Life in Cowtown

Lest you think that all I do in Cuba is sit on the beach and drink pina coladas, well the truth is that I do. See I lived there from 1988 to 1991 while I was a child, and I could not imagine a more perfect place to grow up. My father was working there on an oil pipeline at the time, and I was partially homeschooled, partially attended a local school and in general ran totally wild. My parents allowed us to have the kind of childhood that is now spoken of nostalgically with fast bike rides all over town, climbing crumbling buildings to build a fort on the roof, midnight stealth missions to the beach to see if we can spot a manta ray, and hours and hours outside unsupervised, playing, coming in only to eat supper and do chores.

But eventually that part of life ended, my parents emigrated to Canada and life went on in a different direction. I didn’t return to Cuba until I was seventeen on my first real solo vacation and I fell in love all over again. Spanish tried to return to my brain with mild success, the people were how I remembered them, and our old hotel where we lived was much smaller than I remembered it, as anyone who has ever returned to childhood stomping grounds can attest to.  I have since been back a half dozen times, often with family who love Cuba as much as I do. We generally fly all inclusive because no one wants to be a burdensome house guest twice a year, and also because plane tickets alone cost almost as much as a hotel stay. The town where we lived, Matanzas, is quite close to Varadero so it’s easier to visit with friends.         

One of the things I love when traveling is seeing how people live in other countries. It’s always a deep thrill for me to step outside the same-ness of a hotel room and visit someone’s house. If that visit includes a home cooked meal all the better. In that spirit I wanted to give you a glimpse into the house of our friends in Matanzas.  Theirs is a rather wealthy house by Cuban standards, they are a mixed couple with Domingo being a native Cuban, a former military officer and a journalist, and Oksana hailing from the Ukraine. They met when he was overseas in university and returned to Cuba to make a life. Since she still has plenty of family in Lviv, they are financially much more secure than she would have been otherwise. 

So without further ado, here is a tour of house on an island just off Florida.

The streets of Matanzas

 Socialist slogans are everywhere

A neighbors’ motorcycle

The house from the outside

A happy puppy playing with my uncle

A tiny garden in the front of the house – bonus poins if you recognize any of the plants

The inner courtyard

Milk cooling on the steps

Rooftop veranda

Mango tree laden with unripe fruit

An outdoor prep kitchen (behind the blue tarp in the photo above). Notice almost everything is homemade – shelves, doors.

Tiny ‘apple’ bananas – the flavor is out of this world

An inside patio at the back of the house

The living room

The small but well used kitchen. All the appliances are miniature versions of North American. The stove is about half as large as our standard one, and the fridge is tiny also. Perhaps New York Apartment dwellers would find it familiar.

The spread – amazing – green salad, arroz con frijoles, lobster, yucca root and more.

If you also find homes fascinating, share the neat features of dwellings you’ve seen and what made them memorable.  I for one, adore the intermixing of the outdoors that is evident in many Cuban homes. The climate allows for a minimum of walls the ease with which indoors and outdoors intermingle is wonderful to me, since I live in a climate where protection from the elements is paramount and where an open patio door in the summer is as close as we get. I also love the way the mango tree grows right outside the kitchen door and as the house was expanded (the outdoor kitchen was added well after the main structure was built), the house simply wrapped itself around it allowing it to grow and fruit. It’s like a reverse treehouse and the kid in me thrills at the possibilities.

I’m back from sunny Cuba, and unlike my last trip it was a rather mediocre vacation, mainly due to the family choice of hotels. Travel tip – if you’re going to Varadero don’t stay at the tip of the peninsula. The marshy and boggy land spawns mosquitoes like Manitoba’s forests do, and no amount of spraying they do can diminish their staggering numbers. Also the beaches suck.  But days were still sunny and beautiful, we saw our friends and got the customary sunburn so of course it wasn’t all bad.  

While I was gone Iceland exploded in a truly cool and expensive eruption and I wanted to share a link to the coolest photos of the volcano I’ve seen to date. Here. Nothing drives home the power of nature better than events like this and it’s impossible to see the photos without appreciating just how powerful the planet is and how insignificant we are.

The garden is feeling neglected, so my to do list this week includes deeply watering my trees since we are in a drought and they could use a long soak, repotting my tomatoes into tall containers – likely pop and milk jugs one more time before they go outside, and planting peas. Since we’ve had such a warm spring I could’ve done this already, but I procrastinated so in they go now, along with lettuce. Since we’re still a month away from last frost I should still be good for time. This year I’m planting an heirloom variety that happens to be a bush pea since they climbed too well last year and were flattened by the winds into a messy jungle. I also need to rake the grass somewhere in there… busy time spring is.

P-p-p-peas

I also need to sort out a solution to hardening off my tomato seedlings. It was a pain in the butt when I only had nine plants, but this year I’ve got triple that amount and hauling them up and down the stairs is a dangerous and time consuming proposition. I’m contemplating rigging up some sort of permanent like shelter a week or so before they go outside. Anyone have any solutions to this problem? This seems like the most PITA part of the whole seed starting process.  If my interest in growing food continues (and I have a feeling it will), I may simply have to get a greenhouse and save myself the headache.

My cats rule and I love all three of them in very different ways, but the depths of my white deaf boy’s weird behavior know no bounds. He’s recently learned a new trick – locking himself in the bathroom and hollering on top of his lungs to be let out. His process is as follows: he goes into the bathroom and sniffs around for a few minutes. Then he backs into the bathroom door butt first until it closes. Then he turns around and starts yelling at it indignantly. If we’re not careful and leave a wedge of some sort he’ll spend the whole day locked up in there alternating between screaming and sleeping until we get home and let him out. He’s so special it hurts.

Anyhow it’ll be a busy week and I’m thrilled that summer feels around the corner.

A street in Matanzas

Every time I return from a trip, however brief, I must take some time to decompress and process the experience. I am a person who ‘feels’ each place I go to very acutely, and I marinate in it and become a part of it, interacting with it on an almost cellular level. I never feel like I am a physical body who goes from place to place, but as a common event – my self and my environment arising together to as singular entity. Sound rather metaphysical, but it’s true. I think many people recognize this phenomenon, and it’s a large part of the appeal of traveling. Think of the last time you walked into an ancient cathedral and looked up at the domed ceiling feeling the weight of it’s age whispering from the stones. Or picture yourself having breakfast at a sunny local cafe, feeling like one of the lucky souls who can watch people go about their business as you play hooky on a weekday. As you look around and sip your coffee contentedly this is exactly the feeling that I get wherever I go.

This last minute trip was no different. Although going as a tourist and sitting on the beach at Varadero has its undeniable appeal, Cuba has a deeper significance to my family. During the days of the Soviet Union we spent three years living there, and for me it was a very vivid experience. We still have several friends on the island that we visit regularly and have made new ones on our travels that we see as well.

When the Soviet support dried up with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba hit very hard times. Not a wealthy island to begin with, in the nineties new and horrific shortages made their presence known in every home in the nation. From food to clothes to toiletries to bikes, cars, electronics and diapers, many consumer goods became so scarce and expensive that they remain completely out of reach for most people. To combat the shortages brought in by the Special Period, as it became known, Cuba slowly opened it’s doors to tourism. People whose government salary does not even come close to the cost of living, educated people, doctors, teachers and scientists rushed to work as bellmen, maids and gardeners so as to come into contact with the wealthy foreigners. For the first few years tipping was very hidden and officially discouraged, but now it enables the staff in the hotels to have access to the basic necessities of life and to help their friends, neighbors and family.

Squeezed between two vices of their own government and the atrocity of the US Embargo, the people are left with few choices – try to fill the few positions offering services to tourists, try to flee, rely on the help of any relatives who escaped or slowly become despondent as any hope of a better life becomes more distant. The general poverty of the people is contrasted with their high levels of education, ingenuity in repairing things well past their intended life and the overall goodwill they have towards people in general. It’s a heartbreaking contrast made all the more poignant by their proximity to one of the wealthiest most powerful nations on the planet, where the daily count of items thrown out as trash would feed and clothe the whole country.

Since most tourism to Cuba comes from Canada and Europe, this is an important topic to anyone who goes to Cuba, because it is very easy to add a helping component to your unforgettable vacation. First is the endless civic duty of writing to your MP (again, yes, I know how well that works), and informing them of your opinion of the US Embargo. Yes, we know the US considers our opinion of hardly more import than a horse of a fly, but the more clamoring voices are out there, the better. But more importantly and directly you can help with material goods that we take for granted to make a difference in the lives of those whose fortunes are not theirs to direct. ***

So how can you be helping tourist? There are a few great ways: pack lightly and use your 20-30 kg allowance to bring in consumer goods. Just about everyone that’s been to Cuba knows to do this anyhow, from speaking with friends who do exactly that. What exactly to bring? The lists are endless and varied – over the counter meds for colds and fevers, antibiotic ointments, band-aids, bug spray, reading glasses, candy and chocolate,  multivitamins, shoes, shoes, shoes – smaller sizes please, clothes, coloring books and crayons, laundry detergent, toys, especially baseball gloves and balls, soaps, razors, feminine hygiene stuff, cosmetics and nail polish, fishnet stockings, baby stuff like bottles and clothes, fishing gear, wind-up torches, Spanish-English dictionaries with phonetic pronunciation, ipod shuffles, any usable electronics – used (but not ancient!) laptops, notebooks, memory sticks, small tools like screwdrivers and screws, nails, bike repair tools, tubes, musical instrument stuff like guitar strings, valve oil for horns, trumpet mouthpieces, etc.  

The trick is to try and distribute your goodies off the resort as much as possible. The people that work at resorts receive tips in the much valued convertible currency and as such have access not only to the magic money but also to the goods that this purchases. Hotel staff certainly appreciate gifts but they really are gifted in the society as is. Many people who don’t want to seem paternalistic or encourage overt begging on the streets simply make arrangements with local schools or churches directly who provide a means to distribute the goods. Some hotel tours go into local areas and the tour guide can be a great resource and intermediary also. If you have meaningful interaction with someone off the resort feel free to leave a gift for them also.

Tip the staff. I can’t stress this enough. I saw many of my compatriots (both Canadian and Russian) not tip at all, which is deplorable. When you spend $600.00-$1800.00 on a vacation you can surely afford the approximate $100.00-$200.00 in tips that a week in Cuba typically adds. I think many people get very frustrated for two reasons – one the vacations are billed as ‘All Inclusive’ and fifteen years ago the government actively prohibited tips and they had to be given covertly. Now it’s an accepted practice and people don’t have a plan as to how and when to tip so they get frustrated with the whole thing.  We typically spend 10.00 – 20.00 CUC per day on tips and consider that a simple courtesy. We typically tip 2.00 per day for the maid, 1.00-2.00 per table per meal, 5.00 or so for the music at dinner (if we feel like it that night), and 1.00 – 2.00 for a round of drinks, coffee, coconuts from the gardeners, etc. In your average day you’ll have three meals, several rounds of drinks and get your room cleaned, so budget for it right off the bat. Essentially tip at least 1.00 CUC and add based on good service or your level of intoxication. When you arrive simply exchange all your cash at the airport and get a ten or so in one CUC coins. That should see you through the next day at which point you can get more change. If you run out of money you can use VISA but not Mastercard to withdraw more, which is a pricey process.

***Typically when this topic arises someone inevitably says that it’s the job of Cuban people to have a revolution and install a democratic government. No argument from me, except for the obvious one – the population is totally disarmed. One of the first things any totalitarian regime does is disarm the populace, with such historic examples as N.Korea, Soviet Union, China and many others. How can people revolt if they can be gunned down en masse? Protect your second amendment my US friends, at all costs, it is the only thing to keep a government from going rogue. Besides, if the embargo was lifted or at least greatly loosened, the renewed hopes of the people would do more to spark change than a bloody conflict.

For more sites that helps with diverting donations where they’re needed check out:

http://www.stuffyourrucksack.com/

Not Just Tourists

http://www.canadacuba.ca/donatetocuba.php