VISIT TO CUBA
JANUARY 2000

by
Jenny Bussey

Wally and I got back from a 16-day trip to Cuba last Sunday, our first visit since we were on the original HDRA/de Montfort University trip 3 years ago. We spent six days in La Habana, staying with friends in their flat right in the centre (somewhat noisy! but very convenient for sightseeing), then hired a car for nine days to visit some of the other main cities in Cuba, getting as far as Santiago de Cuba (and back).

We found roads not too bad, the traffic being quite light and potholes not too numerous on the main roads. The roads in the Sierra Maestra, however, were quite poor and we were not able to drive across them to the coast as we hoped - a four-wheel drive vehicle is necessary and we only had a Peugeot 106 that had seen better days. We stayed in whatever small hotel we could find, paying from $18 to $45 a night for a double room. The beds were all OK but the meals (extra) varied from good Cuban cooking to quite frightful, but we survived! We found several paladares that were all better in quality, even if no more imaginative, than the hotels. We might also have done better to have accepted some of the many offers of a room in a Cuban's home, usually no more than $20 a night, often with meals available as well.

We visited the Community Project run by Vilda Figueroa and Pepe Lama where they have made great advances in the last 3 years, and the school garden is an example to us all of what can be done in a small space. They took us to visit the Botanic Garden in La Havana again, this time in the company of the curator of the Edible Plants area where they are growing many different species that they hope to introduce to Community Gardens to increase food possibilities for Cubans. Most of these trees and other plants are, of course, tropical or sub-tropical in origin and would only grow in very favourable areas here in Spain. But several plants that grow here are also being tried, although the rain pattern is quite different, with dry winters and wet summers. Citrus fruits are already an important commercial crop and, in fact, do much better than here in Spain as the climate is milder and more humid. Vilda plans to get fruit trees planted along the roadside wherever possible, to improve the local diet.

It is very interesting to see how the organic community gardening movement is progressing. Gardens were originally started in and around La Havana to provide food for people in each locality, with any surplus being sold in markets or at the roadside. These gardens can now be found all over Cuba, in practically every village and town, and they are contributing to a marked improvement in the diet. However, there is almost no variety in the cultivars grown and the lettuce that one finds everywhere is one of the most tasteless and limp varieties that I have ever come across! I am going to send some other seeds to Vilda for her to try in her Community Project garden run by local school children. They have a marvellous collection of vegetables and herbs growing in quite a small area and, besides using them for food, the local people come to the Project for herbs to use medicinally, often sent by the local doctor (medicines still being in very short supply). Vilda also works with pensioners, showing them how to preserve foods that they can then sell to increase their income, their pensions being very low indeed (70 pesos a month!). She and Pepe appear on television too (alternate Mondays at 7.30 p.m. on Channel 2), showing how to preserve foods and herbs and explaining the medicinal properties of herbs as well, and many people that we spoke to while travelling around knew of them from that.

In Matanzas we found a most interesting Pharmaceutical Museum in the main square. It was the town's pharmacy until 1964 and many of the medicines were prepared from herbs. All the books where the remedies were written down still exist and they are now being studied to find what combinations of herbs were used in the past. The pharmacy, with its storerooms and work area for the preparation of medicines is intact, including most of the ingredients used.

We visited the Cupaynicu Botanic Garden in the Sierra Maestra, which is set in this rather inaccessible mountainous area in a most attractive location. They also have a collection of edible and medicinal plants, as well as a wonderful collection of palms of all shapes and sizes set in parkland - unfortunately most are tropical and would not stand our relatively cold, wet winters. The garden also contains a large area of native forest and the plants growing there are being studied for their different uses of benefit to man.

The sugar harvest was in full swing during our visit. Mostly it was being cut by machine but we did see some fields being cut by hand too. It rained heavily one night and the next day we were avoiding great lumps of mud brought onto the roads by the tractors! It was the first rain for 3 months in the Oriente provinces, so no one was complaining, though the Cubans did not like the cold that came with it (maybe down to 15º C - we needed one blanket at night and a jersey in the daytime!). Our last day was spent on the beach near La Havana and it was pleasantly warm to swim in the crystal clear, startlingly blue water of the Caribbean.

In 3 years, the biggest change we noticed was the proliferation of dollar shops throughout the island, and the resultant dollar haves and have-nots in the population. This is already causing some friction and needs to be addressed. Generally, however, Cubans are benefiting from the liberalisation of the economy and there are very few who look ill-fed or badly clothed. It is the elderly, on very small incomes, who are the worst off, as everywhere!

The other noticeable change is in the number of buildings that are being renovated and of new construction (mainly hotels for tourists unfortunately, but that is where the money is available and it does at least provide work). Varadero is looking very prosperous now (with hotel prices starting at $90 a night) and there is still plenty of room for more hotels, etc. No doubt it will end up like Benidorm in a few years time with no more chance of seeing the real Cuba than the real Spain.

The main plus of a self-organised trip like this was the chance to talk at length with people from many walks of life, to hear their opinions and learn at first hand of the problems and benefits of the present state of affairs in Cuba. Let's hope that the "progress" being made in the quality of life continues without bringing too many of the problems of prosperity! _____

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VISIT TO CUBA JANUARY 2000

VISIT TO CUBA
JANUARY 2000