Gibara and Beyond

Jan. 20, 2018- Gibara and Beyond

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

We had a long (1 hr. 45 min.) drive today. Jose, our Cuban guide, had a chance to talk to us and answer questions. The lesson today was on how resilient the Cuban people are.

The Cuban Revolution resulted in Batista being overthrown and Fidel Castro taking leadership. Fidel was a Communist. The US broke diplomatic relations leaving an opening for the USSR. The occupation by the USSR was symbiotic to a point. They took all the sugar Cuba could produce and traded it for oil. After Perestroika, the Soviets pulled out.  Cuba was left in isolation. They had to re-invent themselves. Their farms were dependent on chemical fertilizer based on petroleum products. They were only getting a pittance of oil from Russia. They went back to basics.

There were five years of starvation before they began to benefit from their dilemma. Farming became organic. Oxen and horses were used to cultivate instead of tractors. They found that tractors compacted the fields they harvested while the hooves of animals plowed it up. They began using by-products of the vast sugar cane production. It became fuel, fertilizer, and food for animals. After sugar cane produced rum and molasses, alcohol was used for medicines. Cuba has created medicine for treatment of diabetic ulcers, lung cancer, and others that are used world-wide, except for the US. They were into solar and wind energy early on.

The government still controls sugar cane, tobacco, coffee, rum, and cattle, but entrepreneurs are being encouraged. Urban farming is popular. Free land and buildings for stores can be had for rental payments. Foreigners are being lured to invest. With free medical care and education, taxes are needed. Infrastructure needs major attention. Deals are being made with China and India for Cuba to improve ports so oil can be drilled off-shore. The Cuban government taxes them at 51%. The US had plans to join the party. Not now.

Education is compulsory to age nine. So many are graduating from university that there's a lack of skilled workers. After university, people are encouraged to get free technical training and be certified as plumbers, electricians, etc. 

But Raoul Castro has identified a serious problem where the old system has failed. Every person in Cuba gets a ration book regardless of economic status. It is customized as to age and medical need. He sees that people have gotten lazy and need an incentive to work. He wants to streamline the welfare program to include only those in need. He will leave office and for the first time in decades there will not be a Castro as leader. It's wait and see. 

Jose pointed out that the people we passed were white. This part of Cuba is where Spaniards settled and their descendants stayed. They weren't big slave owners as were those in other parts. There are 12% pure blacks now. Others are white or mixed. Prejudice is not unknown. Jose is black.

He explained that his father was sent to the USSR, learned Russian, and worked for Cuba as a translator. He taught his children Russian. As a young boy, Jose lived near Guantanamo. One day he found an American radio station. He listened, learned, spoke to other English speakers in Cuba, and took English in school. He also learned French at university. He's very employable as a guide, but after our government issued a travel warning, tourism from the US fell off drastically. 

Our original destination was a rum distillery, but the bus couldn't navigate the muddy roads. We went on to Puerto Padre. Despite intermittent rain (someone in this group has bad weather karma--not us), we trekked through mud to hear a jazz band. They were men from the local classical concert band who branched out forming a government supported group. Each played one of four saxes (soprano, tenor, alto, bass). They were excellent and fun. After all, this is a people to people cultural learning experience, not a tour. They didn't play Guantanamera. 

Lunch was at Conchita Farms for a pig roast. The farm is run by three generations of a family. It's totally organic. I must say our group leader is on top of our dietary needs and had chicken ready. Somehow the Jewish group members were at our table and they figured it out.

Since vehicles are scarce, horses and bikes are basic transportation. There are horseback riders, horse drawn two-seater wagons and those that are fabric covered ala Conestogas that carry as many people as fit in.

When we returned to the hotel, we walked around Gibara and down to the Malancon (waterfront promenade). Before we started, I took a picture of our very muddy bus. A man walking alongside the bus asked me for a dollar. He said I took his photo. I didn't. He wasn't in the picture. I now know that "f...you" is the same in Spanish and English.

 Our group is diverse in age and geography. We have a Hawaiian and Aussies. There's a 90 year old who walks a mile every day and drives an hour each way twice a week for square dancing. The Hawaiian lives on a farm, the Aussies live in the US for long stretches, the Minnesotans live five hours north of Mnpls, there's an ophthalmologist who seems bitter about how medicine has gone, the woman from Santa Fe is a paper artist, two women from California are here without husbands, the people from Connecticut are still an unknown quantity except that they're Jewish.

Have pity on us. The only English TV is CNN. We have now heard the same government shutdown story ad nauseum. On the positive side, electricity stayed on all night.

A clarification of Internet cards... The hotel doesn't sell them. The post office does. It wasn't open when we left town or returned. Sorry if you get multiple emails at once.

We both had killer headaches yesterday evening. We determined it was the humidity and not government orchestrated. So far, our hearing is intact. I decided to risk rinsing my toothbrush under the tap. I thought I was brave, but another woman is using hotel water to rinse her mouth after brushing.

Dinner was at Paradore Peria deal Norte. Lovely. The Aussies ordered a bottle of wine. They could choose Chilean or Chilean. That's the go-to country for wine here. We were told that meals would be predictable. Tonight was fish and chicken, rice, dried plantains. To change it up there were no beans.

We go to Santiago de Cuba tomorrow where Jose has contacts in the Jewish community. He seems to know the presidents of congregations all around the country. I think it's his business to know everyone. Manuel gives us an itinerary for a few days ahead. He includes a weather prediction. Tomorrow it will be "hot and hummed."

Toby

Sax Serenade

Conestoga-like wagon