Translating Cuba

Unfortunately, almost daily, I hear gruesome accounts of personal experiences from family members who attend to and care for the crypts and tombs of their ancestors in the Colon Cemetery. Long ago this burial ground was maintained by ecclesiastical authorities and it must be pointed out that all their attention and organization was evident a thousand times over. After 1959, however, they were summarily relieved of this duty by the new government. That is when things started to deteriorate.

For many years prior to this intervention, its archives were kept in wonderful working order thanks to a gentleman of very advanced age with many years of experience on the job. He assisted all those who went there in search of information with great politeness and efficiency, regardless of how far back the records went. Some years ago I went to request a document on my father, who passed away in 1949, but this gentleman was no longer there. Someone with a very bad attitude waited on me instead and had the nerve to tell me that record books and ledgers were not kept at that time and, therefore,because it had never been registered,she could not look it up. No matter how much I insisted and explained to her that all deaths going back to colonial times had been recorded, she refused to help me.

On another occasion, five years ago on one Mother’s Day, I went to the family crypt to leave flowers and almost fainted when I realized that the large bronze crucifix that had adorned the crypt was gone. Apparently, it had been stolen by force with a hammer and chisel, as a part of it remained embedded in the granite. I reported the robbery and submitted before-and-after photos to the administrator at the time, who became irate and told me very brusquely that, during his time in that position, there had been no robberies. I assured him that the theft had taken place at some time that same week. I have yet to receive any news from the supposed investigation.

Recently, a friend, who is a well-known writer and journalist, expressed to me her consternation at having to go to perform an exhumation of her family’s crypt only to find out that the skeletons of three of her family members were missing their heads. When she went to make a complaint, they had the audacity to tell her that perhaps they had become pulverized over time. Something similar happened to a neighbor of mine, a woman of very advanced age, who told my husband while waiting in line that, when she went to an exhumation to transfer the remains of some family members to an ossuary, she discovered that parts of parts of their skeletons had been stolen. This had caused her to lose sleep.

Another lady also told me about a family member, recently deceased, who a couple of years previously had carried out an exhumation to transfer remains to an ossuary. She had planned on keeping the crypt empty since all of her remaining family in Cuba were quite elderly. You can imagine the shock and confusion she felt when she opened the tomb to find some recently buried remains, none of whom had any relationship to her family.

All this clearly indicates the there is some kind of dark, macabre business going on, with skeletal remains as well as with the crypts. This includes tomb raids to steal clothing and jewelry from those buried during the time of the Republic, and robberies of stone sculptures and bronze ornaments like the large plaque under the relief of Adolfo Luque in the ball players’ crypt. All this has been going on for years, seemingly without the authorities having done anything effective to remedy it.

I personally believe that all these thefts, including large objects such as sculptures, could not have taken place without someone working there having witnessed them, especially since you must present proof of ownership for a tomb or crypt just to remove a simple jardinire in order to send it out for repairs.

As I know from personal experience, if you enter with photographic equipment, a custodian immediately stops you to ask if you are a tourist and if you going to be doing any photography. If so, you are then told you have to pay a fee in CUC. When this happened to me, I insisted that I was going there to take some photos of the family crypt. He finally let me pass, but with a warning that I could only take photos of my family’s property.

If they are so alert that they can spot tourists and charge them an entry fee, then I believe that, when they see someone suspicious opening tombs and carrying off marble statues—all of which must be done with specialized tools and vehicles—this has to be happening with the complicity of “someone on the inside.”

I will never forget the burial of an old friend, whose wake and funeral cortege was postponed far beyond what had been planned because someone from the cemetery directed the funeral home to delay the departure because the covering for the crypt was torn and the administrator, who was the only one who could authorize its replacement, had not yet arrived. Our group waited for more than three hours at the cemetery gate, where this sad affair was becoming extremely unpleasant and chaotic.Finally, my husband—tired of going from the entry gates to the exit, where supposedly some new coverings were located—had to take a worker aside and offer him 20 CUC* to solve the problem.All of a sudden the covering appeared and the burial of our friend went ahead.

All these accounts, which seem to have been taken from a horror or mystery novel, are real. It would be fitting if the authorities responsible for the Colon Cemetery addressed this issue in order to assure eternal rest for our ancestors and to preserve the richness of this sacred ground, which in its 126 years of existence has acquired an abundance of sacred works of art and architecture, spread over 500,000 square meters, and which is considered one of the finest of its kind in the world, and which and has been a designated national monument since 1987.

*Translator’s note: Convertible pesos, pegged to the US dollar. The amount here represents roughly one month’s salary for the average Cuban.

October 7 2012

Sometime after eleven at night, Alfredo, 66 years old, plants his folding chair and small plastic table at October 10 and Acosta streets. On this centrally located Havana corner he sells freshly brewed coffee. He has a large clientele. Nighttime entertainers, drivers from a nearby taxi stand, nightwatchmen, tranvestite prostitutes from the area and policemen in patrol cars visit Alfredo’s stand to buy strong coffee at two pesos for a small cup or three for one a bit larger.

“It’s not bad. I make between 120 to 160 a day. Sometimes more. Of course, I am up until dawn. Around 7:30 in the morning is when I go to bed,” says the elderly gentleman. If Alfredo had to live on his pension alone, he would not be able to have two meals a day or to go from time to time with his wife and grandchildren to a cafe in the Carlos III Commercial Center to have a beer and some hamburgers.

Danilo, 69 years old, is up by then. At dawn he roasts three pounds of peanuts and wraps them in a hundred paper cones. Later, he goes to various bus stops to hawk his product. He sells each cone for a peso (0.05 cents to the dollar). “I don’t always sell all the peanuts. There is a lot of competition. I don’t make much money, maybe 50 to 60 pesos a day. At least it helps me buy groceries,” Danilo says smiling.

It has been awhile since Natacha, age 49, put aside her degree in literature. It was more profitable for her to use the doorway of her house to sell small cups of ice cream for five pesos and carbonated drinks for two. High school students are her major clients.

“I buy the ice cream from a private producer. The carbonated beverage I make myself with a machine that I got for 80 convertible pesos. When I tally my receipts at the end of the day, they often amount to more than 200 pesos. As a professional I earned a salary of 480 pesos a month. You tell me if it’s worth it to keep the diploma in a drawer. Besides, I am my own boss. Everything depends on my efforts,” Natacha says.

Small retail businesses are sprouting like flowers all over Havana. Many private-sector workers feel they cannot make a profit running a cafe or a restaurant.” To open a restaurant or a good little cafe, you need more than two thousand convertible pesos. Since money is scarce nowadays, people in general tend to eat bread with croquettes or mayonnaise, fried food, stuffed potatoes—things that cost less than five pesos. I had a cafe that offered a wide array sandwiches and beverages. But the high prices—45 and 15 pesos for a sandwich—forced me to close,” an elderly cafe owner explains.

Certainly some cafes and privately-owned restaurants are going full steam, but most of the self-employed do not have enough capital for a large-scale business. They prefer to work as small-scale retailers.

Or driving a taxi which, according to Orlando, is the most profitable. “I work for a guy who has five cars and rents them out. We have to pay him 550 pesos a day if we drive a five-seat car. If it is a yipi with with ten seats, then we pay a thousand pesos a day. We don’t have to invest in anything. He takes care of gas and repairs. In one day I take home more than 600 pesos in profits,” he says.

In the central and oldest part of Havana there is a proliferation of tables with people selling costume jewelry, clothing and shoes. Thousands of stalls offer pirated CDs. At Antonio’s stand there is a wide selection of TV programs, films and soap operas. He sells DVDs for 30 pesos. He also has video games. If you cannot find what you are looking for, Antonio—always conscientious—tells you to come back the next day. “If you give me your word you will be back tomorrow, I will knock off five pesos.” Given the proliferation of vendors, it is often the ones who offer discounts or good service who snag the customers.

Sales are going extremely well for some; others are on the verge of bankruptcy. But all feel that it is better to work for themselves than to work for the state, which pays less, demands more and does not reward them for their work.

Photo: One of the many carts which which can be seeing daily on the streets of Havana selling garlic, onions, yucca, bananas, tomatoes and beans, among other farm products. From Primavera Digital.

October 23 2012

Thursday morning will never be forgotten by thousands of people in Eastern Cuba. The wind, flying roofs, heavy rains and trees falling on streets and houses, will remain as permanent memories of Hurricane Sandy. Nor will they be able to get out of their heads that first night after the disaster in which, from their battered beds or rickety sofas, they found nothing separating their faces from the starry night sky.

Some people lost everything, which was not much. People from whom the gale took the modest possessions they’d accumulated over their whole lives. A human drama extended over this area already affected beforehand by material shortages, constant migration westward, and the outbreaks of diseases like dengue fever and cholera. For the victims it rains and it pours, literally and metaphorically. Nature intensifies the economic collapse and social problems of this region of the country. So these are the times to redouble our solidarity, to roll up our sleeves and help them rebuild their homes, to divide the piece of bread, and to go all out to contribute to those unlucky Cubans that Sandy left behind.

I think we all know what we can give and do, but I still dare to venture some proposals directed at the Cuban authorities. The decisions they make in the coming days will be crucial to shortening and mitigating the tragedy. I hope they put aside ideological differences and open their ears to the public that wants to contribute to the recovery of our country. Solidarity should not be an institutional monopoly, it never has been, and from this conviction arise proposals to make it more effective, such as the following:

• Eliminate the custom duties for entry into the country of food, medicines, appliances and building materials.
• Ensure that the public is organized to collect, transport and deliver clothes, medicines and other resources to the affected areas.
• Encourage and authorize the collection of funds and resources from Cuban immigrants to bring to the island, both on a personal level as well as a group or institutional level.
• Ask for an assessment by and cooperation from international organizations that provide aid, loans and advice to overcome this disaster.
• In the worst hit provinces make the procedures more flexible for obtaining construction permits, and also for the delivery of land in usufruct.
• Enact a moratorium on the collection of taxes from the self-employed in the regions where Sandy destroyed important parts of the economic and agricultural infrastructure.
• Renounce the institutional monopoly on the distribution of support, encouraging and respecting the existence of citizen channels to distribute aid.

26 October 2012

My grandmother would often turn to a common saying to reinforce an argument. I also had a philosophy professor—a very good one, to be sure—who used to say that all wisdom had been summed up in a popular book of Spanish proverbs, and would begin his classes by “tossing into the air” one of the sayings that had a lot to do with the subject of development.

But this is not about that since, every day now, more and more people are no longer resigned to all the calamities heaped upon them because, as the saying goes, they are no one’s fools. On this occasion a friend, Mariza, came to see me and brought some evidence of what had happened to her for me to write about on my blog.

Last weekend she had managed to get her hands on a few convertible pesos. For the pleasure of having some garbanzo beans to share with her family, she went to the Caracol store on 26th Avenue in Nuevo Vedado to buy a box that contained a couple of sausages, a piece of ham and a package of garbanzos to make a nice cocido. According to the instructions on the label, all you had to do with this product was add it to the pot, heat and serve. Since the product was Cuban, from the Oro Rojo brand (a division of the Union of Meat, Oil and Edible Fats), she was wary and proceeded to choose the garbanzos that came separately, but in a clear plastic bag inside an outer package.

Imagine her surprise when she began seeing peas mixed in with the garbanzos, many of them rotten, which she discarded. Not to mention the tiny bits of sticks that were included in the contents. She brought all this evidence to me, carefully collected, in the same package that appears in the above photo.

She also handed me the box—now open and empty, of course—and the bag with all the discarded items she had separated out. On one part of the box it read, “Best consumed before (no date). Manufactured by the Tauro Meat Company. Packaged October 10, no. 852, Havana. Ten servings, 100g per serving.”

The contents barely provided six very modest servings and cost almost 8 CUC, the equivalent of some monthly salaries. The price varies depending on where you buy it — a few cents more here, a few less there.

Now tell me. . . Wouldn’t it have almost been cheaper to go to a privately-owned restaurant to have a good garbanzada without so much aggravation? I can assure you that this misery, which afflicts many people, will be loved by certain company. This is not the case with my friend, who is no one’s fool, nor with a large number of Cubans who have to put up with it, or so it sometimes seems to us.

*Translator’s note: an equivalent translation of the Spanish proverb mal de muchos consuelo de tontos, or more literally “the misfortune of others is a comfort to fools.”

October 20 2012

More than half of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) of Havana did not celebrate their 52nd anniversary of September 27-28.  This celebration was marked at 90% only in the central and eastern zones of the country.

September 27 was celebrated in anticipation of the September 28 day of the 52nd anniversary of the CDR.  Since its inception this revolutionary Fidelist project only served to guard the government’s interests, not the Cuban people’s.

A square is made of four blocks, and each block has a CDR, so a square has four CDRs.

Currently four out of ten squares throw a party in anticipation of the 28th.  Therefore the others rest at home watching TV or performing some other activity.  Only 16 out of exactly 40 CDRs celebrate that day and 24 CDRs do not participate in said celebration. So 40% celebrate and 60% do not.  The chosen municipalities were Arroyo Naranjo, 10 de Octubre, Boyerso, La Lisa, Cerro and Plaza.

After the special period the disenchanted population little by little stopped celebrating this day until it went unnoticed.

September 28, state media communicated the 52nd anniversary of the CDR as a support of the revolution and made an example of an eastern region CDR where there was more citizen support of the government.

Fiftyfour-year-old Miguel Torres says that in his neighborhood (Santa Malea) there is no longer any mention of a party for the CDR, “The president does not go by the houses so that the neighbors might support with broth — a tradition at these parties.”

October 1 2012