Translating Cuba

By Ivan Pupo Sañudo

On January 6 Three Kings Day is celebrated in the “Luis Quevado Remolina” independent library, located in the town of Regla, east of Havana.

The librarian and freelance journalist Aini Martin Valero hosted a party for the children of the village. Beautiful toys were delivered to more than 70 children in the community. Candy, sweets, dancing and smiles lit up Sunday afternoon.

In conversation with Digital Spring the journalist said, “Thanks to many friends of the social network Facebook we are able to celebrate this holiday. The toys were donated by hundreds of Cubans living in exile, who helped so that the children of Regla had a beautiful day of the Magi. To them all my blessings,” concluded Martin Valero.

The “Luis Quevado Remolina” independent library has been operating every Sunday with children in the community. According Aini Martin they have been working with children in their “Special Sunday” project for more than five years.  E Mail: ronnysay13 <at> yahoo.com

20 January 2013

Yesterday I attended an interesting lecture by the architect Miguel Coyula, on the history and current state of the buildings in the city of Havana and its continuing deterioration. It was held in the old Provincial College of Architects of Havana, today transformed into the Union of Architects and Engineers of Cuba, and the attendees were mostly old architects and engineers as well as some young people.

The theme, no doubt, controversial, was presented with an abundance of data and photographs, demonstrating the serious and thorough investigation by the rapporteur. Some of his ideas were already known to me from his and his brother’s previous work — his brother, Mario Coyula, is also an architect — but other ideas were completely new.

Summarizing the main content of the lecture, it became clear that 80% of the buildings in the city were built before 1959, with most between the years 1900 and 1958, mainly in the years of the Republic (1902 – 1958). Also, due to lack of maintenance and absurd actions (for example the elimination of all independent trades), 80% of them are in poor condition, causing an average of three (3) collapsed buildings per day, one thousand (1000) per year without any of them being replaced.

The accommodation of those affected, when it occurs (120,000 waiting for shelter continue to reside in homes declared uninhabitable), takes place in makeshift shelters, without the minimum conditions for living, or in adapted structures, or hurriedly constructed ones, which in reality are simply barracks with overcrowding and promiscuity guaranteed.

The road network and water supply systems and sewerage as well as electricity and gas, are the same as half a century ago, there has been no maintenance or repairs of any quality, which is visible throughout the city, regardless of some measures taken in recent years.

In addition to this, there is no well-coordinated plan among all those responsible, for a solution, as the city, as such, actually lacks a central government to defend its interests and to lead it. So far, the existing government functions as a mere administrator of the interests of the State institutions and bodies, which act or don’t act according to their whims, some out of ignorance and some out of arrogance.

This chaotic situation, the product of more than fifty years of improvisations and voluntarism, tries to equate Havana with the rest of the provincial capitals (which, of course, is not achieved and further deepens the differences), forgetting that the capital, where two million people live and which produces 45% of GDP, is not reflected in the current “updating of the model,” nor other phenomena that, sooner or later, require solutions.

Unfortunately, economic, political and social phenomena are forgotten, although they are inextricably linked and we can not be expected to solve one of them (or part of one), while ignoring the rest. This misguided policy only leads to failure.

It is unfortunate that the content of this material has not yet attracted the attention of the authorities, as it could, from an unprejudiced viewpoint, provide summary information and be greatly useful to many in fulfilling their responsibilities to the city.

He spoke of the existence of a commission to project Havana 2030. I wonder: What will we do with the current city? Will we let it disappear? If we don’t manage it so that those living in Havana can identify with it, love it, respect and care for it, everything will be in vain, and that, necessarily, apart from the regulations, passes for public education from the most early age.

The city has regressed and does not respond to the current needs of its inhabitants. This is the terrible reality. Right now, no lights appear in the dark tunnel.

January 19 2013

Source: Yoani’s Twitpic

Source: Yoani’s Twitpics

Many people who don’t know Cuban could have read this article* by a Frenchman who presents himself as an expert on Cuban issues, which encouraged me to offer some clarifications about what can be done with money in my country, information that I have first hand for being a Cuban who lives in Cuba, where the dual monetary system has resulted in a national currency called “national money” and known by the acronym CUP**, which is deeply depreciated, with salaries which are paid in it insufficient, and the other which is the equivalent of hard currency, known as the Cuban Convertible Peso, or CUC**, which is the currency required for almost all products and services.

To ride in a private taxi known as “almendrones” — after the “almond” shape of the old American cars used to provide this service –implies accommodating yourself to the fixed routes that these collective taxis travel. If you go from Marianao to Central Havana, it will be 20 pesos, but if you go to Alamar is will be twice that because you have to transfer to another car, and if this simply trip is after ten at night, the fare doubles again.

If you want or need a home, you should start by inheriting it or building it. Rental housing is a rarity among Cubans, and even if the tax is rent in CUP, the agreement between the parties takes the CUC as a reference, and one-bedroom apartment goes for about 100 CUC.

At the risk of overwhelming my readers, I want to comment on the foods mentioned in the list, because you should know, as the expert does not clarify, that in Cuba the same food can have four prices: The price of food in CUP in the subsidized basic food basket at the ration stores, the market price for the same food not in the ration stores in CUP or its equivalent in CUC, food on the market in CUC only, and last, but not least, the food offered in the black market.

The products in the first group delivered through the ration book for each consumer are:
Soft bread at 5 oz. (per day); and monthly per person rations of 10 eggs, 1 lb. chicken, 1/2 lb. of chicken instead of fish (last year there was no fish), 1/2 lb. of “mincemeat” made from soybeans, 1/2 lb. sausage, 5 lb. kg. rice, 1/2 lb. beans, 5 lb. white sugar and 1lb. turbinado sugar, 2.1 lbs. of spaghetti, 4 oz. of 50% blended coffee and 1 cup of vegetable oil. Children under the age of three receive compotes, up to age seven a quart of milk, and up to age thirteen a quart of soy yogurt. (Sorry if I have not been accurate in converting pounds to kilos, but foods are sold by the pound, and make not my forte. [Note: the translator has converted them back to pounds.])

This monthly allowance costs a little more than 1 CUC. I invite my readers to do the simple exercise of physically checking of these foods to better understand what comes next.

Once the subsidized food runs out, you have to go to the market governed by supply and demand, where the prices vary drastically. As the production is not abundant, either because of so much idle land or because of droughts, cyclones of the Blockade, rice that costs less than 1 CUP here costs 8 CUP for two pounds; grains are more than 24 CUP for 2 pounds, and if you don’t have a child under seven, no matter how much money you have, if you want to drink milk you have to pay for it in hard currency, with a tetrapack of one quart costing 2.40 CUC, or 1.20 CUC for a can of condensed milk, or 1.60 CUC for evaporated milk, or 5.40 for a pound of powdered milk.

As an unrepentant coffee drinker, I know that a cup of “mixed” coffee (with peas or other fillers in it) at any kiosk costs one CUP; a fiction of coffee, a fake; if you want coffee-coffee, you have to pay 3 CUC for the cheapest ground coffee. I’m not the same with alcohol but there is nothing more agreeable than a beer with Sunday lunch, a luxury I only allow myself two or three times a year, because a beer costs 20 CUP or 1 CUC.

But where the gentleman who wrote the article is most greatly confused, is in the price of proteins, so coveted in Cuban because of their scarcity, despite being frowned upon in the modern diet.

Pork, the most consumed and “economical” costs 50 CUP for two pounds if you buy large pieces because in small portions it costs up to 80; eggs are sold at 1.50 CUP or at the equivalent of 8 CUP in hard currency stores.

I do not dwell on the price of other foods because to explain what I can and can’t buy exceeds my patience and would exceed yours. Meanwhile, the cost of electricity if going up; it’s 9 cents only for the first 100 kw, and in my house with three people, with no appliances other than the refrigerator and the heater in the shower, we use 220 kw a month, which is around 60 CUP.

The article, designed to denigrate a well-known figure, manipulates data, with ignorance or malice, which casts a shadow on the credibility of the writer, to use his own words.

Translator’s notes:
*The link in Regina’s post does not work so we have not been able to confirm the article she’s talking about, and will not, therefore, speculate about who its likely author is.
**The monetary values relative to the U.S. dollar are approximately $1.10 per CUC and 24 CUPs to one CUC.

January 18 2013

My lawyer has already filed an appeal which is available for reading in my blog.

This appeal details each and every one of the violations of law committed by the same Justice that has condemned me for “writing with a ’certain’ bias, and drawing letters of a very suspicious size.”

The Justice that seeks put me in a cage is the same one which — a month before failing to prove my “guilt” and condemning me to five years — send the agent Camilo after me to harass, threaten and warn me that I had already been sentenced, a month before the Court issued its judgment.

A process with no guarantees where they invent accusations and dictate a priori judgment. Agent Camilo is so happy in his role as henchman stalker that he does not cease in his efforts to persecute and threaten me, as I showed in a couple of videos.

Again I appeal to international public opinion to denounce the abuses suffered in Cuba by all those who profess no idolatry to the dictator and his criminal system of government.

Translator’s note: Apologies for not having subtitles for the video

January 18 2013

Dear Rafael Correa,

I am dismayed by your government’s introduction of a letter of invitation as a condition of entry to your country. The clarification leaves me more confused: “The paper should state that the Ecuadorian or the foreigner with an immigrant visa who invites a Cuban citizen has sufficient funds and pledges to cover all costs, including medical care, during the stay of the guest.”

I say to you, Correa, that in Cuba we are very humble and do not like to boast of economic wealth, but many people in my country do not need any other citizen of the world to cover their expenses.

As a Cuban, whose salary is not enough to visit Ecuador without a visa or Europe with a visa, I am deeply offended by this drastic change just a few days from the Cuban immigration reform.

If we were Brazil, tomorrow we would include a regulation that asked not only for letter of invitation, but a reserved round trip ticket, bank statements and a hotel reservation from the citizens of your country.

Instead, I hope that my country will continue training, for free, your students in our universities, healing your sick and assisting your nation in social development programs.

Latin-Americanly,

Elaine Diaz

www.facebook.com/elainediazrodriguez)

January 16 2013

Jorge Hojas Puñales

For those of us who comb our grey hair, or those who now haven’t any hair to comb, the French utopia dealing with attempted social change, in the context of that society, was an unreachable goal, notwithstanding the fact that it served as a program. And on a daily basis we see that as regards our own society, and in particular its future, it has transformed into a mirage; it is as if our goals, dreams and hopes, were on the horizon, that line which we can never reach.

How far away we are from being able to say with enthusiasm and credibility that in our society the law is respected, complied with and obeyed by all the bodies which make up our society.

We would like to prepare all the information possible, in order that people may have a sense of all the rules, orders and legal regulations which have been published in the Republic of Cuba’s Official Gazette, produced by the Ministry of Justice in more than 50 years.

Almost every day the Organisations of the Central Administration of State (OACE) publish regulations, and, not at the same frequency, laws, decrees, and legal decrees are put out in relation to the National Assembly of Popular Power (ANPP), the Council of State (CE) and the Council of Ministries.

To preach the law with due respect and devotion, it should not be necessary to undertake actions against those who flagrantly break or violate it, or with impunity fail to observe it. For example, it is sad to see them demolish a building because its construction was illegal. Why does that happen? Simply because of the total lack of respect for the law, both on the part of the person carrying out the work and also the person who has benefitted from the failure to observe it, both private individuals and companies.

What role is performed or should be performed by the lawyer or advocate in the OACE, an organisation, a company or association? As far as we are concerned his main role is founded on the preaching of respect for all current legislation, ensuring his behavior adheres to and complies with it, which is almost impossible to do, given that his boss’s wishes take precedence; he can’t act as consultant or advisor, because at best he is not listened to and at worst he is kicked out for going against his superior’s  decisions.

Everything that we have described, merits a special illustrative space showing how the laws are violated or infringed, which according to us (all of us) we approve. There is an old saying: “killed himself like Chacumbele”. Are we (all) Chacumbele?

January 13 2013