend AL
Sent from: NY, NY on December 16, 2009
Arrived Havana: January 12, 2010
Highlight: So many! This letter was written in stages during AL’s performance piece enacted during 24 hours riding the F train – I especially enjoyed reading about her pulling into Coney Island at 3:37 am and awaiting the next train, wondering if it will be on time, observing all the other New Yorkers wondering the same thing. (It pulled in promptly at 3:41. Rudy Giuliani – he did get the trains running on time). Bonus: the original Keith Herring Free South Africa postcard, circa 1985. Thanks A!
Upshot: Anything arriving in under a month is pretty good in my opinion.

Postcard from my old friend C
Sent from: Westchester, New York on December 23, 2009
Arrived Havana: January 28, 2010
Highlight: Hubby out in a blizzard at the Jet’s game – some folks never give up hope!
Upshot: Took a month, but hey, it’s the holidays.

So far so good. To post offices and their employees on both sides of the straits, I say: keep up the good work! (If anyone is reading this in Miami or elsewhere in southern Florida, I invite you to participate in our little project: it would be fun to see how long it takes for a card or letter to travel that interminable 90 miles) And to my correpsondents: your postcard is on its way!

—–
DIY US-CUBA COLLABORATION

So have you heard Obama and Company espousing ‘change’ towards Cuba? Newsflash! It’s a whole bunch of hooey, (despite pundits’ claims to the contrary). OK, maybe not a whole bunch, but mostly. For instance, absolutely nothing floated so far by the United States is bringing my dear friends Karna and Joseph any closer to my doorstep or my husband any closer to my Mom’s (see note 1). Nor has anything changed that would help bring life-saving medicines to Cuban kids with cancer or allow me to access my bank account. My knickers do tend to get in a twist, therefore, when I read about the supposed strides being made. From where I’m sitting, it’s the same old story, save for a new protagonist of color instead of the rich, old white dudes who have been ruling the free world for what seems like forever (see note 2).

But I can tell you from years of firsthand experience that things have improved markedly in one area: mail service. Sounds terribly unsexy and 19th Century, I know, but if you’ve ever had a smile sneak across your lips or a flutter erupt in your gut when a letter from a friend or lover graces your mailbox, you know receiving mail can be one of life’s small but great pleasures. Letter writing is also one of our few remaining acts of pure reciprocity – usually you have to write a letter to get a letter.

And living where I do, without YouTube or podcasts, Skype and webcam capabilities (see note 3), it’s a downright thrill to receive something “from the other side.” Imagine my delight peering into my post office box (a gilded iron affair with the Cuban coat of arms on the door) recently to behold a little pink envelope sent by my youngest niece from summer camp. No matter that she was already assembling her Halloween costume by the time it reached Box 6464 at Havana’s main post office. Or the record-breaking postcard sent by my good friend Claudia from the heights of Denver that took a full three months to reach me.

But arrive it did, which brings me to the pollo of the arroz con pollo of this post: I contracted my post office box in 2002. In those early years, I received magazines, recipes, letters, photos – even boxes packed with paperback books and CDs friends had culled from their collections. A sheet of paper tucked inside each of those incoming packages informed me that the box had been opened and inspected by Cuban postal authorities. It was all very official, with the standardized, column-filled form itemizing the contents and their condition upon arrival, plus whether any prohibited items had been removed. None ever had and nothing was ever stolen or damaged.

Then, after 3 or 4 similar packages and a couple of years of postal elation or deflation depending on what, if anything, my P.O. box contained, my mail lifeline was choked off. I’d get the occasional postcard from China or South Africa from globetrotting friends and family, but nothing from my compadres up north. Letters were getting lost somewhere in transit. Postcards sent from California, Colorado, New York, and New Hampshire never graced Box 6464. Mom resorted to sending newspaper clippings about the Knicks’ new coach and New Yorker cartoons just to see if they’d get here. Few did. I was dismayed – these handwritten, stamped gestures are like Red Bull for the expat soul (without the nasty taste) and I wanted to know what was up with my dose.

I went to talk to the postmistress. I explained the sudden death of my correspondence.

“But if you’re sending money through the mail…” she commented with a raised eyebrow and ‘what do you expect?’ shrug.

This is the type of foreigner-as-village-idiot comment Cubans sometimes make that gets my Irish up. My first inclination is to look the woman straight in the eye and ask: “¿¡tengo cara de boba?! (do I look like an idiot?!) But since this will likely be my postmistress for life, I must be careful not piss her off.

“No, no. Nothing like that. Just postcards and letters and such.”

I inquire as to whether there have been any staffing or procedural changes at the post office that may account for the lapse.

Negativo.

After months of missives gone missing, people stopped writing. Oh, I’d get a postcard from Kenya or Cambodia now and then, but these were few and far between. More often than not, I’d walk the long marble hallway to the bank of boxes, lean in and see nothing but a dark, empty slot. And so it went until one day, in some obscure way, the information reached me that George W had decreed postal services to Cuba would cease, indefinitely. I imagine there’s some P.O. purgatory somewhere up north piled high with pink envelopes addressed to Cuba by beloved campers and secret banana bread recipes that never found their new home.

Fast forward to 2009. My magazine subscriptions started arriving again and Mom’s clipping about the ongoing Kilauea eruption (see note 4) came at last. Then I got a letter from an old friend.

Finally!! I was experiencing direct, positive results from regime change in the USA.

So I’d like to get some evidence as to how well the US-Cuba mail service accords are working, make it scientific, if you will. Drop me a line and we’ll see how long it takes for a simple letter or postcard to cross the 86 miles of water separating us (see note 5). Some will surely never arrive, but those that do will receive a response from yours truly here in Havana. I’ll be sure to keep readers posted on the results.

Send all letter love (and please! nothing inflammatory or flammable, edible or fragile, dangerous or dissenting) to:

Conner Gorry
Apdo 6464
Habana 6
10600
Habana CUBA

Notes

1. Something that typically gets lost in all the venom and rhetoric is that the US routinely denies tourist visas to Cubans unless they’re over 70, an artist, or musician. My husband and several of my friends – although they traveled to the US on occasion prior to 2002 – can now only dream of visiting because of this unstated, exclusionary policy.

2. In no way do I mean to minimize Obama’s achievement. His election was triumphant and exultant and not wholly expected in that underdog, tear-jerking Hoosiers kind of way. But when it comes to Cuba, he’s singing the same tune – perhaps with more rhythm and style – but in the end, it’s the same regime change, capitalism-is-better-just-admit-it-and-surrender song and dance we’ve been subjected to for 50 years.

3. People (Cubans and foreigners alike) who can afford to use the WiFi at hotels (cost: $7/hr, 2-hr minimum) or access the Internet through a private provider (cost: $36 for 30 hours/month minimum) do have wider access than me to some of these services.

4. Kilauea on Hawaii’s Big Island has been erupting since 1983 – the longest recorded eruption in history. If you have never been to the Big Island, go there, now. And take my guide with you!

5. But wait! Please join in even if you live in Canada or Argentina, France or Hong Kong. After all, the blogosphere has no borders, why should our experiment?

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April 29, 2010 · 9:14 am

Excerpt: Here is Havana, Chapter 3

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Hola Readers. In anticipation of Saturday’s big May Day celebration (always a hoot), I’m posting this second excerpt from my work-in-progress Here is Havana. If you’re interested in reading more, I’ve got several bits up on my website.

You’ll no doubt notice that this excerpt is dated in its way; this section was written in reference to the event that took place on May 14, 2004. Workers of the world unite!

—–

The buses start rolling up at around five. Birds are already chirping though night’s darkness has yet to lift, and I can smell my neighbor’s coffee brewing. Honking horns and gleeful singsong reach us from the street as an interminable line of trucks rumbles past, their flatbeds a sea of straw hats. They’ve been pouring into Havana for the big show since before three this morning. Sleep, needless to say, is elusive.

The night sky has already bled purple, then pink and orange into dawn by the time we’re on the street angling for a bus. All my neighbors look different from their workaday selves: Grandma Sylvia is sporty in her sneakers and jeans and even Tania – famous for her spiked heels and micro-minis courtesy of one Italian lover or another – wears sensible shoes and a sun hat. The street teems with groups of factory workers in matching t-shirts, moms with babies strapped to their chests, and young boys excited to be sprung from school for the rally.

Lanky, whistle-blowing cops usher dangerously-crowded buses to the curb, convinced that a few more people can still squeeze on. Today, few private cars ply the main highway leading to Havana, now choked with trucks and buses packed with the boisterous faithful, making their way towards Vedado. It is after six and already the morning heat is steaming off the pavement when we finally get on a bus. The bumper to bumper traffic goes from a crawl to a standstill and the stagnant air inside the bus hangs heavy with cheap cologne. My neighbor works her fan, wafting ripples of perfumed soap my way.

After twenty minutes we’ve only gone three blocks; our tolerance eroded a block ago. No one can remember the last time Havana saw this type of traffic and the bus chatter quickly turns to marches past. Tens of thousands for Elian and the Pope, many more to protest the Helms-Burton legislation. Cubans mobilize proudly, enthusiastically: 45 years protesting US policies designed to choke or change you will do that. Still, each rally feels different from those that came before and it’s especially true today since George W Bush is viewed as even more cruel than his father.

Nearly an hour later and only a mile or so along, we decide to get off and walk, even though it will add two miles to an already laboriously long parade route. We wade into an ocean of people heading north and west to the Malecón. The pulsating crowd waves small Cuban flags on wooden sticks or big placards depicting Bush as a Nazi, complete with an em dash moustache and SS uniform. We grab flags from a man handing them out in the middle of the street, the current of people flowing around him, and stop for one peso coffee shots on a street corner.

“Hey Chino!” I call out, catching sight of our neighbor leaning against a chipped pillar.

“How’s it going?” he asks, kissing my cheek and clapping my husband on the back.

“It’s hot, eh?!” I comment in that Cuban way that says ‘Damn! I love this infernal place.’

We take pulls of icy fruit drink from Chino’s thermos before melting away into the burgeoning crowd. All around us people are dancing to coronet blasts fattened by a cajón backbeat and laughing despite the heat, long walk, and little sleep the night before. It’s just past 8 o’clock when we’re near enough to the Malecón to smell the sea. Helicopters whoop overhead, drawing our collective gaze to a black man joyously two-stepping on a rooftop overlooking the millions.

The sun is already punishing the crowd by the time we push as close to the parade route as possible, alongside the fancy ice cream parlor facing the Malecón. Mothers console their children with rationed sips of water from old plastic soda bottles wrapped in newspapers to keep it coldish. “Hang in there,” they tell the kids as they hop from swollen foot to swollen foot. More people are arriving all the time, packing us in to a tight, motionless mass.

We can’t see anything beyond the backs and heads in front of us and that nauseating flutter of claustrophobia threatens. I look around to shake the trapped feeling. Fat beads of sweat tremble on the neck folds of the woman to my left. Just in front of her a devilishly handsome young man with hazel eyes and café con leche skin rearranges his arms around his girlfriend. His thinning red t-shirt from marches past reads ‘En Defensa del Socialismo,’ but the only thing he’s defending right now is his girlfriend’s ass from the feral stares of men in the growing, surging crowd. Reedy but round in the right places, with hip bones poking out between low rider jeans and a tight pink camisole, she might be a model somewhere else. She’s laughing in her boyfriend’s ear, showing bright, white teeth. The sweat bead finally drops into the folds of the woman’s neck nearby. I fight the urge to look at her watch or mine. The wait feels interminable.

Nearly three hours have passed since we staked our claim in front of the ice cream parlor and we’re no closer to the official parade route. It’s as if a million of us showed up at the DMV together. My gaze wanders to a shrinking old lady on my right and I almost burst out laughing, punch drunk from the wait, heat, and hunger. She’s wearing cushy orthopedic shoes and a polyester wash ’n wear housecoat – the uniform for women of a certain age here. But what’s so funny is her vintage Diane Von Furstenberg headscarf, tastefully festooned with mauve grapes and muted green leaves. Surreal and odd is the little old lady in classic couture waiting for Fidel. She is looking faint as her husband guides her crepe-y elbow to the curb. When she sits, a pissy smell rises from the gutter. My nose is wrinkling when the loudspeakers boom,

“¡¡Compañeros! y Compañeras!!”

The crowd falls silent. The Diane Von Furstenberg lady stands to attention and the girlfriend breaks from her lover’s embrace. Rapt faces point towards the voice, half a mile off at the “Protestódromo,” but coming in loud and clear over the monitors at our corner.

It is a rousing speech, reverberating with that ardent conviction I’d only heard about, despite having witnessed hours of Fidelista discourse over the years. Styled as an open letter to President Bush, the personalized rhetoric is enormously persuasive – much more so in its way than the laundry list of statistics that usually issue forth. The atmosphere is electric, the crowd around me conducting the energy in silent exaltation.

In less than 45 minutes, the legendary orator transforms an impossibly bored multitude into a riveted crowd, going wild in its condemnation of US policy. When he tells Bush “you cannot mention the word democracy…everyone knows you became President of the United States through fraud,” a roar rises from the crowd, along with a million little Cuban flags. The Malecón is transformed into a rippling sea of red, white and blue. Chants of “Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” erupt when he bellows, “Cuba fights on the side of life in the world; you fight on the side of death.” Then he brings down the hammer, giving me a glimpse of those heady days in the early 60’s: “Since you have decided that the die is cast, I have the pleasure of saying farewell like the Roman gladiators poised to fight in the arena: Hail Caesar! Those who are about to die salute you!” The cheers are deafening and the crowd waves their flags ecstatically as the municipal band strikes up. In these parts, Bush is still known as Caesar.

Suddenly, after more than four hours, we’re moving towards the Malecón. It only takes a few minutes for our small crowd of thousands to feed into the tens of thousands streaming along the waterfront. The breeze tempers the unrelenting sun as we pass the Hotel Nacional and the turreted mansions that were once the seaside refuges of the rich. Finally, our goal is in sight: concrete and sterile, the US Interests Section looks like a high security prison, incongruous among the dowdy, chipped paint abodes of today’s rank and file. Members of the Young (and Not So) Communists line this part of the route, keeping the crowd compacted for full visual effect, encouraging us to wave our flags high. On the Malecón wall, the international press angles for that elusive best shot: the crowd is so enormous, undulating several miles from Vedado to Havana Vieja, it’s hard to capture. A helicopter buzzes the seawall and journalists hanging out the door-less maw capture the spectacle for world viewing, should any network choose to air it.

The crowd is spreading out and breaking up, heading home for a nap or to a cafeteria for cheap, watery beer and burning shots of rum. There is always a fiesta somewhere after rallies, when people get together to tell jokes, analyze events, share a meal, and get shitfaced.

“Do you want to go to Caridad’s party?” I ask my husband as we pass the famous billboard: ‘Señor Imperialists: We are Fearless!’

“Sure,” he responds.

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April 19, 2010 · 9:15 am

Chicharrones are a Drug

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Cracklings, lardons, chicharrones – I don’t care what you call them, fried pork rinds are a drug and should be regulated. At least over here in Havana where I’m double fisting my way to a quadruple bypass. I scare myself, so untamed is my gluttony for these nuggets of greasy bliss. They really are narcotic and I got hooked quick, which is what the best drugs do…

I’d lived quite a while in Cuba – years already – without thinking twice about chicharrones. I’d had them here, there, and elsewhere, but I wasn’t impressed. Like salty poofs with the carne flavor twice removed. What I didn’t know is that the chicharrones I had been eating all those years are known as chicharrones de viento. Loosely translated to mean salty poofs with the meat sabor twice removed.

Imagine my surprise to learn then, that a completely different category – an entirely different universe of chicharrones! – exists out there just waiting for me to discover it. And I have.

For the uninitiated, my new vice are chunks of pork rind and fat – ideally with a Chiclet of meat on top – fried in their own grease. I have an addictive personality, I admit (with the caveat that I’m convinced it’s genetic) but the ferocity with which I was/am hooked is frightening. There was no desire phase. Things went straight to I need it, now. Euphoria? None. In fact, I sicken myself with each sinful square and body and mind are conscious of it, complicit.

I know there are people out there who can relate.

I was in the Yucatan some months ago with the fried pork monkey riding my back like a freckle. In the supermercado they sell 25 different kinds of rinds – from the poofs to something approximating the junk I craved. The latter, while good, were just this side of mass produced. Tasty, but processed, if only a little. Counting my blessings (after all, even a cut drug controls the jones), I left the store, crossed the street and found myself facing a simple kiosk manned by a big, jolly Yucatecan mama carving up all things pig. Ears, entrails, loin and yes. Yes.

I waited my turn making the small talk you make while waiting on line in Latin America. When I was up, I told the jolly mama what I wanted. She looked at me knowingly. Knowingly I tell you! and started heaping the glistening squares onto a swath of newspaper with her bare hands. ‘How much do I owe you?’ I asked as she bundled up the goods. ‘Nothing, it’s on the house.’ Just like a dealer: the first taste is free so you’ll be back, hankering for more.

Not long after, we were at a family celebration here in Havana following the usual script: catching up, sharing stories and a big meal, wrapping up with smokes and singing if Octavio or Jorge feels like pulling out the guitar. On the day in question, we were at the smokes part when the neighbors invited us over for a round of dominoes. When we made our way to the back yard, there was rum and dominoes of course and a platter piled high with empella. Oh my.

Methadone is to heroin what chicharrones are to empella.

What’s so special? Not much – they’re simply super chiquito chicharrones. The stuff I craved cut up really small. Now that I think about it, now that I’m practically dry dreaming of empella, I realize it wasn’t just their diminutive size. It was that each morsel had the little Chiclet of meat on top, which when coupled with the deep fried fat on the bottom…dry dream turns wet.

So I’m just back from Haiti. And although I made three simple welcome home requests (‘salad, salad, salad’), my hubby surprised me with not only an ensalada gigante, but yucca with mojo and a bowl brimming with homemade chicharrones. What a guy (and that’s just the G-rated portion of our programming)!

A couple of days later, my sister-in-law was butchering a quarter pig when she sawed off a huge slab of rind and fat bejeweled with those key cling ons of meat. Now I get my fix right at home.

And home feels very, very good right now.

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April 10, 2010 · 2:51 pm

Jesus is Just Alright by Me

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“Thanks to God, you’re better,” my Haitian friend Madsen tells me when I catch him up on my now-cured explosive diarrhea.

God is very much on the tip of the tongues of most of my Haitian friends and the folks I meet here. Jesus is ubiquitous and more popular (but only slightly) than the NY Lotto numbers – a serious vice in Haiti [see note 1]. Alongside the daily numbers – on buses, in barber shops, taped to tents, tagged on partially fallen walls – the Word of God is found everywhere.

Descending the steep hillside upon which is perched a large, makeshift orphanage where the Cuban team is providing free health services, I see a garage door that proclaims: “God loves us. He saved us.” That’s some heavy food for thought and doesn’t help lift the anvil that’s been pressing on my heart ever since I huffed up that hill to where 347 orphans are ill, thirsty, hungry, and too alone.

I wasn’t expecting this unwavering faith. None of my (scant to be sure) pre-trip research prepared me for the Jesus craze that grips Haiti. Casual conversations peppered with holy references and the massive Sunday migrations through the dust-choked streets by young and old alike, Bibles tucked close, catch me unawares. Heathen though I am, I’m grateful this beleaguered people has something to hold on to. I remember something like envy overtaking me as I walked downtown on 9/12, passing full to overflowing churches. From Tribeca to Cite Soleil, when disaster strikes, believers find succor in their faith.

“You’re just cheap. You should give your salary to the church,” a Haitian medical student teases a Cuban surgeon in the emergency room. My ears prick up at this playful, but certain culture clash unfolding. Turns out the medical student gives 75% of her salary to her church and she is trying to convince the surgeon to follow suit. Her beauty and killer smile don’t win him over to the light and when he asks why she would do that, she explains the church is where she finds love and happiness and so is entitled.

More dense food for thought.

One terrible morning, after not sleeping due to stress, heat, the unfortunate musical tastes of my campmates, Cubans packing up two years of purchases in enormous boxes they hermetically seal with miles and miles of tape [see note 2], and an animated, pre-dawn phone negotiation between a Cuban doctor and her husband back in Guantánamo, I’m assaulted by this godliness. Seems someone in the massive tent city up the block thought it a good idea to blast religious pop on a powerful sound system starting at 6am.

In my mind, food, potable water, and safe shelter would be more appropriate for the thousands now getting an earful of Merci Jesus. But what do I know? I thought Jeff Buckley penned ‘Hallelujah’ [see note 3]. Later that day, I see a sign and point it out to my doctor buddies: ‘God is the chef of this house?!’ Everyone has a good laugh at my bad French: clearly God is the boss of this house, not the chef. But while He might be the boss of those houses still standing, I personally don’t see God at work in Haiti [see note 3].

To Madsen, whose younger sister just died of anemia, I tell it like I see it.

“No, friend. It wasn’t God. It was the Cuban doctors and the almighty power of antibiotics.”

Madsen nods. You know, we have a saying here in the countryside: ‘after God, the Cuban doctors.’

Haiti: it just won’t let my mind rest.

Notes

1. I’ve never felt the NY vibe so strongly outside of the city like here in Haiti. They play NY-rules dominoes (whatever that is – I learned dominoes in Havana and honed my skills in the Cuban camp in Port-au-Prince), you can buy Carvel log cakes (I shit you not) and the Yankees logo is everywhere.

2. Cubans completing two years of international service are entitled to ship – duty-free – three large boxes the size of a Westchester dishwasher, back home. In these boxes go 15 pairs of sneakers, a dozen bedazzled tank tops, 10 men’s dress shirts, sheets, towel sets, diapers, and as many pairs of jeans that will fit inside the new oven that after a month or so at sea will be installed in a Las Tunas kitchen. Each week, a saleswoman comes to the camp – her catalog circulates between the doctors like an issue of Penthouse in Cell Block C – and takes orders for everything from washing machines to PlayStations. I’m glad these folks have the opportunity to both do good in Haiti and for themselves and their family. And I understand the need to wrap the boxes in tape (an unfortunate accident to one of the boxes chugging its way to Cuba a little while ago means people are taking no chances), but must they do it at 1am? In front of my tent? Around midnight, one of my neighbors finally yells: ‘will you quit it with that freakin’ tape already?’ I send a mental heartfelt thank you her way. ‘Yeah?’ comes the response. ‘And what happens when it’s your turn?’ There’s a brief, golden silence. ‘Good point,’ she shouts, ‘but hurry it up!’ Damn.

3. I must admit I’m embarrassed by my musical ignorance here, but this is compensated by the fact that Leonard Cohen interpreted by a Haitian chanteuse is serenading several thousand displaced families.

4. Except perhaps in the sunsets. Port-au-Prince is blessed by such jaw-dropping dusks, taking a photo instead of experiencing it seems blasphemous.

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