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Back in Mexico City
Jan. 17th, 2009 09:53 amThe thing that surprised me most about Cuba was that people can smoke everywhere. I don't know if I will ever get used to this. People smoke at the airport, in restaurants, in hotel lobbies. It's always the small differences that are most disconcerting.
Apart from that, much of it was as expected. There are some beautiful areas - driving into Habana from the airport, instead of going past slums or industrial areas as in most other cities I've been to, you see fields growing food to supply Habana, and propaganda billboards.
I found most of the propaganda around Habana relatively inoffensive. On the way to the airport there are quite a few messages about the blockade (all in Spanish). There are also a few general 'long live the revolution' messages, and quotes from Jose Marti and others. My favourite was a poster of some busy ants that read 'We're working - are you?' There are also lots around Habana with the faces of Fidel, Che, and Camilo ('the other Che').
Some things:
* There is music everywhere. If you go to a run-down little bar on a weeknight, it seems to be almost guaranteed that a band will turn up, play a few songs, and then pass a hat around. I wish I knew more about Cuban music, because I enjoyed it very much.
* Vegetarian food gets a tad monotonous, which I do not feel it's fair to complain about. One evening, we went to a 'vegetarian' restaurant, which turned out to mostly serve meat with two or three vegetarian options. We had some very good Cuban beans, though, and I enjoyed eating at a paladar (privately-run restaurants that are basically twelve chairs in someone's lounge).
* The Museum of the Revolution was fascinating. There are displays about the struggle, and then the development of the policy after Fidel came to power. There are also lots of odd artefacts people have held onto - the shirt someone was wearing when they were shot, a blood-stained pamphlet from a rally (with information on whose blood it is), the shirt worn by Celia Sanchez while in the mountains, and so on. Luckily the more disturbing exhibits (such as evidence of the Batista regime's torture of prisoners and photos of where the bodies were dumped) is followed by exhibits on maternal health care, the campaign again illiteracy ('analphabetisation'), and so on.
* There was an old man called Jorg (?) shuffling around the hotel lobby where we were staying, saying that he had been a Minister in the government and had been friends with Che. He was trying to get people to have their portrait done. For some reason I found the loss of dignity involved terribly, terribly sad. It seems silly, when I have seen much worse things. He seemed healthy enough, he wasn't homeless - but the loss of dignity was hard to see. In general, people seem poor but not in the same way I have seen elsewhere. We saw one or two people sleeping on the streets, but old people and the disabled looked like they were being taken care of, and we saw children leaving school with bread and yoghurt rations. There don't seem to be the extremes I've seen in other places, but of course we saw very little in the time we were there.
* We spent a lot of time just walking, and looking around. The areas our guidebook suggested, museums and art galleries and so on, were mostly restored or in the process of being restored. There were some beautiful churches and paved streets and plazas. Walking just a little off=track, though, quickly brings you to apartment-blocks in very poor state, and rubbish on the streets. That said, there was a lot of restoration of these areas going on also.
* We went to Parque Lennon, where there is a statue of John Lennon sitting on the bench (put there around 2000, when Fidel decided that he wasn't so decadent after all). When you approach the statue, there is on old man sitting on a bench who walks up, takes Lennon's glasses out of his pocket (they previously got stolen often) and puts them onto the statue. Afterwards, he puts the glasses back in his pocket, and goes back to sitting on his bench.
Many questions, including:
* How do people get work? Do you apply, is it assigned? How do people get paid? Does it make a difference, for example, if you get more or less customers if you're working at a state-owned restaurant?
* How do houses get assigned? Do people own their houses? Why are some apartments (within the same block) painted and not others?
* Do researchers have access to the Internet?
Apart from that, much of it was as expected. There are some beautiful areas - driving into Habana from the airport, instead of going past slums or industrial areas as in most other cities I've been to, you see fields growing food to supply Habana, and propaganda billboards.
I found most of the propaganda around Habana relatively inoffensive. On the way to the airport there are quite a few messages about the blockade (all in Spanish). There are also a few general 'long live the revolution' messages, and quotes from Jose Marti and others. My favourite was a poster of some busy ants that read 'We're working - are you?' There are also lots around Habana with the faces of Fidel, Che, and Camilo ('the other Che').
Some things:
* There is music everywhere. If you go to a run-down little bar on a weeknight, it seems to be almost guaranteed that a band will turn up, play a few songs, and then pass a hat around. I wish I knew more about Cuban music, because I enjoyed it very much.
* Vegetarian food gets a tad monotonous, which I do not feel it's fair to complain about. One evening, we went to a 'vegetarian' restaurant, which turned out to mostly serve meat with two or three vegetarian options. We had some very good Cuban beans, though, and I enjoyed eating at a paladar (privately-run restaurants that are basically twelve chairs in someone's lounge).
* The Museum of the Revolution was fascinating. There are displays about the struggle, and then the development of the policy after Fidel came to power. There are also lots of odd artefacts people have held onto - the shirt someone was wearing when they were shot, a blood-stained pamphlet from a rally (with information on whose blood it is), the shirt worn by Celia Sanchez while in the mountains, and so on. Luckily the more disturbing exhibits (such as evidence of the Batista regime's torture of prisoners and photos of where the bodies were dumped) is followed by exhibits on maternal health care, the campaign again illiteracy ('analphabetisation'), and so on.
* There was an old man called Jorg (?) shuffling around the hotel lobby where we were staying, saying that he had been a Minister in the government and had been friends with Che. He was trying to get people to have their portrait done. For some reason I found the loss of dignity involved terribly, terribly sad. It seems silly, when I have seen much worse things. He seemed healthy enough, he wasn't homeless - but the loss of dignity was hard to see. In general, people seem poor but not in the same way I have seen elsewhere. We saw one or two people sleeping on the streets, but old people and the disabled looked like they were being taken care of, and we saw children leaving school with bread and yoghurt rations. There don't seem to be the extremes I've seen in other places, but of course we saw very little in the time we were there.
* We spent a lot of time just walking, and looking around. The areas our guidebook suggested, museums and art galleries and so on, were mostly restored or in the process of being restored. There were some beautiful churches and paved streets and plazas. Walking just a little off=track, though, quickly brings you to apartment-blocks in very poor state, and rubbish on the streets. That said, there was a lot of restoration of these areas going on also.
* We went to Parque Lennon, where there is a statue of John Lennon sitting on the bench (put there around 2000, when Fidel decided that he wasn't so decadent after all). When you approach the statue, there is on old man sitting on a bench who walks up, takes Lennon's glasses out of his pocket (they previously got stolen often) and puts them onto the statue. Afterwards, he puts the glasses back in his pocket, and goes back to sitting on his bench.
Many questions, including:
* How do people get work? Do you apply, is it assigned? How do people get paid? Does it make a difference, for example, if you get more or less customers if you're working at a state-owned restaurant?
* How do houses get assigned? Do people own their houses? Why are some apartments (within the same block) painted and not others?
* Do researchers have access to the Internet?