Cuban Bureaucrazy

More than one month in Cuba and we are still waiting for our work papers to be processed. P, the “comandante” is charged with the task of calling immigration and attempting to push through our documents. Why does a Canadian who doesn’t know the system have to do this when our local coordinator has done this same process for at least the past 7 years of interns? No idea. But he does. The task seems simple to the casual observer, but anyone who has ever had to use the communication network in Cuba knows the reality.

He spends three days trying to reach immigration, who don’t pick up the phone at various times of the day for various reasons. Either they’re on break, on lunch, busy with other people, the office is closed or the phones don’t work. When he finally reaches them, they are so happy to hear from him.

But they have bad news.

“We’re missing a letter mi amor!” They say.

“So what can we do?” He responds, looking for a solution.

“Hmmm… that’s a good question.” They respond, stumped.

… He waits

“Well, tell O (our local coordinator) to call us, she knows how this works.” They explain.

This is funny for two reasons.

First, the woman from immigration is implying that someone who doesn’t work for immigration understands the system better than she does.

Second, reaching our local coordinator is more even difficult than reaching immigration.

Third, O wants P to take care of this.

“We can’t reach her, can’t we do something to move this process along?” Says P, still looking for solutions in this “no-solution-system”.

“She understands the system really well, she should call us.”

OK

So then P spends three days trying to get in touch with O. Calling her rarely works because either her phone doesn’t have money on it, she doesn’t pick up, her phone is off, she’s on vacation or she lost her phone. Or all of the above. Stopping by her house doesn’t work either, because she’s never there.

When she is finally reached, the situation is explained to her and she rolls her eyes, complaining about the Cuban bureaucratic system. She says that she’ll take care of everything.

Three days later, she calls and says that she took care of everything and that we have to call immigration in another three days to make sure that they are processing everything and are working on our papers. “Everything” here has a different meaning than back home.

This same process has happened cyclically for the past month until finally something different happened this week.

P called immigration and finally reached them after many attempts.

They are so happy to hear from him.

But they have bad news.

“Your thirty day visas have run out mi amor!” They say.

“Yes, because we’ve been waiting for our other papers to process!” P explains.

“What exactly are you waiting for?” They ask.

This is funny for two reasons.

First, this is the same person we’ve been dealing with for over one month.

Second, this is immigration. WE JUST WANT OUR DAMN PAPERS.

“… Excuse me?” He responds, somewhat dumbfounded at having been asked this question.

“Well, everything has to be in order before I can process your papers. We can’t do anything. You should call O.” They explain.

And so the process continues.

As it stands now, from what we have understood, is that O had a letter written and sent to immigration to extend our 30 day visas so that they can continue/start over processing our work papers.

In the meantime, the four of us are stuck in Havana because we aren’t allowed to go to Gtmo without our work papers, in case something happens to us and the Institute we work for comes under fire from the powers that be.

This city is expensive and our stipend, supposed to last us nearly 6 months is quickly running out.

We are being as productive as possible. On my side, I’ve been creating/adapting activities to integrate into workshops or school programs that focus on water education.

One of the activities teaches kids the concept of “everyone lives downstream from someone else” and talks about water pollution. Another activity is about protecting common resources and will show the group the importance of communication and planning to conserve vital natural resources. I’m working on another that is more of a presentation to explain the scarcity of freshwater in Cuba, and the importance of keeping those freshwater sources clean.

Other than the activities, I’ve created a few documents about natural purification techniques, involving a tree called Moringa. This plant is spectacular. I contacted my GIFTSofhealth network and asked for more information. Basically this tree grows quickly in all types of soil, has leaves that are extremely nutritional, the flowers can be made into medicinal tea and the seeds of the tree can be eaten and are useful for water purification. I found a document that describes the methods to purify water with the seeds, which I will be testing out if I ever get to Gtmo.

I’ve put together a variety of other documents, ranging from water-borne illnesses, low-water agricultural techniques and water-harvesting methods.

I’m also working on a survey to get a baseline assessment of the community that we’ll be working with so that we have a starting point to see if there was a difference after our internship… if we ever get there…