Warehouses for Old People / 14ymedio, Orlando Palma

An old man looks at his reflection. (14ymedio)
An old man looks at his reflection. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Orlando Palma, Havana, August 11, 2014 – “Very soon the best businesses in Cuba will be trash and old people,” blurts out the owner of an old age home, without blushing. Places like hers aren’t recognized at all by the law, but they have emerged to meet the demand of an increasingly aging people.

It is estimated that in a decade that more than 26% of the Cuban population will be over 60. The needs of these millions of seniors will be felt in Public Health, social security, and the network of old age homes available in the country. Throughout the Island there are only 126 homes with room for fewer than 10,000 elderly, a ridiculous figure given that the demands are increasing. With regards to specialized doctors, the country has fewer than 150 geriatric specialists.

Housing problems are forcing more families to entrust the care of their grandparents to state or religious institutions. That, coupled with the economic problems and low pensions, make caring for the elderly ever more complicated for their relatives.

There is no welcome sign and if someone calls to ask for details she responds cautiously.

“My father of almost 90 got sick,” says Cary, a entrepreneur who offers services as a caregiver to the elderly. “I didn’t want to send him to a nursing home, so I had to devote myself to taking care of him full time. Then it occurred to me I could do the same for other old people.” The woman has a thriving business, where she offers clients, “breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks.” continue reading

Cary’s home is advertised online, costs at least 70 CUC a month and, its owner says, “Here we have a hairdresser, barber, pedicures; they can even stay from Monday to Friday. We treat our clients with kindness and like family.” There is no welcome sign on the pleasant home, if someone is interested and calls to ask for details, she responds cautiously. Potential clients must come recommended or be the friend of a friend.

On the list of self-employment professions permitted, is “caretaker of the sick, disabled and elderly,” but the license only allows attention, without other benefits. Cary should take out several additional licenses, as a dispenser of food—because the elderly eat in her house—and a license to rent rooms, which authorizes overnight guests. The cost of the three licenses would make her business unprofitable. She already has problems with the police and now she has to tell the neighbors that she is taking care of some of her father’s “brothers and cousins.”

Despite the high prices, these initiatives are in great demand, due to the limited capacity of the state asylums and their deteriorating installations. Getting into these official places is not easy. You need to go the family doctor, who will refer the case to a social worker. The decision may take years, although some accelerate it by paying a “stimulus” to get the paperwork in record time. Then you have to way for a space to open in a place in the municipality or the province.

The situation reached a point of deterioration that the State was forced to delegate the care of the Catholic Church

The old age homes hit bottom during the economic crisis of the 90s. The situation got to the point where the State was forced to delegate part of the care and hygiene tasks to the Catholic Church. Many of the old age homes were almost completely overseen by religious congregations, such as the Servants of the Abandoned Brothers, the Daughters of Charity, the Sisters of St. Joseph, and the Brothers of St. John of God. Thanks to this collaboration complete collapse was avoided, although they barely built and readied new sites.

Self-employed people have began to take a position in this sector: private homes that are rebuilt to fit a hospital bed, the doors widened for wheelchairs, and accessories are added to bathrooms to support older people. All this is done with great discretion, without anything noticeable from the outside of the house that would suggest a conversion to a private asylum.

“Most of the cases we take care of come from far away,” explains Angelica, a retired nurse who has opened her own old age home. She has competitive prices, around 60 CUC, and it includes clinical services and physiotherapy, physical exercises and excursions to Saturday work parties.

The responsibility is great, but the families of the elderly are very demanding, given the high price they pay. The majority are people with a child who has emigrated who pays, from afar, for care for the father or mother. “Sometimes they make first world demands, like an electric bed, or putting cameras in the rooms to monitor what the old people do all the time,” Angelica complains.

I’ve had to accompany some of my clients in their last moments,” the lady says, who despite also being elderly herself is strong and agile. “I can’t advertise it, but I also offer the service of being with the old man in his death throes, holding his hand, reading and talking to him, so he doesn’t feel alone at the moment of death.”

“If my children continue with the business, soon I will be a client of my own old age home,” she says with a certain pleasure. A bell rings and while she goes to feed a ninety-year-old sitting in front of the TV, Angelica reflects outloud, “Don’t let anyone send me to one of the State’s ‘old folks warehouses.’ I want to stay here.”

Despicable Manipulation / Rebeca Monzo

Yesterday, July 28, I read in the Trabajadores [“Workers”] newspaper about the speech given by 6th grade pioneer Wendy Ferrer during the main event of a celebration in Artemisa marking the 61st anniversary of the attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Barracks. I could not help feeling shame and indignation over the vile manipulation that was so evident in the discourse read by this child.

To my understanding, the words and phrases used were not typical of a school-age child. If they were so, it would only be an even more lamentable proof of the terrible distortion fed to our students, a political manipulation that takes precedence over the true history of our country, and over true education. This is truly unfortunate. I believe that it is a civic duty to clarify for this girl, or actually for her teachers, some of the very sensitive aspects of her speech:

I completed my primary school studies — starting with a marvelous and unforgettable Kindergarten, as we then called what are today known as children’s camps — up to 6th grade in a public school, No. 31 of the Los Pinos suburb. Never, in our humble school, did we go without a school breakfast, as was provided in all public schools of that time. Nor did we ever lack notebooks — which I can’t forget included an imprint on the back of the tables for multiplication, addition, subtraction and division — or pencils, which were provided to all students at the start of — and midway through — each term. At that time, public education accounted for 22.3% of the national budget. There was also a private education sector, with wonderful schools founded and directed by great educators. continue reading

The Cuban educational system during the 1950s was made up of 20,000 credentialed teachers and 500,000 students. These figures are documented in the census and statistics of the era and confirmed internationally. Never in the public education sector was there discrimination against a student on the basis of race or religion. If a seeming dearth of black or mixed-race students is evident, this was only due to the fact that in those years, according to the 1953 census (which would be the last until almost 30 years later), 72.8% of the Cuban population was white, 12.4 was black, and 14.5 was mixed-race. At that time our population was six million inhabitants. The private schools were the only ones who had the prerogative to implement selective admissions.

According to my aunt, a great and respected educator and a public school director, the best teachers were to be found in the public schools because the government paid better salaries than the private schools. Also, many of these professors, above all those with specialties in music, art and languages, would also teach classes in private schools. For my lifelong love of music I credit — in addition to my family — those marvelous professors who I had in this subject throughout the course of my primary school studies.

To ignore these facts would be to cast aspersions not only on the Cuban educational system of that time, which was considered one of the best in Ibero-America along with those of Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico, but also on all those great Cuban educators who conferred lustre and prestige on our country. Among  them, to mention only a few, for the list would be interminable, we can name the following:

José de la Luz y Caballero, Rafael María Mendive, Enrique José Varona (youth educator), Max Figueroa, Camila Enrique Ureña, Mirta Aguirre, Gaspar Jorge García Galló, Raúl Ferrer, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Vicentina Antuña Tavío, Aurelio Baldor (whose texts are still utilized in Latin America), Ana María Rodríguez, Añorga, Valmaña, and many more who were the mentors of our most celebrated professionals.

For all this, I cannot leave unmentioned that, after 1959, government decrees so pressured the teaching profession that private schools closed down and a massive exodus of educators ensued, damaging the educational system to such a degree that new teachers had to be credentialed on the fly to educate “the new sons and daughters of the homeland”.  The result was a deterioration and decline of education in our country, what with it taking second place to politics. Many of our professionals, in exile today, cannot forget the discrimination they endured in the universities, due to their religious beliefs or sexual orientation, following the triumph of the revolution.

For this and many other reasons, I would suggest to this young pioneer – and to all the children of our country – to fearlessly seek answers from capable persons to clarify their doubts, gathering as much information as they can independently, and taking a bit more responsibility for their own education. Sadly, in our schools today, politics and government orders take precedence over knowledge.

Translated by:  Alicia Barraqué Ellison

31 July 2014

What it Costs to Eat! / Rebeca Monzo

This week I invited to lunch a couple who are friends of mine.  I have among the more “respectable” pensions in this country: 340 CUP (Cuban pesos) — the type of currency which is also used to pay salaries.

I set out early in search of the necessary elements and ingredients to prepare for my friends a “criollo” [traditional Cuban] menu. They live outside the country, and I wanted to treat them to a home-cooked meal. Since there would be four of us to feed, I purchased the following:

Four plantains to make tostones, 10 CUP for the four; 1lb onions, 30 pesos; 1lb peppers, 20 pesos; two small garlic heads, 6 pesos; one avocado, 10 pesos; 2lb rice, 10 pesos; 1lb black beans, 14 pesos; 3lb pork steak, 120 pesos; one large (3lb) mango, 7.50 pesos. After that, I stood in line to buy one loaf of Cuban bread for 10 pesos.

As you might have noticed, a simple luncheon for four cost me “only” 257.50 Cuban pesos. My guests brought a bottle of wine.

The meal was a success and we had a great time, but as you can imagine, my pockets are wobbling until my next pension check. Now you see what a simple meal costs on my planet!

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

10 August 2014

The Cow That Would Change Cuba / 14ymedio, Ignacio Varona

Illustration of a cow. (14ymedio)
Illustration of a cow. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, HAVANA, Ignacio Varona, 4 August 2014 – When she died they erected a life-size marble statue of her, and when they milked her she liked to listen to music. The entire country lived attentive to the milk given by Ubre Blanca (White Udder), the most famous cow in Cuba. She was an animal that not only left her name in the Guinness Book of World Records, but also left a trail of people who remembered her, either with affection or with derision. A new documentary by Enrique Colina recreates the life of this ruminant creature, and the political and social delirium that was generated by her prodigious milk production.

In the space of less than fifty minutes, his documentary “La Vaca de Marmol” (The Marble Cow) recounts those moments in which the entire future of the country depended on the milking of those prodigious udders. With humor and occasional moments of true drama, the director and movie critic tackles a story that appears taken more from mythology than from reality. The story of Ubre Blanca is told by those men who cared for her, milked her and cured her of her diseases on the Isle of Pines, but also by the voices of ordinary people who grew up hearing of a future when milk “would run in the streets” as a result of the increase in production, for which this cow was supposed to be the vanguard.

continue reading

Colina is a creative genius who needs no introduction. His program 24 y segundo for years has produced the most intelligent critical cinematography and entertainment on Cuban national television. Also, he has ventured in the direction of documentaries, producing classical pieces such as Jau, Vecinos (Neighbors), and Chapucerías (Shoddy Work). In 2003, he made his debut in fictional cinema with the film “Entre Ciclones” (Between Cyclones). His work has been noted in the Cuban film panorama for its good humor and its incisive criticism of social problems.

On this occasion Colina has turned his talents towards reintroducing us to Ubre Blanca. One of the most amazing testimonies that this documentary is that of Jorge Hernández, the veterinarian who attended to the celebrated cow for a good part of her life. Through the statements of this man we see the atmosphere of pressure and vigilance over those who attended directly to the world-record milk producer. “You cannot allow this animal to have even a cold,” Fidel Castro had pronounced on his first visit to the dairy farm. And so it had to be

With humor and certain moments of true drama, Enrique Colina tells the story of Ubre Blanca – White Udder

Linda Arleen, a cow in the United States, had previously inscribed her name in the Guinness Book of World Records for her milk production. Exceeding that record became a personal battle for Fidel Castro against the United States, his archenemy from the north. Ubre Blanca therefore began to be milked as much as four times a day, surrounded by conditions unequaled anywhere else in the world, and by an attentive team that dared never to make a misstep, nor skip a single task.

Care for the cow included having its food tested by being first given to another animal, so that Ubre Blanca wouldn’t be poisoned, as that was an obsession of El Comandante Castro. The dairy workers lived practically quartered with the cow so that she would lack nothing. “The milkings themselves were good, but we ourselves were treated as if we were crap,” one of the caretakers said decades afterwards. Thus it went day after day, until finally Ubre Blanca was found to have broken the world record and was elevated to the title of the new world champion, as a result of her having produced 110.9 liters of milk in a single day.

Surrounded by photographers and journalists, with three milkings daily and with the pressure of a high-ranking athlete, Ubre Blanca became sick, diagnosed with cancer of the skin, and had to be sacrificed. Her rapid deterioration pointed to an excessive exploitation of the animal, and to all the stress that she was submitted to in the last years of her life. Her name would, in the end, serve to thicken the large list of failed projects that were ascribed to Fidel Castro. There would never be another Ubre Blanca, and the entire Cuban cattle industry fell off the precipice of apathy and inefficiency.

With mastery and a certain touch of humor, Enrique Colina also reviews all the worship of the cow that occurred subsequent to her death. This worship ranged from the work of the taxidermists to maintain her skin, to the marble sculpture of Ubre Blanca that even today is located at the entrance of La Victoria farm, where that production miracle occurred. The jokes in the street, and the suspicion left by that illusion also have a place in the documentary.

A certain apprehension can be seen to overcome the caretaker who believes that the ghost of Ubre Blanca still walks through the beautiful stable that they created for her. With air conditioning, special pastures and 24-hour-a-day monitoring, that cow ended up being a prisoner of her fame, and of an obstinate man who believed that a country could be governed in the same way he ordered a dairy to be.

Translator’s Note: This documentary reportedly was shown in Cuba only once, when it was entered into a film festival, and has not been shown since.

 

Translated by Diego A.

 

Absence Breakdown and an Unforgettable Brief Trip / Miriam Celaya

Miami. Image taken from the internet

Another absence breakdown in my old blog, once again abandoned for more demanding reasons: obligations I could not postpone, having to do with work, as happens to individuals whose income is dependent on their jobs, and a brief (very brief!) one-week trip to Miami, because I needed to finish several articles and a presentation at an event.

I could not relate how rushed my trip to the “endearing monster” was, though my Cuban friends in Miami assured me that I was not in the US, but “in Miami,” which feels the same but is not. And indeed, one feels so encircled by Cuban surroundings in Miami that –if not for such a difference in the setting–it would seem you haven’t left Havana.

I visited Radio and TV Marti, I was on various shows of their causes, I met some of the journalists, commentators and friends who were just voices on the phone up to then, and I reunited with colleagues, journalists and bloggers and other émigrés, like Luis Felipe and his wife, whom I was able to hug.

I was at Cubanet for a very short while, where I also felt welcomed by colleagues in the writing profession; I met again with my friend Hugo Landa, whom I had met in Stockholm in 2013. I spent a very enjoyable time with all of them.

I laughed and cried, when I was in Miami, overwhelmed by the emotions of long gatherings with cousins I grew up with, who left Cuba recently, and with very dear friends, one of whom I hadn’t seen in 20 years. I also had the privilege to visit my father’s favorite brother, his playmate as a child and a friend in their youth, who left Cuba for good 52 years ago and they never saw each other again.

It was at once moving and wonderful to see that over half a century of barbarism and separation imposed by the Cuban political power have not been able to erase the love between us. They wished to divide us and have only managed to multiply us beyond the Florida Straight. While it is true that it’s come at a high cost, the hatred has failed.

I haven’t been able to answer the question “how is Miami?” frequently asked by relatives and friends on my return to Cuba. Miami is indescribable, at least for me. It’s not my cradle and will never be my home, it is true, but in that city the energy and strength of the people of this Island vibrate, the people who have made Miami grow and contributed to its prosperity, with their tremendous capacity for work, so it will no longer be alien to me.

Miami surrounded me with sincere affection, I was not an intruder nor an outsider, and maybe that’s why I don’t know–nor can, nor want–to define it.

Just two words come to my lips when someone asks my impression of her: love and hope. That is what Miami means to me.

Translated by Norma Whiting

7 July 2014

The Maleconazo Seen Through the Blinds / 14ymedio, Ignacio Varona

1000472_474759539275644_1332749336_n14ymedio, Ignacio Varona, 5 August, 2014 – Amalia Gutierrez was living on Gervasio Street in the San Leopoldo neighborhood when she heard the shouting on the other side of her blinds. Roberto Pascual was a patient waiting for dialysis outside the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital. And Vivian Bustamante sold illegal pizzas near the Spanish Embassy. They were three coincidental witnesses, that 5 August 1994, of the greatest social explosion in Cuba in the last 55 years. Nobody knew what was happening, but all three were afraid, curious and anxious.

“I saw a ton of people come running, scantily clad, the way we all dressed in those years,” said the illegal vendor. “I was afraid and took off running and hid myself in a stairwell right on the Malecon,” relates the woman who says she saw “the most amazing thing” in her life that Friday. At the entrance to an upstairs apartment she found a niche that had once held a water pump, and hid herself there. Through a slot in the door she could see “carrying on” and later the repression. She didn’t come out of that hole until nightfall

It all started days earlier. The boats that crossed Havana Bay to Regla and Casablanca were hijacked three times in a less than a fortnight, with the objective of emigrating to the United States. All over the city there was a rumor of another possible Mariel Boatlift and an opening of the borders to everyone who wanted to leave.

Vivian tells it in her own words. “We were living in a very hard time, I had the trick of brushing my teeth to make myself think I’d eaten so I could sleep on an empty stomach, but there was a time when there wasn’t even toothpaste.” Her story is common among those who lived through the Special Period. However, the social explosion caught her off guard. “I never imagined that this was a protest, I thought at first people were rushing to watch some brawl, but later I realized it was something more serious.”

“I thought at first people were rushing to watch some brawl, but later I realized it was something more serious.”

Roberto died ten years ago, but his story of those days continues to be told in the family. His son had never seen his father so frightened as on that 5th of August twenty years ago. “We were waiting for his dialysis when the nurses started to close the doors of the Emergency Room and they called the patients because we were waiting outside,” he explains about those first minutes in which they began to realize something was happening. A huge crowd was arming themselves and no one knew what to tell us about what was happening.”

Several doctors were coming and going whispering. A cleaning lady, who’d made friends with Roberto, called him aside. “The people have come out in the streets,” said the woman, smiling from ear to ear, “now they’ll have them on the run,” she finished. “Afterwards we knew that some doctors and employees in Cuba’s biggest hospital had gone to the highest floors to look out the windows at the pitched battle raging down there.” That day Roberto stayed until late, until they carried out his procedure.

Amalia experienced it with the greatest intensity. The windows of her house gave directly on the Gervasio Street near San Lazaro. Her door was open when she started to see people running and screaming. “The most recalcitrant members of the CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution) were hiding themselves, a lot of people closed their doors so as not to have any trouble,” she remembers, speaking about that day when everything was about to change.

“There were a lot of very poor people in particular, you could see it in what they were wearing, they were shouting and some were carrying sticks or stones.” She thinks she recognized several neighbors from her area also in the crowd.

The repression was carried out by paramilitaries hiding under the clothes of construction workers.

The repression of that popular protest was carried out by the police and paramilitaries hiding under the clothes of construction workers. The Blas Roca Contingent played a leading role in putting down the rebellion. The construction workers went at it with blood and bricks, as they had been taught. “It was criminal what they did, beating people with iron rods, in front of the door of my house there was a young man who fell with his head all bloody, I never knew his name.” Amalia was one of those who didn’t dare go out.

One of the reasons for the failure of the Maleconazo was precisely the absence of many of the social actors in the popular explosion. Amalia’s, Roberto’s and Vivian’s reasons can be summarized as fear of being physically injured, lack of information about what was happening, and fear of losing the few belongings the Special Period hadn’t already deprived them of.

Coda and lessons

The Maleconazo was too brief for the news to get out in time. It happened in a Havana without mobile phones, with a totally collapsed transportation system and one where private vehicles had serious difficulty finding fuel to enable them get on the road. Neighborhoods with high poverty rates and dissatisfaction, such as San Miguel del Padrón, Cerro, Guanabacoa, Arroyo Naranjo and areas of Central Havana closest to Zanja Street, only found out what happened hours after the uprising had been smothered.

The lack of reinforcements exhausted those who set the spark and left them surrounded by a repressive pincer that closed around them, without new forces coming to their aid. The fact that the revolt started in a place as exposed as the Malecon demonstrates its spontaneity. Protesters were corralled against the sea wall. There was no way out. The place should have been their escape and its horizon were transformed into the worst trap.

If that uncontrolled mob had started on streets such as the Paseo del Prado, Galiano Avenue or Belascoaín it would have been fed by neighborhoods with high anti-government sentiment.

The driving engine of the revolt was not political change but emigration, and this weakened the Maleconazo. When many of those involved in the protest realized there wasn’t going to be any boat to leave on, they turned away from the crowd and in the worst cases turned to looting the stores and hotels. There wasn’t a united democratic goal, just the most basic human instincts: fear, hunger, flight as a form of protection.

The absence of an articulated leadership also conspired against the revolt. In the absence of a leader who would shout “This way!” or “Go over there!” the avalanche of people scattered and was an easy target for the repressive troops. Nor was an “open neck” possible in the middle of a crowd that stretched for miles along the Malecon and didn’t receive any directions.

The Maleconazo was doomed to be crushed. However, it was a wake-up call, a jolt that forced the government to open the borders to the mass exodus of some 30,000 people and to take a number of measures to ease the economy that gave people a break. We owe the small bubbles of autonomy and material development that came afterwards to these men and women who faced beatings and insults.

The Maleconazo also demonstrated the apathy of a lethargic population, who observed more than participated in those events. Instead of joining the revolt, Amalia, Robert and Vivian hid behind blinds and waited, “for what would happen, what had to happen.”

Angel Santiesteban and the Path of the Fugitive

By Armando Añel, July 30, 2014

The confused news that comes from Havana indicates that either Angel Santiesteban ran away from the prison-settlement where he was unjustly imprisoned or the political police have launched a fabrication to condemn him to a longer term of imprisonment and keep him isolated.

In any case, we must wait for specific statements from the novelist and blogger. Today we know that his children saw him in prison but they couldn’t speak freely with him: a member of State Security was with them the whole minuscule time they were with their father.

I don’t believe it, but if Santiesteban effectively took the decision to flee — in spite of the fact that, as his sister Maria de los Angeles Santiesteban said, at another time he could have remained in the exterior without major inconvenience and he didn’t do so — I congratulate him.

Begging pardon from friends and colleagues who disagree, one never should surrender to a delinquent regime. In Cuba no procedural guarantee exists, and we all know the degree of superlative helplessness that the citizenry suffers. A product that the Castro regime has exported to countries like Venezuela, where the case of Leopoldo Lopez shows that these gestures of chivalry are counterproductive in societies hijacked by the State.

I chatted with Idabell Rosales for a moment. Santiesteban never should go into prison voluntarily. Not only because of the rigged trial that he suffered previously and that made his sentence absolutely unjust, but also because in countries like Cuba all the gear of social coexistence, of daily structure, is flawed in advance and twists the logic of personal relations.

During these last months, in the face of the campaign for his freedom, he saw with clarity the degree of vilification by the Cuban intellectual class not only on the Island or among the pro-Castro creators, but also in the exterior and in a part of the media-oriented dissidence that he says “laments” his detention but travels half the world without advocating for his freedom.

To live in Cuba is to surrender to a darkly surrealist reality, and to yield to the jailers of the country as he did in 2013, seemed to me and seems to me to be doubly absurd. Fugitives don’t hand themselves over. But I respect, scrupulously, the author of The Summer God Slept and those who defend that type of attitude, brave like very few. It appears that God continues to sleep. Although, as Carlos Alberto Montaner said, we also know that He will wake up.

Published in NeoClub Press.

Have Amnesty International declare the dissident Cuban Angel Santiesteban a prisoner of conscience. Follow the link to sign the petition.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Cholera Spreading in All Cuban Provinces / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 7 August 2014 – Health authorities in Cuba are facing one of the most serious epidemiological situations in recent years, seeking curb the spread of cholera, dengue fever and the chikungunya viruses which are spreading to much of the country.

In Camagüey province the cholera outbreak has claimed the lives of at least 11 adults. According to the official press 530 cases of the disease have been detected in populations of Camagüey, Sierra de Cubitas and Sibanicú, in addition to at least 1,200 cases of dengue fever.

In Havana, the number of possible cases infected with the Vibrium Cholerae virus reaches 150. The Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine reports that there are nine people currently hospitalized who have tested positive for the disease.

The warning is also in effect in Villa Clara, where cases of cholera have been recorded in more than half of the province during the last month, according to the official newspaper Vanguardia. Independent journalist, Yoel Espinosa Medrano told Radio Martí in July that at least three people have died in the town of Santo Domingo.

My Mother and the Onions / Yoani Sanchez

Onion seller (14ymedio)
Onion seller (14ymedio)

14YMEDIO, Yoani Sanchez, 6 August 2014 – Who do I think about when I write? How does the reader imagine my texts come to me? Who do I want to shake up, move, reach… with my words? Such questions are common among those of us who devote ourselves to publishing our opinions and ideas. It is also a common question among those of us who engage in the informative work of the press. Defining the subject to which we turn our journalistic intentions is key to not falling into absurd generalizations, unintelligible language, or the tones of a training manual.

I do not write for academics or sages. Although I once graduated in Hispanic philology, the Latin declensions and text citations belong to a stage of my life I’ve left in the past. Nor do I think that my words reach people seated in the comfortable armchairs of power, nor specialists nor scholars who look for keys and messages in them. When I sit in front of the keyboard I think about people like my mother, who worked for more than 35 years in the taxi sector. It is to those people, tied to reality and dealing with adversity 24 hours a day, that I direct my words.

At times, when I talk to my mamá, I explain the need for Cuba to open itself up to democracy, to respect human rights and to establish freedom. She listens to me in silence for a while. After some minutes, she changes the conversation and tells me about the eggs that haven’t come, the bureaucrat who mistreated her, or the water leak at the corner of her house. Then, I ask her how much onions cost. My mother has to pay out three days worth of her pension to buy a pound of onions. I no longer have to say anything, she just concludes, “This country has to change.”

Che’s Daughter: Doctor and Tour Operator / Juan Juan Almeida

Aleida Guevara. Photo taken from Cubadebate

Perhaps motivated by the news confirming that the documentary series “The Life and Work of Ernesto Che Guevara (1928-1967)” will become part of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, the eccentric and daring Dr. Aleida Guevara, daughter of the Argentine guerrilla, published a verbal debauchery in the Bayamo newspaper La Demajagua, where she invites all Cubans to visit the Library of Alexandria.

Forgive my ignorance, but I can’t understand what Che Guevara has to do with Ptolemy; and, ignoring this trifle, her writing seems more like a travelogue written under the influence of mate de coca.

And if the doctor’s invitation is paid for by the government, as she is, then we’ll meet in Alexandria. I would like that.

31 July 2014

The Maleconazo in a Can of Condensed Milk / Yoani Sanchez

Photo: Karl Poort, 5 August 1994
Photo: Karl Poort 1994

14ymedio, YOANI SÁNCHEZ, Havana, 5 August 2014 – We had run around together in our Cayo Hueso neighborhood. His family put up several cardboard boxes in vacant lot near Zanja Street, similar to those they’d had in Palmarito del Cauto. His last name was Maceo and something in his face recalled that Titan of so many battles, except that his principal and only skirmish would entail not a horse, but a flimsy raft. When the Maleconazo broke out he joined in the shouting and escaped when the arrests started. He didn’t want to go home because he knew the police were looking for him.

He left alone on a monstrosity made of two inflated truck tires and boards, tied together with ropes. His grandmother prepared water for him in a plastic tank and gave him a can of condensed milk she’d been saving for five years. It was one of those products from the USSR whose contents arrived on the island congealed, after the long boat ride. My generation grew up drinking this sugary lactose mixed with whatever came to hand in the street. So Maceo added the can to his scanty stores—more as an amulet than as food—and departed from San Lazaro cove.

He never arrived. His family waited and waited and waited. His parents searched the lists of those held at the Guantanamo Naval Base, but his name was never on them. They asked others who capsized near the coast and tried to leave again. No one knew of Maceo. They inquired at the morgues where they kept the remains of the dead who washed up on shore. In those bleak places they looked at everyone, but never saw their son. A young man told them that near the first shelf he had come across a single raft, floating in nothingness. “It was empty,” he told them, “it only had a piece of a sweater and a can of condensed milk.”

Editor’s note: Today is the 20th anniversary of “The Maleconazo.” You can read more about this uprising and the subsequent Rafter Crisis in previous posts:

“We want to contribute to personal and community reflection of pastoral agents” / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Erick Alvarez
Erick Alvarez

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 4 August 2014 – To mark the publication of a letter sent by five young Cubans to Pope Francisco, 14ymedio interviewed Erick Álvarez Gil, coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) in Havana. At just 28, this young man joined the organization in 2009, and holds a degree in Electronics and Telecommunications.

Question: What are the antecedents of this document?

Answer: This letter was sent on the second anniversary of the death of Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero, and also two years from the time Oswaldo handed a letter to the Cuban bishops in 2012, which reflected some of these concerns and also touched on the issues of relations between Church and State, and Church and Society. These ideas are still dormant and still a source of concern to us, so we went back to the idea of a letter and put it in the hands of the Pope and also sent it to the Cuban bishops, priests, religious, missionaries, and the most committed laypeople in the Cuban Church.

Q: As I understand it the letter is dated May 5 and was delivered to Pope Francisco on the 14th of that month, but only now has been disclosed to the public. Why the wait time between sending the letter and publication?

A: We didn’t send the letter to any media, the aim was not that the letter would be published openly. Our objective was to send it to the main actors of the Church in Cuba and the more committed lay people. We did that late last week and, as happens in these cases, it is already public. continue reading

Q: Have you received any response from anyone about this letter?

A: We have received no official response, but we have received feedback from other young Catholics who have had access to it. An official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba has contacted us to meet and discuss some of the issues in the letter. That conversation should be this week. Also Monsignor Alfredo Petit Vergel, who is my pastor at the Church of San Francisco de Paula, and one of the two auxiliary bishops of Havana, saw me on Sunday and told me of his desire to sit down and talk about it.

Q: What are your expectations from this letter that has begun to spread?

A: Our expectations were never based on the public and mass distribution of the letter, even though we knew that it could happen when we sent out a lot of emails.
We want to contribute to the personal and community reflection of the pastoral agents with the greatest responsibility within the Church, those who can influence the pastoral action of the Church, especially in the political positions taken by the higher-ups in the Church hierarchy. This is the issue that most concerns us, in addition to all the general issues there may be at an ecclesiastical level.

We write from a political movement, we present ourselves this way from the beginning of the letter, which is eminently political. It deals with political issues and how the Church projects itself toward society.

Q: The letter also comes at a possible turning point, for renewal, for the Cuban Church.

A: The Church is now in the process of designing a new plan to guide pastoral action in the coming years and a dialog is imminent and necessary, with the laity as well, where these elements can be considered. There are also some Cuban bishops, such as Cardinal Jaime Ortega and Monsignor Alfredo Petit Vergel and perhaps others, who are finishing their time in episcopal government, and there are imminent handovers in the upper Catholic hierarchy and in the bishopric. The reflections arising from the opinions we offered in the letter might have some influence on the appointments made.

Cardinal Jaime Ortega calls for “deepening the reforms” / 14ymedio

Cardinal Jaime Ortega entering the Cathedral of Havana
Cardinal Jaime Ortega entering the Cathedral of Havana

14YMEDIO, Havana, 2 August 2014 – This Saturday a Mass of Thanksgiving was held at the Cathedral in Havana for the 50th anniversary of the ordination of Cardinal Jaime Ortega. The Archbishop himself celebrated the Mass which was attended by other Cuban and foreign bishops.

Ortega Alamino made is entrance into the room at 10:20 in the morning, awaited by a crowd of worshipers, tourists and foreigners.

At the ceremony the prelate stressed that “the faith and hope promulgated by the Church do not defraud.” Moreover, he prayed that those governing the country “continue deepening the changes our country so badly needs.”

During the service a letter Pope Francisco sent to Cardinal Jaime Ortega was read, in which the Pope blessed his ministry. In addition, several speakers took the floor, either to celebrate Ortega’s work, as well as to remind the Cardinal that he still “has a long way to go.”

Jaime Ortega, 78, resigned almost three years ago, but still remains at the head of the Archdiocese of Havana.

The celebrations will include a Cultural Gala to be held tonight [August 2] at 8:30 in the Padre Felix Varela Center.

Chatting with One of Havana’s Entrepreneurs / Ivan Garcia

View from the Tower Restaurant in the Fosca Building

View from the Tower Restaurant in the Fosca Building

Humberto, a seventy-four-year old man, has the personality of both an entrepreneur and a smooth talker. At the moment he is relaxed and happy, willing to chat while having a Heineken and without having to keep track of the time.

And that is what he is doing. In the bar of the La Torre restaurant on the twenty-ninth floor of the Focsa building, Humberto is enjoying a very cold beer as he munches on bites of Gouda cheese and Serrano ham while looking out over the city.

At a height of 400 feet Havana looks like an architectural model. Staring at the intense blue of the sea creates the sensation of a bar floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Up here things look different. There is no awareness of the poor condition of the streets and buildings below or the scramble of thousands of Havana residents looking for food at farmers’ markets in order to be able to prepare a decent meal.

Humberto knows how hard life in Cuba is. “But I like to enjoy myself and to spend money eating well, going out with beautiful women and drinking good-quality beverages,” he says.

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He is a cross between a tropical rogue and a guy with a nose for business. He is dressed in a Lacoste polo shirt and a pair of Timberland moccasins. A Swiss Tissot watch cost him six-hundred dollars at an airport duty-free shop.

“Money brings you neither health nor happiness but it makes you feel good, different. Knowing you have money in your wallet and enough to eat is a big deal in this country. Then, if you live in a nice house and own a car, you can afford certain luxuries, like drinking Scotch and sleeping with young girls without having to be a police informer or a senior official in the regime. Solvency raises your self-esteem,” says Humberto, who has wanted to be businessman since he was young.

“At the time of the Revolution I was the owner of an high-end apartment in Vedado. When communism came along, like everyone else I learned to fake it. I was never a member of the militia or a militant, so the goverment tried every trick it could to get me to give up my apartment. They wanted me to exchange it for an awful place in Alamar, as though I were crazy,” says Humberto. “These people,” he adds while making a gesture as though stroking an imaginary beard, “love to talk about the poor but they like to live like the bourgeoisie.”

“In the building where I live there are military officers and government leaders. During the Soviet era there were also technical specialists from the USSR, East Germany and North Korea living there. I have never known more savvy businesspeople than the ’comrades from the communist bloc.’ The used to buy and sell everything. They even set up a small bank,” he notes with a smile.

Things have not always gone so well. He was jailed in the 1980s, accused of illegal economic activity. “After my release from prison I had to sweep parks. When my children were grown, I got them out of the country. They have lived overseas for a long time. My grandchildren are foreigners. I stay here because I prefer to live in Havana, the city where I was born,” says Humberto.

During the 1990s — the tough years of the “Special Period” — Humberto began renting his apartment to foreigners. “Almost all private business was illegal, from dealing in art to buying and selling houses and cars. But after 2010 the government expanded the private sector and I got a hospitality license.”

He lives in a house with his wife and rents out his apartment. “The prices vary depending on the length of stay and the time of year. In peak season I rent it for 60 CUC a day. The apartment has four bedrooms, air-conditioning throughout, a big living room and remodeled bathrooms with hot and cold running water,” says Humberto.

In general he only rents to couples, women and older men. “I don’t like renting to young men or bachelors. They turn your house into a brothel. I don’t rent to Cubans because, on top of being messy, they walk off with things. They have stolen everything but the electricity itself from me. That’s why I only rent to foreigners.”

Humberto considers himself to be a good friend, a better father and a lousy husband. “I have never been stingy. I take care of my parents and I have discreetly helped dissident family members and friends. As long as this regime exists, business people like me will always be treated like suspects and possible criminals. To be a real small businessman you have to live in a climate of democracy.

The night has engulfed Havana. From the bar at La Torre the view is spectacular. You see all the lights but none of the misery.

Ivan Garcia

Video: Views of Havana from La Torre Restaurant where Ivan talked with Humberto. The video was made by Winston Smith and uploaded to YouTube in July 2013.
2 August 2014