Havana
May 2000

Laura and I visited Cuba for 2 weeks in May this year. It was very hot and dry as they were waiting for the rain. Writing this now in December - our wettest autumn, I now find that hard to imagine!

We were very fortunate and had managed to secure funding for our trip from the Royal Horticultural Society and The Merlin Trust. Our project proposal was to look into the development of the productive city gardens of Havana, which are providing a supply of fresh foods within the city; to observe the effects this has had on the people and the community and how cities in Britain could learn from their example.

It was our first visit to Cuba. Having both travelled fairly widely before (mainly Asia) we were used to arriving into a strange country and dealing with the differences and possible problems. What struck us most was how easy everything was, the genuine warmth and friendliness of the people came across instantly. Being two females we felt very safe and un-hassled.

All of our project work was to be done in Havana. We eventually managed to make our arrangements to meet with Roberto and Justo Torres who were going to take us to see some of the city gardens. We decided to hire a car and driver as we didn't weren't sure where we were going and wanted to try and see as much as possible in the time we had. This proved to be an excellent decision as Juan became a good friend and tour guide and he also learnt a lot through the nature of our visit. He, however, only sees his family once a month -attracted to Havana and the tourist dollar.

What was most inspiring was not just seeing beautiful gardens that were amazingly fruitful, but the people behind the projects and the pride and empowerment that was apparent on their faces. One garden we visited belonged to Sierra and five other neighbours. They had claimed the one-acre plot of land for cultivation across the road from the block of flats where they lived. Incidentally, Sierra told us how they had all helped to build the block of flats, over a five-year period in their spare time using all their relevant skills. They were all used to hard work, which you could see by the metre high bank of rubble which had been removed from the land and now surrounds it. They now feed themselves and family and have recently started growing garlic chives to sell to the local community.

Of course we had to visit Fernandini and were justly amazed at what he has achieved "Self sufficient except for rice and rum" - but I am sure he is working on that! These were two of the larger gardens we visited; we also visited many patio projects, an organiponico, a smallholding on the outskirts of Havana and a Seed House. Everyone we met was very knowledgeable about organic growing techniques and how to adapt them to their environment. There was plenty of information available to them in the Seed House and support from local gardening groups as well as the Fundación.

We took with us garden tools, a selection of seeds we felt would be most useful, as well as pens and pencils, a calculator and guitar strings which we distributed appropriately. Having taken up particularly Roberto and Justo's time and being funded ourselves we also wanted to pay them. It was only when we said to use it for a future project was this accepted.

Having spent several days we wanted to try and get a feel for the country as a whole. We made a short overnight trip west of Havana to Soroa to visit the Orquiderea there and had a very interesting guided tour. We started chatting to one of the gardeners, who offered to take us up into the hills to visit a community, living and working on the land. Even though it was an 8km off road walk in the heat of the day we couldn't refuse. Here the community grew the majority of food for their own use. Some vegetables and fruit are taken to the local market, and tobacco and sugar cane sold to the state. From here we went further west to Vinales to take in the dramatic scenery and visited a tobacco farmer, all his tobacco going to the state.

During our visit we stayed in a variety of accommodation. In Havana we stayed in a hotel full of character where the scrambled eggs were aptly named 'revoltillio', although I did grow to like them. I must say on the whole we enjoyed the Cuban food, it may have been a bit repetitive but always tasty, with the star buys being the pizzas from the street kiosks and, of course, the fruit. We tasted fruit we didn't even know existed and going in the middle of the mango season was a definite advantage.

Our visit to Cuba was inspiring and in some ways only fully appreciated during our recent 'fuel crisis'. It took only a matter of days for this country to almost come to a halt, with supermarkets running out of food. For us the crisis soon stopped, but in Cuba it didn't. And they have turned a crisis into an opportunity for sustainability