wordfalls and scatters

* I babysat Miss Z, who is around one-and-a-half, yesterday. She hadn't had an afternoon nap and was pretty traumatized when her father left, and burst into heart-breaking sobbing. When I stopped hugging her and put her down she walked over to the front door and held her hand against it, like maybe if she could get it open he would come back. Oh my. In the end I put on some jazz and we listened to it together, and then she pointed at some things and made little-mammal-snuffling noises. I gave her my XO to play with, and she tried very hard to destroy it, but mostly just made it sticky.
* I have decided to go to Newcastle at the end of next week for a one-week change of scenery. I have been getting more and more frustrated with my thesis, and I think I was starting to feel like it was just going on and on. Even the thought of working in a different place for a while makes me feel a bit less anxious about the whole thing.
* J has been ridiculously lovely, and when I had a little Panic last night about not being able to concentrate on my thesis he did a good job of back-patting and plan-making. Today I actually got some work done! Not a heap, but enough that I feel a bit more on-track again. I also called N and received further reassurances, and had a nice lunch with my father, and am generally feeling cared-for.

Also: I need to buy some elastic for my crochet-skirt's waistband. Can anyone recommend a place to do this that isn't in the middle of nowhere?

* I am going to be in Sydney between 18th and 24th of February. Actually, I will mostly be in Armidale or doing a workshop during that time, but I will be free the evening of the 20th, I think. Does anyone want to have dinner/put me up? (Also: are any of you guys in Sydney?)
* My brother is quite wonderful. He told me a story about his mice: his house has lots of mice. They like to hide behind the microwave, and poop. So, one day they used the microwave, and a poor little mouse came staggering out and died a dramatic death. Very upsetting! After considering the problem carefully, they got rid of the microwave, because who wants such a terrible killer in the house? Now the mouse hang out somewhere different, and more hidden, and everyone's happy. For some reason I find this story very cheering. It reminds me that people are not so bad, after all.
* My family is pretty excellent, did I mention? I like Παπού playing tavli with Ms N and debating, Γιαγιά's stories and her popping some dessert into Ms N's mouth mid-sentence, Byron's attempts to lure Brotherdear or J into playing with him, Strati's standard response to Relationship News ("well, when are you bringing them around?"), Lorraine's quiet strength, GirlCousins' willingness to debate ethics and morality, Motherdear's automatic carbon-neutralling of my flights, Fatherdear's continual attempts to work out where he is and where he wants to be. I am very lucky!
* Ms L came around the other night to work on my story. It's quite wonderful to write with/for someone who's that expressive - I am usually so nervous when someone reads my work with me near, but I really enjoy all of her laughing and approval-faces and questions. Also, it is fun to make demands like, "draw a thing here that is like a rubbish bin crossed with a cloud, but sparkly".
* A couple of nights ago I had a dream that my first complete thesis-draft was finished. It still had lots of 'insert research here' bits, but it felt so amazingly good. Like a dream about flying, where you're simultaneously surprising that you can do and at how wonderful it is.
* A couple of nights ago I had a dream about

The 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?

Yesterday we went to see Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's blue house, which was beautiful.

Last night J and I went out (unsupervised!*) and met up with C-from-Psychology. It was a pleasant evening - a lot of trying to talk Spanish, a reasonable amount of tequila, and some wandering around. Our taxi driver had trouble finding the hotel, and I was surprised when he stopped next to a police car, lights flashing, to ask for directions. They answered, too.

Today we drove to Cuernavaca, which is smaller and safer than Mexico City. When we went out for dinner, I saw an old woman pressed up behind a pillar. She looked so determined, with her lips pressed together. It turned out she was waiting to throw a rock at a stray dog that was coming her way. Sometimes, grandmothers are scary.

Coming up soon: Gigantic Mexican Wedding, Cuba!


------
* Well, M had stern talks with us, and then stern talks with the taxi driver who was told to stick with us for the evening, and we were in the Zona Rosa, which is a safe area.

We are now safely in Puerto Vallata, hanging out with M's family and a heap of other tourists. M's family is lovely, and I'm really enjoying listening to everyone speaking Spanish...I can catch about one word in ten, which is just enough to have a vague idea of what's going on.

No idea what's planned for tonight,but I imagine it will involve hanging around the marina where we're staying...there are lots of restaurants around here, and there will be fireworks and, I imagine, a lot of drunk people.

Much love and best wishes to friends, family, and any other readers who've stumbled across the journal.