This picture was taken in the center of Guantanamo, a prosperous town of 200000 with a university, a military school and a hotel. Guantanamo is also a province.
It was tuesday, and my husband, after a half day work with his Canadian colleagues, was scheduled to visit with them the Cuban team offices on thursday afternoon. We had a day and a half before us and we thought that this unexpected free time might be an opportunity to visit Baracoa which is on the other side of the Island, north to Santiago, on the Atlantic Ocean. This is where Christopher Columbus touched the American continent for the second time on his first expedition, the first landfall being the Bahamas. We went around 5.p.m. to the hotel's travel agency to arrange for the trip and were told that they didn't have enough passengers to make the trip for the next day. We then inquired at another agency which referred us to an official taxi driver who was willing to do the trip only for us with a slightly higher fare and on the condition we can rest for the night in Baracoa and return on Thursday. He would make for us the reservation for the night in a licensed private house (Casa Particulare) in Baracoa and would stay for the whole trip at our service driving us around Baracoa. We checked his car; a 2002 Volkswagen Jetta with all the commodities and the suspension necessary to negotiate the mountain road in the Sierra Maestra between Guantanamo and Baracoa. Despite this, the journey to Baracoa during the last hour of the three hours and a half, 256 kms trip, will make me sick.
Wednesday
The next day, we were riding through the Cuban countryside on a road bordering the Caribbean until Guantanamo and then abruptly crossing the most eastern part of the Sierra Maestra to reach Baracoa on the Atlantic. Guantanamo is the only city between Santiago and Baracoa. The mountain road starts after crossing the city of Guantanamo and ends only in Baracoa.
After an hour drive and many stops to take pictures of the beautiful scenery, I told my husband that I was grateful because he decided to undertake such a trip. Santiago was a bit depressing as a city to watch and to walk in. In contrast, the countryside was luminous. The houses did not look more rich, more spacious, neither better, but as the decaying constructions were surrounded here by gardens and a luxurious nature, their cruel rusticity and modesty became more nuanced to the eyes. The road cut through gorgeous fields, giant trees, herds of lambs, goats, birds and cattles, under a blue sky. Forgotten are the grey buildings and the decaying houses of Santiago, the crowded wagwas and trucks transporting passengers, the old Cuban vehicles and motorbikes emissions and their suffocating smell, and the noise, omnipresents and companions to every dweller in Santiago. The villages roads were busy with schoolchildren. There are no yellow buses here. Public transportation is nearly non existent. There are semi public private arrangements for transportation but this is not affordable on a regular basis and by everyone. Children, dressed neatly in colorfoul uniforms indicating the school cycle, raspberry pink for elementary, walk to and from school, sometimes as much as 4 kilometers one way, in the morning, at lunch time, and in the afternoon.
Crossing the eastern part of rural Cuba, and on the 256 kilometers distance that was our road in both ways between Santiago and Baracoa and around Baracoa area I became convinced that Cuban socialism might be a good solution for rural economies and rural societies. And may be this is true of all forms of socialism. The Cuba I felt in this part of the country was different from the city, it lived in a kind of a self sustained economy that didn't seem to be in an acute need of the world and that defied the embargos. The mountain road we traveled between Guantanamo and Baracoa was the gift of Fidel Castro to the people of his native area. A giant poster planted in Baracoa, citing Fidel, claims proudly: 'Llevaremos Baracoa al mundo' (We brought Baracoa to the world). There is exuberant life in Cuban rural areas, a joyful and decent life. I thought that the road will be empty except for few small villages. In reality, there were many villages on the road and sometimes small communities living in traditional houses with roofs made of Palm tree leaves. Every village had its dispensary and its school and its local committee for the defense of the revolution. Cultures of Bananas, sugar cane, chocolate and coffee alternated. Horses, dogs, and herds roamed free in the fields. In some parts, it looked like a green cowboy country. We stopped in the mountain at a three houses community living around a coffee plantation. A mother came out with her 6 month old baby. Outside, the family dog was guarding the porc and a Guyava leaves perfumed water was boiling over a fire. The woman explained that this is a traditional bath for babies to bring them good health. We took some pictures and promised to stop on our way back to buy coffee.
Before ascending the mountain road we had stopped at the Guantanamo local market in the center of the town. The activity in the market was as in other producers markets and there was a huge poster giving consumers the nutrients and calories found in the products. After leaving Guantanamo we drove near the entrance of the Guantanamo base controlled by Cubans and which is at 25 kms only from the US controlled base. The taxi driver told us that, according to treaties, the US must return Gunatanamo to Cuba in 2033. Here we have a solution to this shame I thought. Not sure, look to what happened to Panama. I had asked the driver previously if I can make a picture of the base entrance and he said that it is even forbidden to stop near the entrance. He promised that on our way back from Baracoa the next day we would choose a spot on the mountain road and take a picture of the actual US controlled base, which we did...I thought of Guantanamo prisoners and of the many innocent men sold by Pakistanis in the wake of the invasion of Afghanistan and held by the US in conditions which will be a permanent stain on our modern western consciousness for generations to come. I thought of these men held in cages under the caribbean sun, cut from the world, and I wondered that only 25 kilometers, and less if you think that the Cuban base stretches some 15 kilometers from the road toward the US controlled base, separate actually a world made of barbarism and cruelty from this exuberant and joyful nature. I felt anxious and started talking to the taxi driver to alleviate my own malaise. I told him my indignation and he told me that most Cubans feel the same. Cuban official television had covered every aspect of the US's shameful treatment of Guantanamo prisoners and their non respect of Human rights. The conversation extended to Cuban politics and, as most Cubans, the taxi driver was anxious for a little change, anxious for the economy to get better in his country, but for all the money and wealth of the world, and like most Cubans, he would not want to see Miami Cubans and US rule return to impose their will.
Our casa particulare in Baracoa had a terrace overlooking the sea and all the commodities. It was modest but convenient and our hostess was charming. Around Baracoa, we visited the beach where Columbus landed for the first time on the Island and where a replica of Columbus's cross was planted. The real one is kept in the cathedral in a glass box. It was reduced to a tiny cross by locals who thought that having a piece of wood from the cross was going to bring them luck. We visited the Yumuri area, a village, a river running into the ocean, a gorge, and a chocolate plantation, east to Baracoa. Our visit to the chocolate plantation was escorted by two improvised guides, two men, and 8 local women, who all hoped for a little tip. The two men tried to provide us with some cues into how they collect Chocolate and process it and tried to earn their tip by having such initiatives as climbing Coco trees and collect fruits for us and harvesting some Chocolate fruits for us to discover, while the women only complained to me about their living conditions. They told us that they work only three months a year, that their salaries were low. We must have left them with the highest amount paid as a tip in Cuba and we regretted that things had to be this way. We felt that tourism becoming important in the area, people were starting to change and to count more and more on an arbitrary income instead of trying to earn it the traditional way. Villagers in the mountain around coffee plantations were definitely different but there was no sustained flow of tourists there. The incident had spoiled my visit to Yumuri...
In the center of Baracoa, there were many European tourists coming from nearby famous Holguin's beaches for a day or two in a pilgrimage to Columbus's shore in Baracoa. Baracoa is also surrounded by gorgeous mountains with different shapes, shades and heights. At the end of the day we went to the beach and returned to eat a cooked meal at the terrace of the private house we were staying in for the night.
On the road back, we took with us in the car a Cuban whom the taxi driver knew and who was a schoolteacher and director of a primary school. He was so grateful that he answered all our questions on the school system, something we were very curious about. In Cuba, every class has its own videosystem to help the professor in his teachings (actually we glanced at such a class in a school in Santiago that was located near the hotel) and a computer, even if the class is made of one pupil, something that happens sometimes in rural areas. Even University students don't have this density of computers at their disposal in Cuba. But this is a socialist regime which believes in the building of young minds. The teacher told us also that there is one teacher for every 15 pupils. Sometimes one for ten, depending on the work they have to do. The school in Cuba is interested in the children and their minds, something that may make carreer oriented and busy western parents jealous because they don't have these standards and this commitment from the school system which I believe is increasingly not interested in the young minds of our children but rather in getting rid of the children while meeting the obejctives imposed by our governments on making sure that education meets the Market needs. I volunteered in my children's school for 12 years and I was close to the parents preoccupations and increasing demands for the school to relieve them from the burden of the education of their children entirely while at the same time providing children with all what is necessary to succeed later in life, education, a good conduct, and a compliant character, a disproportionate demand, I thought sometimes. But I can tell you that a Cuban style school system is a dreamed solution for parents. However, while providing children with whatever necessary to grow up good adults without the help of their parents - it is commonly thought in Cuba that the school don't even need you to educate your children, it takes charge of the whole process- it may not provide them with what is necessary to succeed economically because it is not in the objectives of the system. Also, the structure of their school system must cost a lot of money if applied in our societies and our governments are not ready to invest heavily in education. The neoliberal market logic is such that it takes and does not give. While being very greedy to schools, teachers and the education system as a whole, it doesn't bother investing in education because, according to this logic, there is no direct causal relationship between education and the growth of material wealth. I wrote my children an email the day after this encounter reminding them how much, we parents, have to invest in a deficient school system in our countries in order to support their education and how Cuban parents were very much aided in this task by the school. While strolling through santiago, we passed along many music schools teaching children classical music. How many of us can afford, after paying for our children basic needs, to pay for music lessons which are not part of the regular curriculum at school ?
I also found Cuban children to be polite in general, calm, and well behaved.
At the dinner that evening I only ate the fried Yukas, the rice and beans. We prolonged the night on the terrace sipping a local strong coffee, discussing the day's encounters and visits, and listening to the sound of the chants coming from the cathedral. Many christian and other cult places are active in Cuba since 1995 but the Santeria remains the religion of the majority of Cubans. I remember that my father used to tell us about the strange rites of this religion he witnessed there as a child, rites involving sacrifices. At thirty past ten, the religious songs were replaced by the sound of music coming from the Trova house located near the cathedral, until late...
I woke up in the middle of the night and, from one of the room's windows I could glance at the eastern part of the Island where the Yumuri river joins the sea. I thought about the fate of the region's Natives who were exterminated by the colonisers and left no trace except some local legends. One of them is that the Yumuri river's name is related to the Sapnish 'Yo voy a mourir'. Natives, goes the legend, committed suicide by jumping from a cliff bording the river in an attempt to escape the cruelty of their Spanish masters while shouting: 'Yo voy a mourir'. Another legend is that the Spanish masters, having been informed of the intent of ther slaves, convinced them not to kill themselves by threatening to committ suicide in order to follow them to the other world and punish them...Cuba, and especially Santiago and Baracoa areas, became, in the sixteenth and sevententh centuries, central to all Spanish expeditions in the Americas providing the ships with food and slaves and receiving the mechandise collected from the rest of the American land and destined to Spain.
Outside our modest room in Baracoa, a thunderous rainfall had already started, eclipsing the sound of music coming from la casa Trova.
Tomorrow we will go back to Santiago where, before leaving for Havana, I will make two interesting encounters, one with a local Cuban Lebanecita, a third generation Lebanese, and another with a small community of Turkish Jews who emigrated from Turkey to Cuba, at the same time many lebanese left the troubled Ottoman empire of the end of the 19th century for the Americas. Maalouf's book 'Origins', which I was reading, will provide me with some key information to understand both communities and the diversity I was witnessing in the modern Cuban identity...
UPDATE: I am updating here with an article presenting a different view on the thoughts expressed in this post 'Why Miami dances on Castro's grave'.
Read also from the link below (Le Monde, French) how Edmundo Garcia, A cuban exiled to Miami was fired twice by local TV stations under pressure from the far right Miami Cuban community for, well, not writing exactly as a journalist what the community wanted him to say and write...Dictatorships exist also in so called free countries and they are the dictatorships of pressure groups. The Cuban Miami community has created its own US bred dictatorship...
Since March 29th 2006
7 comments:
Having stumbled upon your website in my research regarding Guantanamo, I find it a rather disheartening to hear yet one more tourist talk about Cuba and the very regime that has imprisoned so many of its citizens for daring to speak their minds, stolen so much from its own people, and makes its school children work in labor camps 45 days a year for its commercial agriculture while touting food shortages as a government that “is interested in the children and their minds, something that may make carreer oriented and busy western parents jealous”.
Wow. As much as Guantanamo has caused dismay for you, I’m surprised I haven’t heard one word on your blog about “Villa Marista”. Try looking that up if you’re really interested in human suffering. Or the thousands upon thousands of political prisoners, such as my brother in law who was sentenced to 38 years for political reasons, had his trial videotaped and made an example among his peers, and wasn’t even tried with a proper jury.
As angry and upset as it makes me to hear yet one more tourist talk about a regime that killed so many people by firing squads, as recent as 2003 with the execution of 3 young black men who tried fleeing the country (Jorge Luis Martinez Isaac, Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo and Barbaro Leodan Sevilla Garcia in case you’re interested), I guess I should praise your benign intentions even if they are overshadowed by absolute ignorance.
thenachishow@yahoo.com
Actually, come to think about it, I'd like to apologize for the heated and sardonic tone in my last post. However, knowing all my family lost thanks to Castro's regime (and they were middle class too, not the cliched whitey rich folks everyone assumes Miami exiles are), it does pain me to see people erroneously assume Castro's achievements in education or health reforms can possibly outweigh the irreperable damage he has committed against the Cuban people in terms of freedom, family relationships, human dignity, and the very will to live.
Something else you may be interested in knowing about Castro's Cuba were the acts of repudiation, where people were encouraged, especially school children, to berate, humiliate and even physically attack anyone considering leaving the country in the late 60's and early 70's. My father wasn't even allowed to keep in touch with my brother and sisters, and God knows how that über-socialist ideology affected the rest who decided to stay and refused to talk to those of us who continue to financially support them to this day. That's the biggest hypocrisy of it all.
Anyway, I'll leave it at that. I too am in pursuit of the truth. And as far as I can tell, Castro's unique brand of socialism is far from the kind of truth anyone may ever want to experience beyond a month long vacation.
Best,
thenachishow@yahoo.com
Anonymous,
Thanks for your comments, bitter or not, they are accepted. Overall, there may be damage I didn't see, I saw very well the level of decay in which public and private buildings are, but the Cuban people are proud, they are fiercely educated and knowledgeable, and if you look to other small islands in the Caribbeans or other little American countries you would not see this level of development. Being uenducated is the worst of all things when you are poor, so Cubans are poor but at least they have their own judgement to rely on and it is with this judgement, educated by the socialist revolution that some of them judge Castro as bad, not even ordinary US ctizen can do that. Even if you hate Castro you cannot deny this...
And one thing you didn't even mention is the successive embargos on Cuba. I am convinced they did more damage than the socialist revolution. Embargos are war on civilian populations. Castro's revolution was a liberation revolution and it only turned a socialist revolution because this was the only alternative for Castro, the US never accepted Cuba as an independant nation and respected this idnependance...It was either the socialist regime or the total submission to the US...
Hi again. I was just curious to see what anyone may have posted, and being the argumentative Cuban that I am, here I go again. But I hope you understand, its not just a matter of proving anyone right or wrong. Knowing all my family has lost, and having visited Cuba last year for the first time and seeing how the rest of my family lives there, I feel compelled to let people know a different truth that many people would rather gloss over.
As the embargo, you can research for yourself just how much that government has denied its people so economically, its beyond a travesty. As for Castro having to resort to socialism, that I find to be an utter misconception, since to this day, there is no excuse to deny Cubans access to internet access at home. There just is no excuse. As there is no excuse for the government to make it illegal for farmers to slaughter their own cattle without government consent, hence the shortage of meat you may have found at restaurants.
Not to mention, he was an avid reader of Marxist/Leninist writings long before the revolution while he served a 2 year prison term. The US has actually done business with Cuba for the past several years via a corporation called ADM, Archer Daniels Midland. They have done business with Cuba in the past few years in the billions, and currently ranks as her biggest food supplier and fifth biggest import partner.
Not to sound like a broken record, but it just boggles my mind how people insist on making Castro out to be a socialist hero and simply gloss over the thousands of people he is directly responsible for killing, the wars he has waged in Africa, not to mention Central and South America, and the undeniable repression of liberty that has choked the Cuban people.
This conversation could go on forever if it were about proving one right or wrong. So I'll cut it short here. There is so much information out there regarding Castro's seemingly endless crimes against the Cuban people that I simply don't understand why anyone would champion his government in anyway shape or form. Especially someone who is apt enough to call the US on its own crimes and fatalistic mistakes.
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to allow me to air my views on your site. I can only hope you never go through what so many Cubans have lost due to a totalitarian regime operating under the guise of a misguided and farcical socialist ideology. A bitter loss many fear to even fully express in their own country.
Best,
thenachishow@yahoo.com
OK, last one I swear. There is a running joke in Cuba, which you’ll only hear in hushed tones of course. My own cousins would sometimes shut the windows just to talk about shit there, but it goes… “the Revolution triumphed in three areas - education, health, and sports. But it failed in three others - breakfast, lunch and dinner”.
As far as my not being able to deny that not even ordinary US citizens can use their own judgment due to education, I’m not quite sure how to answer that. But I do think it’s a tragic shame, that for all the knowledge and eruditeness in which most of my family in Cuba expressed themselves to me, it was alarming how little, if anything, they knew about our own relative that was sentenced to 38 years in prison for strictly political reasons. And even if they did know, how they must’ve felt the need to deny knowing it. That shocked the hell out of me. One thing I do know as a US citizen, I can saw whatever the hell I want, and have often printed it in the papers as well. Something that in Cuba would’ve definitely landed me in jail right alongside my brother in law.
By the way, there’s no reason for me to continue being anonymous. I’m actually a freelance writer and hoping to continue researching the economic conditions and policies of Castro’s regime and why it is absolutely perilous for other nations to follow that lead. Please feel free to keep in touch, and point out any flaws in my writing. It was nice meeting you, albeit electronically. Good luck with your site and thanks again.
I’m at:
http://www.geocities.com/gutierrezignacio/articles.html
Mr Gutierrez,
Thanks for leaving the info. I am not an activist in Cuban Matters. I am simply a citizen of the world from a Middle East origin who incidentally happened to have emotional ties to Cuba through a faraway family immigration history. I am not a champion of socialism neither. I see myself as a pragmatic and I should recognise that I visited Cuba with some negative preconceptions to end up with positive impressions on the Castro regime. I know all these jokes about Cubans struggling with their meals. Another joke I was told there is that the best friend of a Cuban is his bolsillo (because he can store food in it).
I am definitely judging the Cuban revolution from the point of view of someone who is fiercely anti present US policies of hegemony and arrogance. I think if Cubans were left alone, things would have been much easier for everybody. Many hate Castro but I met Cubans who have a genuine affection for him. Also about freedom of expression, I was stunned when I visited the Cuban art collection in which the government buys the works of young Cuban artists expressing their disappointment with the revolution. I encourage you to go and see the collection on your next visit to Havana. Also it happened that we have acquaintances in Havana, I still have to write my impressions of Havana and we heard both sides of the story on the Cuban revolution.
Honestly, I think you are too much one sided. The food issue for example has given me an existential interrogation which is at the core of any socialist communist revolution (it was the same problem in the former USSR). I am still thinking about it but I can honestly tell you that I am convinced that socialism is good for rural communities, not for urban communities (I grew up in a rural community). Socialism must find something else to accomodate urban communities.
But I am not going to judge socialism in general, I am judging the Cuban revolution in its geopolitical context and I must recognise that I sympathise. This revolution has come under many threats. I also did not feel, as a foreigner, that I as watched or spied on in Cuba, and I can compare this with my travels in other countries where I clearly felt we were watched.
As for Human rights, I hope that when this revolution will mutate and opens up, human rights violations will end. Human rights violations are a stain on the consciousness of a country but again we in the west live now with the greatest of human rights violation brought upon us by the fear of a 'Threat', a highly misjudged and inflated threat, one must recognise.
If you have time, you can read my other posts on Cuba, there are links to parts I,II, and IV. I still have, as I said, to write my impressions of Havana.
I think one should judge the Cuban revolution in regard to the history of the island and its relations to colonial powers including the US.
If you are here discussing Cuba with me today, it is because you feel a strong belonging to a land and a country and this belonging was forged by the liberation revolutions including the Castrist one. Cuba is unlike any other country in central and south America. It is profoundly American and yet, thanks to its successive revolutions, it is a different America with a strong identity and an absence of a racial divide, something you will not find in central and north America.
I really loved your country and I hope you will be able to bring your sorrow to an end and I hope that the transition from the Castro regime will keep the benefits the revolution have brought to Cuba and Cubans while providing more wealth and harmony to this country of contratsts.
Mr Gutierrez,
I want also to add that I am going to read your articles n Cuba. One more thing also: I am a mind sceintist with a background in Biology and Philosophy and here is my jusdgement as a mind scientist of the Cuban revolution: This revolution believed too much in the power of the mind over the body. We are after all Human beings, not only minds, and this is what every revolutionary utopia has been misjudging, the real nature of Human beings. I was stunned for example when reading in Counterpunch once an article by Saul Landau on castro in which he explains how Castro, educated as a lawyer, was explaining to peasants around santiago de Cuba in the Sierra Maestra how to produce better Ananas, only by reading books on agriculture. This is where my understanding of this revolution was enlightened, too much mind and instructions and very little body and human feelings. I disagree of course on this vision of Human nature but I cannot but admire it.
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