Drink the water

After almost one full month in this country, I finally feel like I’ve started to adapt. Not to the heat, though. Never to the heat. I will forever love the idea of the tropics and never be able to stand the hair-frizzing humidity and the skin melting heat.

However, I have had a few experiences over the past few days that make me feel like I have adapted to this lovely, fascinating and contradictory country.

First, I drank the tap water last week. I did it so unconsciously that afterward I felt like I might as well have a few more glasses. I walked in to my cool apartment from the sweltering heat, dying for a glass of water. There I went, straight to the sink, grabbed a glass, turned on the tap, filled my glass and gulped. As I drank down my last swallow, I realized what I had done. Up until then, I hadn’t been very careful with, but at least I hadn’t imbibed a full glass of unfiltered water in one standing. I stood at the counter for a few seconds, staring at my empty glass… “oh well”, I thought as I refilled my glass and drank it. In for a drop, in for a gallon. I felt like Alice, drinking the bottle on the counter, waiting to see what would happen to her. I stood in the kitchen at the island, with my hands on the counter, trying to establish how my body was feeling. Would I shrink? Would I grow? I tried to communicate with my stomach to see where it stood on the whole “tap water situation” and ascertain whether or not there would soon be a gastrointestinal revolt and an impending dash to the baño… Turned out I avoided la turista. I guess I’m not a tourist after all!

Tap water. Check.

Second, I finally rode the wawa. The wawa is what the city bus is called here. This may not sound like a big deal, but I get extra claustrophobic when it’s hot. The first time I rode it was on the way back from a salsa club at the other end of the city. It was quite empty that time, being that it was approaching 2am. Most of the times I have ridden the bus, it has been lovely and partly filled with hilariously drunk Cubans at all hours of the day. One morning though, I made my way downtown with my Cubana friend W, and we managed to get a spot on the bus during rush hour. Yay… sense the sarcasm. We were packed on the bus like sardines and then we started to fry. The heat of the day hadn’t quite broken yet, so on the plus side, the ride wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It was a brand new challenge and I survived!

Wawa. Check.

Third, The aforementioned experience with Cuban “law”.

Police encounter. Check.

Fourth, I ate in a woman’s kitchen for lunch today. Not a restaurant, not a cafeteria… a kitchen. E was introduced to the place by a friend and had been talking about it for a few days, saying that it was the best food she had eaten in Havana. M and I were working in the “office” when E walked in just as our stomachs were grumbling. She brought us around the block from the hotel to a little pedestrian street. We passed by a few street vendors and then walked through a doorway that had an iron gate hanging partly off of its hinges.  This did not look like the entrance of a house. A crack den maybe… Through the rabbit hole we went. The dark passageway was crumbling concrete with cigarette butts and other garbage on the ground. At the end of a 3 metre long grey, disintegrating passage there was a staircase that looked like it was in the same shape as the rest of Havana. We climbed up to the second floor and came out on colourful, open landing with two doors on the far right, a spiral staircase up to another floor in the middle and an open wall overlooking a courtyard on the left. E led us straight to door number two and we strolled in to what looked to be a mix of a hair salon and someone’s living room. The walls were plastered with hair product ads of half naked men with funky haircuts. There was a middle-aged man sleeping on a couch with a fan oscillating back and forth across the room and a tv in the upper corner of the room, playing a telenovela. Through a door that only a hobbit could fit through standing straight, was the kitchen. E crouched down and peeked through the “doorway” into the kitchen to ask if we could eat. A rotund woman with dyed blond hair peered through and told us to have a seat. We sat, took in our surroundings and watched some telenovela while we waited for food to be ready. Within a very short time, we smelled delicious criollo food wafting out of the kitchen through the hobbit hole. Not even ten minutes later, she called us into her clean, pink tiled kitchen and sat us at her little wooden table. The kitchen opens up onto a balcony that overlooks the street and a few other roofs. I’m constantly surprised by how run down this city is and how hard everyone struggles against it. The sounds of renovations can be heard at all hours of everyday, as people fight against the natural order of things, trying to keep their crumbling city from falling apart. Every roof shows evidence of repairs that remind me of little band-aids plastered hither and thither on a broken body.

The woman placed three huge plates of lovely looking food on the table and said buen provecho! The food was the best I’ve had so far: delicious rice and beans, banana, avocado and a pork-chop that tasted like bacon. All of this wonderful food and the experience of eating in this woman’s kitchen for $1.

Best cheap eating spot in town. Check.

It normally doesn’t take me this long to jump into the culture of wherever I’m traveling. The difference this time being that I’ve felt like I’m limbo here. Not quite tourist anymore, not quite living here yet. It’s a weird feeling. Adaptation is in process.

The most recent news is that our papers might be ready next week! Our local coordinator called this morning to say that the papers that had been wrongly assembled were being corrected and that we needed to call this week to follow up.

 

The Law!

We had our first encounter with the Cuban law enforcement/legal system.

Wednesday night, M, E and I headed downtown to Habana Vieja to meet up with two friends. We immediately found our friend O, who is hard to miss with his rasta dreads that reach his knees. He said that J would be another thirty minutes so we decided to walk down the street into the Barrio Chino to get some water. When we got back, and stood around for a little while, waiting, E mumbled something to me and subtly gestured to the two cops who were hovering nearby. I asked for her to repeat and she shook her head and said “later”. J still hadn’t returned so I suggested that we wait inside, being that it was already quite late and I was excited to hear some music other than salsa for a change.

I walked in immediately behind O who handed the doorman the 1CUC entrance fee. Upon seeing three foreigners about to enter, the doorman stopped us and said that it would cost 5CUCs for each of us. I laughed and we counter-offered 5CUCs for the tree of us together. One of the bouncers agreed and the other shook his head and stuck firmly to his price. Miffed at this injustice, we 180ed and walked out as the bouncers started calling after us with a lower price.

We waited outside with O for a few minutes and E again whispered something that I didn’t hear and again pointed to the cops with her eyes. I pulled her a few steps away so that she could tell me. She explained that the night before, she had been obliged to stand apart from our friends so that the cops wouldn’t harass them for talking with tourists. That explained why O had been standing off to the side when we were standing around outside.

After a few minutes, the cops approached O and asked for his ID. I say cops… imagine two young kids, 18 at the most, all dressed up in their uniforms with their batons and guns, walking with their chests puffed out and their chins jutted out. O handed over his ID and they garbled something into their walkie-talkies. We waited nearby in case O needed us to explain to the cops that he wasn’t harassing us.

Some rapid fire Cuban Spanish back and forth between the cops and O had the three of us confused and lost within moments. One of the cops walked over to us and asked us if we spoke Spanish. “Por supuesto”, we replied in unison.

The cop began asking us how long we had known the guy, where we met him, why we were out, what he had said to us. We answered the questions and then the cop said that O had lied to them and was calling him a liar and untrustworthy. At this point, the cops were becoming increasingly cocky and O was becoming disgruntled at being talked down to by kids half his age. The other cop walked over to us and they both seemed to have latched on to the fact that he had supposedly lied. The “lie” was that he said he had met E the day before and she had told the cop that she was waiting for another friend who she had met a week ago.

The two cops started lecturing us and explaining that we can’t just go around talking to any Cubans we want and that we had to be careful because some of them are bad and will take advantage. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I kept asking the cops why we weren’t allowed to talk to Cubans. What was wrong with it? At that point the cop became patronizing and telling me that not all Cubans are good people and that this was to protect us.

“He lied to us” the cop said.

‘No he didn’t, it was a misunderstanding” I explained.

I didn’t like his tone. I started getting “Em-like” with the cops (as M put it). That means bitchy… I started asking them what the problem was, why they were bothering us and our friend. They very politely explained that there was no problem.

“So we can go?” I said.

“You three can”, the cop answered pointing to us whities, “but he can’t”, gesturing to O.

“So there is a problem?” I retorted

“Yes” He said.

“So you lied to me…” I said.

“No, it’s a police problem, not a tourist problem” He answered

“We’re not tourists. And he wasn’t bothering us. You are.”

At this point, M took over the conversation and politely asked the officer to explain what was going on.

These guys were kids with guns. It’s insane to me that the government just hands these guys a uniform and guns and tells them to go uphold the law, without them ever questioning what they are doing or why.

J showed up and calmly tried to sort out the situation, but at this point, the cops were changing shifts and the new guys on the scene decided it would be easier to just sort this out easily.

Long story, but basically O was arrested for talking to tourists and put in a police car and taken to the station. We had to go to the police station to tell them that he wasn’t harassing us and that we were there with him as friends, not tourists. This country is so odd. I suppose it comes from an attempt to protect their largest industry, which is tourism. The way they go about it is so strange. Not allowing Cubans to freely speak with travellers is such a backwards, intense, dramatic way of protecting tourism.

Anyway, we walked to the police station with J to clear everything up. J ended up knowing one of the guys behind the desk. He walked up to him, shook his hand and explained the situation. The man behind the desk picked up the phone, spoke into it for 3 minutes and said that our friend would be right out. Just like that. After all that insanity, all it took was someone knowing someone. J told us that it helped that we were there too, as they don’t want to cause a scene in front of foreigners.

We found out afterwards that if a Cuban is stopped 5-6 times for “harassing” tourists (basically just walking and talking with them), he can get a big fine, or be placed under house arrest, or placed in a work yard or sent to prison for one year, depending on the person’s contacts.

When the friend came out of the cell, he described it as a cesspit and a total violation of human rights. Apparently there were 120 people inside in the cell in the basement, waiting for the ridiculousness of Cuban bureaucrazy to work them through the system. The courtyard of the police station was filled with families just waiting for their loved ones to come out. If only they knew the guy sitting behind the desk…

Eco-village à la Cuba Style

In an attempt to be more productive and feel like we’re not just waiting around in Havana while our work papers make their way through the circuitous route of Cuban democracy, we decided to go on a field trip. The location we chose was described by the Lonely Planet as being Cuba’s oldest eco-village, started in the 60’s as a reforestation project and seemed to have been self-sustaining since then.

We looked into various options of how to get there and our new friends told us about a tour that happens through the Hotel Parque Central. After some inquiry and price comparisons, we settled on the Spanish tour, leaving at 7:30am on Thursday.

Thursday morning saw us managing an early wake-up, which included E making us some much-needed coffees and me making us a hearty breakfast to prepare us for our day of exploring the alleged natural beauty of the area.

The bus was leaving from the Capitolio, so we made our way there in two separate maquinas. E and I showed up first, walked by a dead dog that was lying on the sidewalk, ignored all the men trying to get us to choose their taxi, and found our little tour bus.

An upside to being up at such an ungodly hour is that it’s not unbearably hot yet!

Entonces, we all arrived on time and the tour guia introduced herself as Svetlana. I later found out the she had moved to Cuba 20 years ago with her Cuban husband, who she had met while he was studying abroad in one of those ex-soviet, communist countries. When she spoke Spanish, it sounded to me like she was speaking English! I’m improving. The accent here still trips me up, but I’m improving.

Our guide described the activities of the day to us in the first few minutes of the drive and then left us to ourselves while a music video of old classics played on the screen at the front of the bus. Within 5 minutes, E and I were rocking out to “Take on me".

We arrived to Las Terrazas after a gorgeous drive through the countryside and up some beautiful hills. Our first stop was by a big lake where we were fed welcome coctails of rum, orange fanta and cola. There was the option of non-alcoholic beverages, thank goodness. While we downed our welcome drinks, a live band played music by a man who had grown up in Las Terrazas... Polo something. 

We were herded back onto the bus with our local guide and were driven to the first stop: the Canopy Tour. Not included in the price of the tour of course. Everyone on our little bus opted to pay the extra 7CUCs to do it, while we walked around on our own and tried to find out what part of the village was "eco". We were at a loss. There was a little pond with beautiful white and pink lotus flowers, teeny fish and the indigenous beer cans, bottles of rum and juice boxes that grow rampant in that part of the country. 

We headed back to meet our tour guide with even more questions. Neither Svetlana nor the local guide were able to answer our very simple queries about the reforestation project that had started in that area over 3 decades ago. Thankfully, the man who was working at the Canopy Tour cash register was able to explain that Las Terrazas used to be used for lumber and coal making so the entire area had been degraded. Several individuals started replanting trees there in the 60s and managing the land differently. When other people saw that they could actually make a living there, the community grew. The man mentioned that there had previously been a nursery to grow the trees on-site, but it had fallen into disrepair recently with changes in how people are paid for their work here. 

That was basically the extent of what we learned. 

The next stop on the tour after the zip line was Maria's house. Who is Maria you may ask? We have no idea. I asked the tour guide who Maria was, why she was important, and why this was part of the tour. In response, the tour guide pointed to a little old woman who was watching us from a balcony over the cafe and then walked away, without answering my other queries. 

After Maria's house, we were driven along a dirt path to a little river that supposedly has healing powers. We had a very nice lunch by the river and then we were left to our own devices for the next 4 hours so that we could relax in the water. At this point we were too far away from the town to go back and walk around and ask more questions of people. 

All in all... not an ideal research field trip to find out about eco-villages in Cuba.

That was the extent of what we learned.

Pictures

Maquina ride to the playa

Photo by E.I. view from our patio

Things I have learned so far

I hardly know anything

            This isn’t something new, but it is a fact that I am constantly relearning and understanding. This truth is something that drives my sense of curiosity and impels me to always be learning. My mother has often teased me for never being able to get out of the academic mentality of always absorbing information.

I have amazing friends and family members

            Again, something I already knew, but something that I am ever grateful for.

I am incredibly lucky to have been born where and when I was.

            Having worked on women’s issues in other countries and knowing about women’s situations around the world, I feel so fortunate to have the opportunities that I have and with this, comes a sense of responsibility. One of my friend’s mothers told her, before leaving to work abroad: “Never forget that you are an ambassador for women.” No pressure though…

Air pollution gives me a headache.

            This city, like many others, seems to have a huge air pollution problem, stemming from the old cars that drive around, idle and backfire all the time. The smog that settles over the downtown core of cities causes so many health problems that go unnoticed and these issues don’t seem to be a main priority for politicians. Yet, simple solutions like adding greenery decreases airborne particulates and certain plants are known to absorb and retain noxious gases, thereby decreasing urban air pollution by a noticeable amount. 

Staying outside in the heat of the day is ridiculous.

            I’m so Canadian… I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to such incredible heat and humidity. It makes me lethargic and removes any feeling of wanting to do something productive.

Sometimes, when you’re least expecting it, you may cross paths with someone amazing that will leave a lasting impression on you.

Sometimes in the most unexpected places, when the universe comes together in a series of arbitrary events, you connect with incredible people that you may never have met. I’ve realized over the past few years that I continue to meet the most interesting people while I travel and that due to our similar nomadic, erratic courses through life, I may not see them again for a long time, if ever. This seems bittersweet to me, as I am always happy to know that such great people exist, but sad to think that our paths may not cross again.

My shyness can still get the better of me.

            There still exists in me that timid little girl who sometimes just wants to hide behind her mom’s skirt.

Photographing makes me happy.

            I am well aware that I am not anything close to a professional photographer, but something about capturing beautiful moments, objects or people takes me out of my head and gives me a sense of calm.

Boys don’t always understand the vulnerability of being a girl

            Last night, I realized that no matter how aware boys are, they don’t necessarily understand what it’s like to be a girl. I had gone downtown to watch the sunset and the out for dinner with the boys. I was thinking of heading home as they were talking about staying out, when I realized that I didn’t feel comfortable walking back alone. When I mentioned this to them, they were both surprised that I felt like that. Granted this city is relatively safe, but taking a maquina and then walking down dark streets alone didn’t seem like the smartest idea. Boys. Pfft.

Being a girl can be a good thing.

            The other night, after ten minutes of the boys trying to hail us a ride to get us home from La Rampa and failing, I stepped onto the street and hailed a car that immediately agreed to take us to our location for the regular price, as opposed to the inflated tourist price that the boys had been given for the past ten minutes.

No expectations are better than low expectations.

            This mainly comes down to having an open mind and not really planning ahead that much.

I am not interested in specializing in one species.

            I was recently given the opportunity to go work in Hawaii, studying humpback whales through the University. It was an unpaid position, which helped my decision making, but the experience still made me realize that studying one creature wasn’t appealing to me.

Sunsets are one of my favourite things. Top twenty for sure.

Cubans like sugar. It’s not a stereotype.

            Several experiences and observations over the past two weeks have given me enough of a sample size to say that yes, Cubans like sugar. A lot of it. Somewhat of a culture shock moment when our friend added 4 heaping spoonfuls of sugar to less than 250ml of tea.

In every country, there is inequality.

The moon always seems brighter in Latin American countries.

Spanish speakers have trouble understanding you if you make seemingly small mistakes like changing an “a” for an “o”. Or if like me, you can’t roll your r’s and sound like a French person…

Quote from our friend C “Metrosexuals exist in every country!”

            This came up after a discussion about waxing versus shaving.

This city has very little light pollution.

            I’ve never been in such a big city that had so little light pollution at night that you can clearly see all but the dimmest stars.

Cuba is expensive.

            Even paying for many things in moneda nacional, we’ve already spent way more that we expected. Rent is equivalent to what we would pay in Montreal. Slash, I haven’t actually had to pay rent in a very long time, so this is really cutting into my rum budget ;)

There may only be one way to skin a cat, but there many ways to prepare rice and beans!

Rum is priced similarly to water.

Salsa dancing is a tremendous amount of fun, even not knowing how.

            Also, it takes me exactly 3 ¼ beers to be comfortable enough to let a friend teach me how to salsa and to allow myself to be led. Also, it’s hard to dance and laugh really hard at the same time. Laughing at oneself is clave (key)!

Guys here have a mandatory two years in the army.

            This was news to me.

It’s never too hot for hot chocolate.

            There’s a place in la Habana vieja called Museo de Chocolate (not actually a museum) that serves hot chocolate, made from real Cuban cocoa and mixed with cinnamon and vanilla. It costs $0.50 for a decently sized mug. The place is also air-conditioned. It is officially my second favourite place in Havana. First place goes to my fourth floor balcony where I can simultaneously watch the sunset, watch boys play volleyball in the park and drink a Bucanero (beer).

Music from friends is the best going away present.

            I had the fortune of having one of my good friends give me 7 or 8 GBs of music before I left. On that note, there’s nothing like some golden oldies to make people smile.

Lady Gaga is cross-cultural.

Market Day

The market here is fascinating. The prices are all the same at each stall so I guess it just comes down to who you want to buy from and what produce looks more appetizing. We walked there from our building, through little streets and bought a bunch of essentials, like oil, butter, eggs and a bunch of beans. The vegetables and fruit all look beautiful and fresh and are quite hard to resist. Buying groceries in this country is fascinating. Prices are fixed but sometimes it will be in pesos and other times in CUCs, depending what kind of store you are in. The market stalls are all in pesos and los shoppings are in CUCs. Buying things in CUCs makes everything more expensive, but the only places to find certain things like butter, cheese, oils are in the shoppings and so we end paying in CUCs. Other things like eggs, which our project coordinator said were really hard to find, have been relatively easy to find and are quite inexpensive. We paid 30 pesos, one dollar and a few cents for 20 beautiful looking eggs. Two huge avocados cost less than one dollar. A massive mango costs less than 50 cents. Life is good. Greens and grapes are the most expensive things I have seen yet. It was the hottest time of the day to go shopping and within a few minutes we were all melting. It was pleasant for the simple fact that we weren’t being harrassed to buy everything. The vendors weren’t in the least bit pushy. We finally found some spices, so our meals will have a little extra kick now. The thing I have yet to see is pure flour so that I can start baking.

I plan on doing some reading today about water purification in rural tropical areas and start learning my stuff for Guantanamo.

El lunes

 Today we had to be up early to meet O at her apartment downtown at 8:15. Waking up was brutal. I heated up some leftover rice and beans for me and E and poured us some OJ. It made the morning a little easier.

We took a maquina downtown. I’m starting to get the hang of this system a little more. You stick out your hand with just a finger wagging and then if you’re going straight, you signal with your hand, as if you were shaking hands with someone. If you’re staying within the main part of Havana, each person pays 10 pesos. If you go over the bridge or through the tunnel, you pay 20 pesos. After that, it’s just a matter of figuring out the maquina routes.

O drove us around while she dropped some papers off at different ministerios to try and get an exit visa for J, our project coordinator. O brought in a package of printing paper as a present for one of her “friends” to help make the process easier.

After the running around was done, we drove with her to the Instituto de Investigaciones Agroforestales so that we could meet the rest of the team that we’ll be working with. The Instituto is so far! It was a thirty-minute drive in her car. I can’t imagine how long the bus ride will be. Hopefully we won’t have to go out there very much. The work that I have to do in Havana is mostly just reading and learning about everything that I have to do out in Gtmo.

We met the team, and discussed our workplans in more detail and got some great advice from them. I was told again about a tree called Moringa whose seeds can be macerated and used to purify water. The fruit and the flowers are edible and the roots are medicinal. If this works, it could be grown in the viveros (nurseries) on the farms and marketed by the finqueros. Exciting stuff!

Talking with the team took all of my focus and concentration. It takes me about five minutes to switch my brain over to the Cuban accent and then I can understand almost everything. I miss a few of the subtleties, but I’m feeling confident that my Spanish will improve quickly. One of my personal goals while I’m here is to not be too hard on myself when I don’t understand the language or the culture right away.

After our meeting, we were given a tour of the grounds and learned about a few trees that were planted there by the staff. Blackberry, Breadfruit, Noni, Mango, Moringa, Eucalyptus, Olive and others that I don’t remember.

Brains frieds from the heat and having to focus extra hard on spanish comprehension, we headed back to the centre to check emails and then headed back to the casa to heat up leftovers of beans and rice and added some aguacates to the mix. I’m still surprised by how easy it has been to find fresh produce, compared to what we were warned about by the project coordinator. After dinner, the boys and I headed out to a little club called Fresa y Chocolate where there was a DJ playing house and electro music. The club was pretty empty when we got there at 10 and filled up to way over capacity by 11:30. The music was great and the crowd was completely different than what we had seen at the discoteca on the weekend. This crowd was young, had money to burn, dressed to the nines and a majoritarily gay crowd. We stayed until just before close and walked back and discussed life and love. It was a great conversation to have just before bed.

Fin de Semana

 Woke up around 12:30 and lazed around for a while. Made some breakfast of huevos revueltos and drank the jugo de manzana that magically appeared in my fridge between last night and this morning. I love when drunk me takes care of sober me.

I headed out with M, E and C to la Plaza vieja where we had coffee yesterday. The walk there was brutally hot and I thought I might turn into a puddle.

We sat on the plaza for a few hours, barely able to move, let alone make conversation. That being said, our conversational skills aren’t superb to begin with in this language. It is incredible how exhausting it is to have to focus so hard on what people are saying. I thought that the accent in Spain was difficult, but the Cuban accent trumps it mucho. We made our way back to the casa and I made us some dinner and then M and I watched a cute animated movie in Spanish.

Sunday we woke up relatively early and headed to la playa. It’s only 20kms outside of the city and only costs 5 CUCs to get there, split between five people. Pretty sweet deal. The only unfortunate part was that we arrived at high noon and stayed throughout the hottest part of the day. All in all, it was a lovely day spent on a white sandy beach, surrounded by a sea of people, staring at a sea of blended turquoise and gentle waves. Life is good.

After the beach, we were all fried so we headed home as fast as possible. I cooked up some beans and rice, called Moros y Cristianos. Yes. Moors and Christians. I can’t figure out if it is an extremely racist term, or a beautiful way of blending together two cultures in one tasty dish. We all crashed after dinner, knowing that we had to be up early for our workday on Monday.