Holding on to my patience I managed to watch the National TV News (NTV) for a while. I had to make sure I kept calm in order to avoid getting a heart attack watching the images and listening to the scripted nonsense repeated by our announcers, as if it were a program intended for idiots.

It turned out that they announce that they are “gradually” bringing the streetlights back into action in the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy which devastated the province of Santiago de Cuba, leaving things in a terrible state — as if it was a great event. More than that, what insulted me even more was that they were saying that they were commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the attack on the Moncada barracks, as opposed to the hundreds of unfortunate victims, who still haven’t recovered the losses occasioned by the hurricane, fundamentally due to the accumulated misery of decades, which made it impossible for them to carry out proper maintenance to their houses.

It’s an embarrassment that after so many months they are saying that they are “gradually” restoring street lighting to the streets and avenues, knowing that crime and danger are directly supported by darkness. What’s more, they appear to be avoiding the dietary deficiencies confronting the people of Santiago de Cuba, whose poor income doesn’t permit them to feed themselves properly, and to recover from the damage caused by the atmospheric phenomenon. All of that, without even mentioning that much of the donations sent from different countries were not distributed without charge, as might be expected by the people sending them, but were sold at high prices.

I was even more insulted when recently the representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in our country had the nerve and lack of seriousness to publicly announce that we were one of the best fed people not only in America but in the world. It seems that this man forgot that here, when kids get to three years of age they lose their compotes, and at seven their milk, quite apart from the major sacrifices their parents have to make from when they are born, simply because of the lack of material resources.

Now, furthermore, a psychologist, whom I thought up to today was a reasonable person, has volunteered to sign in the Granma daily an article in which he completely justifies our country’s misery, calling it “The Cuban Model of Wellbeing”. What’s more he puts forward as a great example to be followed the fact that in Cuba everybody knows exactly who their neighbors are and what they are doing, when in reality it is no more than meddling in someone else’s life, and not “socializing,” which is what ll of us, one way or another, have had to suffer.

Translated by GH

16 May 2013

Patchwork portrait by Rebeca

Mother’s Day is a custom that has been practiced in our country for generations. It continues to be celebrated, though differently and under certain limitations, in spite of the current state of familial disintegration. The main objective of the celebration was to return to the matriarchal home to be with one’s family. It never mattered how far one person lived from another.

I remember a great commotion all through the house beginning early in the morning. Even the youngest family members had their assigned chores. Unmarried girls like me, who still lived together under the same roof, were in tasked with cleaning. The males were in charge of gathering dried leaves from the garden. They would put them in a metal tank in the patio to become compost, which would later be used as fertilizer. Or they would burn them, which was an easier way of getting rid of them. The women manned their posts in the kitchen. The maid had been given the day off since she would also be having a celebration at her own house.

On Sundays, as well as this on this special day, my mother, an expert cook, was in charge of creating the menu with the help of my grandmother. Uncle Pedro had to be kept out of the kitchen because he was fond of “dipping his spoon in the pot.” He was, therefore, given the task of setting up the big table with the help of his son. For this and other occasions a “little room in back” was used for storing a pair of wooden burros, or saw horses, and an immense slab.

Around noon members of the extended family began arriving. The first to get there were some uncles whose house was across the street, followed later by those who lived further away. Everyone, both children and adults, wore either a red or a white flower on their chests. The former signified the mother was still alive, the latter that she had passed away. This custom evolved as a way of preventing someone from “putting his foot in his mouth” by inquiring about a mother who was deceased. Fortunately, at that time almost everyone in our house wore a red flower. In the afternoon we were joined by other family members who, because they lived a little further away, did not join us for lunch. They nonetheless stopped by to pay their respects to the mothers, who on that day were the queens of the party. By evening, with all the family members and close friends, we were a multitude!

The superb lunch almost always featured a chicken, which back then was reserved for the Sunday feast. During the rest of the week we ate beef, prepared in one of its many different ways. It was the most common dish simply because it was both economical and good. The exception was Fridays when fish was generally served. Pork, guinea hen and turkey were the preferred choices on Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year’s.

One of my mother’s culinary specialties was her always superb arroz con pollo, which on this day she served on big platters garnished with pimentos, asparagus tips, baby peas and hard-boiled eggs, prepared according to a famous recipe. There were also salads made with seasonal vegetables. And, of course, one could not forget to have a nice cream cake as well as the famous ice cream cake covered in chocolate, which came in a box packed with dry ice to keep it frozen until serving time. The climax of the lunch was the invariably delicious coffee, which my grandmother often said was the “crowning touch” to any meal.

Later in the evening, after almost everyone had left, Uncle Pedro (to avoid cooking) prepared wonderful sandwiches. He would spread one side of a baguette with butter and the other with mustard, adding slices of ham, chorizo, cheese and rounds of pickled cucumbers. There were two blenders in the kitchen similar to the ones found in cafes (there were a lot of us) in which he prepared delicious mamee or mango shakes, depending on the season. The fruit came from trees growing in the patio behind the house.

Today, so many years after that wonderful time in our lives, I am struck with nostalgia remembering those Mother’s Days with their Sunday lunches. After 1959 they were snuffed out, little by little, as our family became fragmented — as was the case with almost all Cubans — when most of us went into exile. Many of the products needed to prepare those feasts also began disappearing as a result of state intervention in private business and salaries which were no longer sufficient to cover their costs. Add to that the ever growing transport problems which prevented those who lived in other provinces from attending the festivities. Like a grey blanket, sadness began shadowing these family events from my childhood and adolescence. The houses became practically empty. No longer did anyone wear a flower on the chest out of either happiness or sadness.

This is just one more of our lovely Cuban traditions, which have gradually disappeared along with our youth and illusions. Fortunately, they went into exile along with our compatriots, who continue to practice them there. Because of this I have hope and am certain that one day they will return — perhaps a bit modified, but enriched — to fatten our cultural imagination and currently meagre culinary repertoire.

11 May 2013

Photo A.Betancourt

Venuto al Mondo (Twice Born), a film by Sergio Castellitto, with magnificent performances of Penelope Cruz and Emile Hirsch, based on the novel by Margaret Mazzantini where fratricidal war broke out in Sarajevo, serves as a backdrop for a personal drama, whose central theme is frustrated motherhood.

A young Italian woman visiting some friends in the former Yugoslavia met an American photographer, and a strong passion arose between the two. They meet again in Italy, when he goes in search of her prompted by her father, uniting both formally as a couple. The desire to have a child becomes an obsession, until after several attempts, doctors detect infertility in the woman. Then they decide to adopt a child.

Again frustration overtakes the couple, faced with the refusal of the Italian authorities to allow them to adopt, due to the criminal records of young photographer, so they decide to return to Sarajevo, to use artificial insemination, which is also interrupted by an armed attack on the hospital as they were about to do it, and they decide to stay in the country despite the war, in search of a surrogate.

The interesting thing about the film, along with its dialogue and actions, is that it demonstrates how the ideological manipulation of a “charismatic leader” sick with power, is able to bring the worst of human beings to the surface and to bring about a war between families and neighbors, for just ideological, ethnic or religious differences.

All this made me think of those early years of the Revolution, when they were creating the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in the neighborhoods, their main objectives being surveillance, harassment and confrontation between neighbors and families, and then later, when these neighborhoods were changing their appearance, because their original neighbors went into exile and were replaced by other newcomers, who had nothing to do with the new environment, there were repercussions in some very unfortunate cases, where envy and lust surfaced.

Then, in the eighties, when the Mariel crisis rekindled those feelings and strengthened them, driven by the recklessness of those who incited them. This had dire consequences where abuse, beatings, and humiliations of all kinds were perpetrated by a manipulated masses, whom they had the audacity to call “an enraged people.” This did not develop into a major misfortune because fortunately our western idiosyncrasy has nothing to do with countries that served as the location for the film in question. But it was and is a stain to be set forever in our recent history.

8 May 2013

Nothing could be pleasanter that being able to congratulate a friend, male or female, by sharing a simple, healthy meal.

I was finally able to get some chicken breasts, which for a long time had not been available at the hard-currency stores in my neighborhood. It then occurred to me they could be the basis for the following menu.

Chicken breasts with rosemary:

Slowly thaw frozen chicken breasts. Cut them into pieces, then salt and pepper them. Set aside for approximately one hour.

Sauté them over high heat on both sides until golden brown. Add abundant slices of raw onion, cut into rings, then lower the heat so that they will cook slowly. Add a few sprigs of fresh rosemary (I have some planted in my garden), and two tablespoons of dry wine. Cover the pan and let everything simmer for approximately 45 minutes.

Potatoes au jus:

Peel the potatoes and cut them into slices, but not as thin as you would for fries. Add salt and a little mustard. Place them in a heated teflon skillet, cover and lower the heat so that they cook in their own juices and brown slightly.

Once the breasts are ready, serve them on a platter, adding the potatoes on top as a garnish. You could also serve rice that has been placed in mold. Garnish the platter with a sprig of rosemary.

Round out this pleasant lunch with a fruit drink, a well-dressed seasonal salad and, of course, some sort of dessert. If you want to gild the lily, finish with a nice cup of coffee. If it is the kind that people bring from Miami, even better. The coffee from here is not very good, even if you paid for it in hard-currency.

Bon apetit!

5 May 2013

Work by Rebeca

Once upon a time in my planet, where there were many fine department stores, small boutiques, department stores, cafes, restaurants and all kinds of successful businesses, large and small, where it was a real pleasure to go shopping, the slogan was: “The customer is always right. “

So it manifested itself and it worked very well. The customer was satisfied and the owner as well, because the profits for his business increased and he rejoiced on feeling the appreciation and respect of his customers. Of course, every business had an owner and there is nothing better than “the master’s eye to fatten the horse.”

With the arrival of the year 1959, the new “government” in just one of the first things it did, nationalized all large businesses and enterprises. Then the “revolutionary offensive” gave the final blow to the already “skewered” and bled economy. Now the customer had become a “user” who had no right to choose or demand, only to accept what the ration book determined without protest. I couldn’t buy what I wanted or needed, and only and badly acquire what is “determined.”

These vices were embedded and are a drag on the economy to this day, and although it is assumed that the “legalization of the dollar” and the arrival of the dual currency, at least what is for sale in hard currency (and very difficult to acquire) gives the right to choose, though it’s not the case because people who work for the State, which is almost everyone, and who in return receive miserable wages also have a motto: “I pretend to work and the state pretends to pay me.”

Therefore they have no interest in selling and unfortunately the only motivation is to see who can “knock down” the client, using that euphemism instead of using the ugly word “steal.” Not all employees are like this, but unfortunately a considerable number of them have been carried away by this vice and don’t even consider it a crime. Thus demonstrating in this way, they lack a healthy motivation to exercise their work as sellers.

A couple of days ago, an acquaintance of mine, entered the “The Butterfly” store in Nuevo Vedado, to buy a fan for his wife as a birthday present, since this was the only establishment where there was the model that suited him and fit his budget. At that store, after having checked all the stores of this kind, looking for this gadget, he found that the employee who staffed that department wasn’t there. When he asked about it, they told him that she hadn’t come in for three days because she has a sick child. Then he insisted that someone, instead of her, take care of him. He was told that no one could do it, only she was designated for that department. Why is that?

Losing patience, he asked to see the manager, who showed up a little annoyed and repeated what the employee had said. Then this man, losing patience, identifies himself and said that he was also was an employee in hard currency stores, and  although it’s another chain, they all belong to the State and would not go in there without the fan, it would raise the incident to its ultimate consequences. And so he managed that they “reluctantly” sold him the damn gadget. As you see, long ago in my planet the customer is no longer in the right, but I am of the firm belief that rights must be demanded, as this customer did.

3 May 2013

It was very interesting to be able to see how they undertook the NO advertising campaign despite attacks from the right. What was smart about the campaign  was the making of the advertising “spots” advocating for future and optimistic Chile, without wallowing in the tragic events that followed the military coup, even against opinions of some of the participants of this campaign. They presented the “No” campaign with intelligence and freshness and finally managed to convince the majority.

Another detail that caught my eye was being able to hear throughout the shooting of the film that both proposals, the YES and NO, were granted the same amount of minutes in television space. Something that stands out when we just observed the media manipulation and centralization of Chavismo in Venezuela in the recent election campaign and subsequent voting, not to mention the denial of the opposition’s request for a recount of 100%.

I believe that despite taking into account, and never forgetting that it was Pinochet and the harm he did to his opponents, we have to recognize that in the end, the  dictator obeyed the will expressed in the NO of the Chilean people. I think this is a fact to consider.

Sometimes on television in our country, which is characterized by an ideological monopoly, or “it’s in the details,” or simply someone wishes to escape it.I would greatly like them to continue showing films like this one, which show the two sides of the same coin. In my humble opinion it takes the same courage to say NO as to act on it.

28 April 2013

Colorful Butterflies kindergarten

“Today day care centers celebrate their fifty-second anniversary. These institutions continue fulfilling and improving their mission so that work in education might be more profound and efficient…”

So begins an article published in Juventud Rebelde on April 10 of this year. It goes on to provide a brief history of how the first such institutions began in our country in the early 1960s. It reminded me of how I first got involved in this work through the direct request from a friend.

For a year I did “volunteer work” by myself in a big space in which they provided me with abundant and varied material, making fabric dolls as well as various articles for the home. These would later be auctioned in a raffle which took place on property owned by the Ministry of Foreign Commerce. The goal was to raise funds for a day care center on the ninth floor of a building on 23rd Street where a lot of women worked.

Finally, a year later they were able to bring the project to fruition as a result of many important donations from companies who had entered into negotiations with the ministry as well as my own modest contribution. I also remember actively participating in the decoration of center’s facility.

What I noticed was how this article ignored some of the real reasons for the deterioration and subsequent closure of many of these centers, whose construction had been such a noble goal.

A couple of years ago I was having a conversation with the director of Colorful Butterfles, a kindergarten next door to my house which my two sons attended. I asked her about the visible neglect of the center, and she told me it was due to low enrollment. After reading the article in Juventud Rebelde, it occurred to me that this was perhaps one of many causes, the main one being the lack of resources provided to the these institutions in addition to neglect and lack of maintenance.

“At the moment there are 45,000 applications pending and 46 institutions in the country have been closed — 40 in the capital alone — all for construction problems.”

This is how it was stated in one of the paragraphs from the article in question. We should, therefore, hold the government responsible for the current state of these buildings, which were built in great haste and in excess by people who had no experience in this kind of work to fulfill the usual quotas, not to mention the failure to provide stable funding for their subsequent maintenance.

Additionally, the ever more apparent lack of personnel qualified to work with children has led parents to take their children to private homes which, until a very short time ago, functioned in a kind of clandestine limbo. There is an ever increasing number of self-employed workers who take up this work now that they have a license to do it.

In the face of the importance and magnitude of the problem, since families don’t have sufficient resources to leave their children in private day care, due to poor salaries and not possessing another type of stable source of income, the government has implemented a new type of plan: “Educate your child”, that is being developed in some communities, offering guidance to the family to stimulate and adequately look after the little one, with the objective of achieving integral development and preparation for the start of the child’s school life.  We hope that this plan, like many other before it, will not languish on the road. Ladies and Gentlemen, love must be attended to!

 Translated by: Unknown, BW

22 April 2013

A couple of years ago I wrote about an event I learned of from someone very close to and emotionally attached to it, about how two Cubans who had fought on opposite sides at the Bay of Pigs, this sad military conflict between brothers, with the passing of time had reunited outside our territory, one as a member of Brigade 2506. and the other as a pilot at Playa Girón, as the event is called in Cuba.  By then both of them were exiles.

These two Cubans melted in a forgiving embrace in Miami and one of them, years later, died in the arms of the other. This is the reason that I decided to re-post fragments of this story because I find it so touching. Some of the offspring of both protagonists live now in Florida.

“One night, during one of the usual occasions when they would get together, as they were all seated at the table having a delicious Creole meal, the pilot became ill and excused himself to go to the bathroom.  A few minutes later, the host ran to the bathroom after hearing a noise.  When he got there, the pilot was on the floor. He gently held the pilot in his arms and watched him die.”

All these events, with the passing of years and the frustrations suffered by each other, have made us reflect about how much we were manipulated and how much history has been distorted. For decades, they tried to “sow” in us a false sense of hatred and resentment, which even if it did exist at some point, was dissipated with our everyday lives, with the disenchantment, and especially with the sad experience of having fought for a “future” that never came, watching ourselves forced to separate from our families and friends, an issue that ultimately has been the most painful, in the balance of all that has happened.

“Many years had to go by, many confrontations, disagreements, misunderstandings and defamation campaigns, so that finally two Cubans who no one should have ever converted into enemies were united forever in an embrace.  Two twists of the same flag.”

Translator: Post quoted was translated by Hank.

17 April 2013

With the passage of time and the sudden takeover the country by incarnate deities, these fantasies and dreams of childhood were abruptly ripped out by their roots in order to make way for a “new reality.” The dream-like tower remained, but it no longer sent out smoke signals. Little by little it came to seem more lifeless. My make-believe creatures disappeared along with the gray puffs that no longer billowed from its long neck. The bridge stopped opening; there were no more yachts. Little by little rust covered the iron structure. We were no longer able to visit my aunt either; she had gone to live far away.

Many years have passed since I felt motivated to overcome my fear of crossing the aged bridge. My old red-bricked friend is still there, mute and inert, towering over its continually decaying surroundings.

After learning a few days ago that it had been converted to a restaurant bar, I was motivated to go see it again. I brought along my Nikon to try to get some photos, hoping also to get the back story from some of the neighbors. Luckily, I found one cleaning the street. When he saw the camera in my hand, he approached me, thinking I was a tourist. After I identified myself, he told me the history of the place. He was born and raised there, so he knew all the details.

“What happened was that, after the factory was abandoned at the beginning of the 1960s, a man moved into the base of the chimney. He later got married but after a few years the marriage ended. Since neither of them had any other options, they divided the space, with her living in one part and him in the other. They were ’sharing’ the space like this until a young man came along with a little wine and offered them two apartments in exchange for the big chimney.”

After interviewing some of his friends who knew about this unusual investment, I found out that, given the new opportunities for acquiring licenses to open businesses, three young friends, who were familiar with the place and its history, decided to pool the resources. They “talked to the former couple” and offered them what they so desperately needed.

The first thing they did was restore the chimney, returning it to its former glory and preserving the original painted sign with the name of “old” cooking oil factory, El Cocinero. At the entrance there is now a well-tended garden where antique objects from the factory itself are exhibited like sculptures. A large bell at the gate greets you. A circular staircase rising two floors inside leads you to the roof and a pleasant bohemian bar where a wide variety of tapas and drinks will guarantee you an enchanting and “offbeat” evening. Everything in the hard currency of CUCs, of course. The restaurant has not yet opened.

15 April 2013

Building for sale.

I was having a conversation recently at a friend’s house about new private businesses, doctors being given permission to travel, the prices and shortages of food, and other issues currently affecting our Cuban planet. One of those present mentioned that she was very concerned about the crisis in Europe, unconsciously repeating what she had been told on television, radio and in the press.

I said that I had just returned from Spain and that in fact this is the only thing that the people and the media there were talking about. When they did this in my presence, I asked them to please “not talk about the rope in the house of the hanged man.”

Indeed, there is a serious crisis in Spain and other European countries, caused perhaps  by a housing bubble — among other things — which led people to spend much more than they could really afford, but which is in no way comparable to our situation, which has lasted for more than half a century. I personally visited many European cities and nowhere did I observe anyone who was badly dressed, wandering from place to place through streets that were not impeccably clean and pothole-free, in search of a store with toilet paper or toothpaste for sale, much less in “foreign money,” or at least not in a currency in which salaries and benefits are paid.

As I told my friend who is so worried about the crisis in Europe, this does not even take into account the high cost of having gone through a revolution, whose specific goal was to improve the quality of life for the population, but which has resulted in the deterioration and destruction of its cities and inhabitants. Nor does it take into account the high price of familial separation, nor of the ever greater exodus of young people in search of social and economic freedom — the very people for whom all this sacrifice was supposedly made — not to mention the corruption that has dominated and continues to dominate the entire country, apparently “at will.”

The upshot is that now, among other signs of a “new capitalism,” there is a contagious frenzy for selling large and beautiful buildings, which were confiscated from their original owners and family members and subsequently handed over to people of “revolutionary merit.” Their descendants are now asking astronomical prices for them, as though they were an inheritance resulting from some familial sacrifice. There are other crazy things happening, like buying out someone, whose home was once the big brick smokestack of the now abandoned El Cocinero cooking oil factory, so that a private investor can turn it into a restaurant, cafe and bar.

At any rate, these and other questions — quite discomforting, to be sure — cause us to reflect on the fact that the sacrifices made over all these years for “socialism” have served only to bring us back to where we started. There is, however, an additional grim reality. In spite of the enormous moral and material deterioration, which we “carry in our ribs” along with a great many lost years, we have in the end returned to a capitalism, but without capital.

8 April 2013