Translating Cuba

Unbelievable. Some time ago the post office left at my house an envelope full of my maps that I had inadvertently left behind at a little house in Sierra del Cristal, back east. The extraordinary thing is that they arrived at my house two years and two months — the date was shown on the postmark — after they day they were sent: something suspicious they kept longer than usual in our respectful post office; they opened it, and then sealed it and sent it on.

How different the peasants and workers in the wood whom I could never thank for this postal favor, and all the others of those trips, who accepted no pay, although they lived so humbly it hurt. A chicken, the only one, sacrificed and cooked for guests; the little rice shared with strangers from Camaguey; a workday dedicated to free guide service for some stubborn boys climbing, among the thorns and mountain streams; the most falling-apart shoe in the world immediately sewn up; all that solidarity, integrity, even amid the monumental scarcities with which they live.

All this on the Pico de Cristal — Crystal Peak — which at 4,000 feet is the highest mountain in Cuba outside the Sierra Maestra. And the least docile of all I visited. Relatively close to the northern coast of Holguin in the area of Levisa, they say it is easier however to climb it from the south, coming from Santiago town Mayari Arriba, which is about 15 kilometers away.

The summit is almost on the border of the two provinces, although it falls on the Holguin side. A bust of the Mambi General Calixto García, facing north, surrounded by thorns, gives the sense of belonging that those from Holguin have.

The Sierra del Cristal beat me once, when I ventured unguided with a fledgling group, which went into shock three hundred meters from the top, our shoes broken, completely losing the way forward and back, out of water and crackers and with threatening rain that poured down on us, what they call “drizzle” in those uninhabited hills, which are the wettest of the country, is the same thing as saying torrents of water or mud pushing you off some cliff.

The annihilated scouts advanced and recoiled a thousand times, without reaching the top. Afterwards I didn’t not know if we went down or fell down. A hospital worker from the forest company that cuts down the pine trees in that region, came out to find us with the shock that any mountain spring would have hit us with. She found us wasted in little pieces, lying there exhausted and peaceful on a sandy ford of the Levisa River.

But last year we had a rematch, more organized and tough, and better guided, and we got there. That stretch of the Levisa river is the most striking natural thing in Cuba. In the first trip we only passed through it in our way to the mountain — if you come from the southeast, as we did, it’s a crossing point — but in the second trip, with more time and knowledge of the field, we continue downstream to the north.

And the discovering of the great white sand beaches, and the infinite waterfall ladder, more abrupt and continuous than the ones of the niches of the Escambray, conquered us. The white sand seems to release from  the saline deposit of the slopes of  Pico de Cristal itself; from that beach surely comes the name of the mountain and the region.

The water runs down there, constant and very cold no mater the season, through plastic pipelines that take advantage of gravity, from the mountain to the houses where the workers spend the night. The hidden caves of that prehistoric mammal, the almiqui, can be found with a little patience and a good eye. The wild dogs howl all night, and traces of wild pigs can be found any path near the river. On the mountain there are treacherous roads that the guide doesn’t warn us end at some precipice and vines everywhere. Pico de Cristal, stubbornly locked in it isolation and trails, is the only great mountain in Cuba for travelers who love the difficult.

But another mountain, less easy to beat, amazes in these parts: a mountain of oblivion. Tucked in the middle of nowhere, are the workers of Sierra Cristal Forest Enterprise and dozens of coffee farmers. Those who cut or plant pines — although deforestation always wins — usually live there, in the middle of the mountains, one or two weeks or two weeks at a time, because the difficultly they have — with the bad transport and the bad roads — getting back and forth from their homes in Mayari Arriba or Tumba Siete or Los Jagüeyes.

But in those immense hills, in their camps there is no electricity no, no phones or music or shops or parks or people to talk to but themselves. And they die of boredom and apathy, with old clothes and the frugal food they eat not to faint — beware, in the middle of the lost mountains there are no doctors — and some drown their nights in waves of alcohol, in a boring destruction it’s not easy to escape. All for a very poor wage that leaves their families in poverty, a wage they cannot haggle about because they have no union to engage in the battle of rights.

The coffee farmers, even with the recent increases of the money the state company pays for their product, continue to suffer the evils of the Cuban countryside: a forced and demanding monopoly with non-negotiable prices paid for production — and always watching for skimming — and this amid an almost complete lack of equipment and supplies to facilitate the work.  After an endless series of absurdities from higher up, it always ends with the overwhelming presence of the State and its officials.

These are the stories one hears while walking through the felled pine trees or sliding through the wet and muddy coffee plantations, where it seems those who should solve the problems never come.

The person who first talked to be about the Crystal Mountains was a gentleman who was with the rebels there in the ’50s, with that guerrilla troop protected by the incredible nature and the even greater solidarity of the people of Mayari Arriba.

This “Second Front” as they call it in the town, a few days ago celebrated the 55th anniversary of the struggle to improve the lives of many people. Whoever walks along those mountains realizes that obviously those guerrilla leaders didn’t accomplish much. And time is running out.

14 March 2013

The model that has governed my country for the last 54 years didn’t always have  constitution nor hold elections. The bases of these were created in 1976 — after the government had been in power for 17 years — as a wise move to legitimize their leadership of Cuba and create a political-social structure that allowed them to prolong their domain. And so it proved.

The created the organs of popular power to enshrine Marxism and perpetuate “Made in China” socialism, to justify a model of participative democracy that is not democracy because it is not plural, nor is there a separation of powers, nor is it participative, because it discriminates and Cubans with points of view that differ from the official line cannot hold office.

Democracy of a small group and one party is a bluff. It’s a monochromatic political landscape in the absence of ideological colors, the unhealthy totalitarianism of peoples, the fattening of egos with praise, in short, it is a single party, despite what the Cuban government says, it is a predator of the democratic values of every nation.

21 April 2013

I came to Cienaga Zapata — the Zapata Swamp — a few days ago, without housing or transportation or mosquitoes or crabs on the roads, only with guidance from a battered map and the goodwill of all the swamp dwellers I found along the way. I wanted to go to Giron (known to Americans as the Bay of Pigs), to Playa Larga, to talk with Nemesia, see crocodiles and coal, and to know the depths of the Zapata peninsula, where my map showed the names of hamlets. I did almost everything, except the last. In this April, those people who were never bombed, don’t exist today. They’ve gone.

There are two swamps: an exterior one all along the road from La Boca to Playa Giron and Cayo Ramona, a swamp dotted with private restaurants and rooms-for-rent in well-painted masonry buildings, in Pálpite, Playa Larga, Caletón or Girón, where people live hoping for the tenuous capitalism that is permitted and a tide of tourists. It is their sensible businesses that support the relative prosperity of the swamp dwellers.

It’s true that in Cienaga there are a hospital, schools and roads, and that the majority of its communities have regular transport. There’s a computer club but no Internet for Cubans because they have no right to is anywhere. There are a civil registry office, bakery, electricity, police, forest rangers and others who work for the Ministry of the Interior — detecting illegalities among ordinary cities, blind to the high officials. There are hotels, campsites, museums, a bookstore, snack bars, a theater group, and a video place. It’s true that almost none of this existed in 1959. So far so good — although the stench of the montage in the showcase is unbearable.

And is this enough for a human being? After 54 years of continual sacrifice, will all the prosperity that the people of Cienaga aspire to be contained in the badly delivered basic services, and a discreet comfort that, at the first opportunity, makes them put out the “for sale” sign and get well away?

But you have to shake your head in amazement when you compare the privileged places of the swamp, with those outside the tourist route.

Because there are villages in Cienaga — the real one, not the tourist or museum one — with no phones, no cell coverage, like the remote Santo Tomas, where electricity comes from a plant that runs a few hours a day. There’s a doctor, a little school with a teacher and computers but no Internet, a video place where you can only see what’s permitted, prefab cottages and a social circle with rum and cigars.

That’s better than nothing, of course, if a person doesn’t have the spirit of progress and children don’t mind getting older in the same conditions in which they were born. Those places have fixed transport once a day, and to get to civilization they have to pass through dust or mud, depending on the season.

So, naturally, people flee from Santo Tomas, Guasasa or La Ceiba, gloomy villages becoming deserted, because they fugitives suspect they will never improve their lives.
“What you see here is the work of the Revolution,” says a billboard to the right of the road at the entrance to town of Cienaga de Zapata — Zapata Swamp. I would add “What you DO NOT see here, is also the work of the Revolution.”

What is most needed in Cienaga? For starters, what I say in everything I write: Freedom. Freedom in the economic initiatives of the people, who can only engage in certain businesses; freedom in commerce and property; freedom of information, assembly, association, education and labor unions …

On this trip I couldn’t see any crocodiles, free in the wild, even when I went into a channel of soft and nauseating shores where something splashed from time to time. A child told me that in the old villages of the Zapata Peninsula they no longer see crocodiles: they’ve fled from the people. I thought, you don’t see people either: they have fled from despair.

This Revolution over the same Cienaga for such a long time, weighs it down. And little by little, it is sinking.

18 April 2013

photo from http://www.diarioelatlantico.com

On two occasions in Guanabo, a seaside town east of Havana, the authorities launched an action against the vendors who gather at 5th Avenue and C; but this Saturday there were much more despotic and cruel, because along with the abuse, the seized the goods of the self-employed.

Local residents and those of us who learned of the abuse wonder why they confiscate things from people that they had to pay for. Residents also question why they are now forbidden to sell on the town’s main street, with the coming of the season when the place is full of Cubans who go there to swim and they may find it easier to sell their products.

As usual, the police don’t give explanations about the change and nor do they give any reason for the abuse or the use the expropriated goods are put to. What they do make clear is that they have no interest in promoting trade and supporting the vendors.

It came to mind, in contrast, how the merchants on 23rd or on G, in Havana, are permitted and no one comes and throws them off those streets. The answer may be that it is easier to abuse people and violate their rights on the outskirts of the city, away from witnesses and bystanders of all colors and influences, and far from embassies and tourists with cameras.

18 April 2013

My only source of news about this week’s election in Venezuela was Telesur and the Cuban press. Supposedly, Capriles was the villain calling for violence. The victims were exclusively Chavez supporters (though only a carpenter was mentioned and no names or statistics were given). And Maduro made accusations about coup plots and terrorist attacks.

I do not doubt that the situation in Venezuela at the moment is very volatile, but the analysts I saw stressed the fact that Maduro was elected president by half the voting public while forgetting that their coverage made a circus out Mexican elections by claiming that the losing candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, armed and “could arm” crowds in the Zócalo if Felipe Calderón was declared the winner.

The analysts also failed to comment on the quasi-dictatorial attitude of the recently elected Maduro with respect to protests organized by the opposition. “I will not allow it,” he said. (No one told me about this; I saw it live on Telesur.) It is as though the other half of the population does not exist but, more importantly, as though democracy in Venezuela no longer exists.

New coverage of the election in Venezuela confirmed my belief in the need to stay informed. It goes to show how information can be subverted and how the Cuban government will try to retain control for as long as possible. I would therefore like to present this as evidence of manipulation of one of a series human rights outlined in an international letter to be submitted for discussion in Geneva with an official delegation present.

19 April 2013

Many of you remember what happened in our country in the summer of 1989*. I’m referring to those trials that popular wits baptized, for the range of events and actors, “Tropicana show under the stars, first and second parts.” During those dark and sordid events, in certain circles of power a refrain that marked my life began to be heard: “Don’t believe anything you hear; only believe half of what you see.”

It is precisely because of this that today, at a distance of almost three years (since I left the island) and more than 90 miles, I can’t accept the different discourses coming from the island that describe an actuality that speaks much and says little.

Can we attest that the modifications in the travel and immigration law eased the entry to and exit from the country for Cuban citizens? Some assert that yes, they did; but just a few days ago the Cuban counsel in Moscow, under orders from Havana, refused permission for a gentleman in his 70s who, feeling destroyed, told me in an email, “… They continue to prevent my entering my beautiful island, I continue to be prevented from hugging my three children and meeting my three grandchildren who were born during the seven years they’ve prohibited my visiting Cuba.” continue reading

On Sunday, April 14, at 11:45 PM Havana time, the president of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena, delared Nicolas Maduro, the candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the winner of the presidential election. More than a few bottles of champagne and Russian vodka were uncorked by Cuban government ministers and military businessmen in a relaxed and familial atmosphere.

The close victory by Chavez’ hand-picked successor — 50.66% of the vote compared to Capriles’ 49.07% — was the culmination of a political campaign orchestrated in large part from Havana.

While the Bolivarian comandante lay dying in CIMEQ, a large hospital west of the city, the Castro brothers offered their services as political intermediaries to the bereaved Chávez cabinet. It was in the Cuban capital that a plan was cooked up and a timetable for succession was worked out. Behind the scenes a script was being written. continue reading

Some unsuspecting tourists who I ran into at Cafe El Escorial, Plaza Vieja, asked me, in the course of a friendly conversation, why don’t we Cubans solve our own political problems like the Libyans or Syrians.

Without going into too much detail, I tried to explain that our situation was somewhat different and that Cubans, tired of failed violent solutions to resolve our political contradictions, for some time have chosen to do so peacefully.

I told them that since the establishment of the Republic in 1902, violence has always been our first choice to resolve things, perhaps influenced by the many years of armed struggle for independence, and that far from achieving independence, it had made things worse. continue reading

After a long time without entering my blog (particularly because of technical difficulties with the DesdeCuba portal) I am here only to tell you that I am alive.

My absence has awakened suspicions that it was Yoani who was writing my texts and not the reverse, as was believed on the birth of Generation Y. Others have said that I’m so busy with domestic matters that I don’t have time for anything. Sneering and more sneering. Don’t worry, I can take it.

In these days of technological silence, many things are happening, perhaps the most important being the elections in Venezuela. I would have loved to have had my say here, especially to be mistaken in my hopes, but I say it now: I wish Capriles had won.

April 13th also passed by, a date for which there was a kind of prophecy. As is obvious, nothing happened.

My friend the Cuban photographer Ivan Cañas Boix turned 67 and I couldn’t properly congratulate him, with more hope than nostalgia.

And Yoani’s journey is underway, a topic I resist talking about, out of basic modesty.

Well, friends, the thing is, I’m back.  I’ll return on Monday.

19 April 2013