[Peace-discuss] Fw: My Experience in Cuba
ewj at pigsqq.org
ewj at pigsqq.org
Sun Jul 22 21:58:28 UTC 2012
Very nice writing David. I really enjoyed reading it.
Part of the flavourfulness that you noticed in the food is the genetics of the animals
and part is due to the freshness. By the time some of the food in the US reaches the
consumer it is almost too old to eat.
The embargo against Cuba and the arrogant lies are awful.
But try explaining why it is wrong to the people who support the
embargoing and bashing...
*
By the way, I am writing this from my hotel room in Yuenan Huzhimin Shi (Ho Chi Minh City - Saigon).
I am here for a few days teaching about trace mineral nutrition for pigs and chickens
particularly Selenium and Vitamin E deficiency issues.
*
> -------Original Message-------
> From: David Johnson <dlj725 at hughes.net>
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> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fw: My Experience in Cuba
> Sent: Jul 22 '12 23:02
>
> LABOR'S WORLD VIEW T.V.
>
> SUNDAY JULY 22nd
> 4 - 5PM
>
> COMCAST CHANNEL 6
> UPTV ( Urbana Public Television ).
>
> Video footage of a recent trip to Cuba ( June 17th - June 24th 2012 ).
> Filmed in Havana and in the countryside in Vinales ( 3-hours west of
> Havana ).
> Video footage of segments of the conference " Socialist Renovation and
> Capitalist Crisis " at the University of Havana, street scenes in Havana,
> nature and rural life in Vinales, inside three different " Casa
> Particulares " ( Cuban's who rent rooms in their homes to foreign visitors
> ), Museum of the Revolution, and live music.
>
> Also, check out the article below " MY EXPERIENCE IN CUBA " for more
> detailed info in addition to the sights and sounds of the film footage.
>
>
> MY EXPERIENCE IN CUBA
>
> DAVID JOHNSON
>
> For anyone who lives outside the United States, a trip to Cuba is no
> different than a trip to any Carribean country like Jamaica, Aruba, etc..
> However for U.S. Citizens and Premenant Resident Alliens living in the
> U.S., such a trip is not so easy.
> Three years ago the Obama administration made it a little easier for U.S.
> citizens to travel to Cuba, but there is still a lengthy and more costly
> proceedure that has to be undertaken.
> First one has to find a tour company that has an " umbrella " license from
> the U.S. Treasury Dept. that allows educational and cultural trips to
> Cuba. That costs anywhere from $ 300.00 and up per week for the "
> priviledge " to travel to Cuba, in addition to the round-trip airfare.
> Then once you are in Cuba, the U.S. government demands that U.S. citizens
> only stay in " approved " expensive hotels arranged by the tour group and
> participate in all programs of the tour group. The U.S. government calls
> this a " people to people exchange " , however as most things stated by
> the U.S. government, what they say and what they do or try to do is just
> the opposite. Such is the REAL intended effect of the above restrictions,
> to LIMIT contact betwen U.S. visitors and the Cuban people. And finally
> when a U.S. citizen returns from Cuba, they are not allowed to bring
> anything with them from Cuba, except " items of communication " like ;
> books, CD's, DVD's, paintings and posters.
>
>
> THE CONFERENCE
>
> My trip was under the educational auspicies of a conference at the
> University of Havana organized by an organization called " Global Justice
> ", and the theme of the conference was ; " Socialist Renovation and
> Capitalist Crisis".
> The conference had participants and topic presenters from both Cuba and
> the U.S.. There were mostly academics in attenedence, but in addition to
> myself a Carpenter by profession, there was a Baker from the San Francisco
> Bay area.
> Much of the conference centered on problems in the U.S. and responses to
> these problems, like the Occupy Movement and in one case, the Baker from
> San Francisco making a presentation about the successful cooperative he
> has been a member of for almost 40 years, that started with 5 people and
> now has 53 members.
> The presentations from the Cuban's focused on the problems they have been
> facing historically with the U.S embargo, their successes and failures in
> the economy past and present, and ideas about the future restructuring of
> the economy to one degree or another. The topic of converting state owned
> enterprises into worker owned cooperatives was repeatedly discussed, with
> emphasis in the ; agricultural, construction, retail, and hotel /
> restaurant / bar and nightclub areas of the economy.
> There was also a very contentious topic of allowing Cuban owned small
> private enterprises to begin operation and to allow them to hire
> employees. This was a very hotly debated issue, since this would begin the
> process of worker exploitation.
> Currently the only private enterprises allowed in Cuba ( everything else
> is owned and operated by the State, even restaurants and bars ) are ;
> individuals / families who rent rooms to foreign visitors ( Casa
> Particulars ), individuals / families who have turned the front part of
> their homes into restaurants, people who use their vehicles for taxis, and
> street vendors.
> As an interesting example, the taxi driver I had when I first arrived in
> Cuba from the airport to my hotel was previously an Engineer who worked
> for the Cuban government, but is now driving his own taxi because he earns
> 5-10 times as much as his previous Engineering job.
> An additional piece of info about the casa particulars ( rooms rented to
> foreign visitors in private homes ). The three different homes I stayed in
> all were clean. The hosts friendly. All of the rooms were private with ; a
> key, shower / toilet / sink, air-conditioned and / or had a fan. Two of
> the three also had a full sized refridgerator as well. I payed $ 20 to $
> 25 ( U.S. ) for the rented rooms ( which included breakfast ), as compared
> to $ 80.00 ( U.S. ) for the barely tolerable tour group " approved "
> hotel.
>
>
> MY IMPRESSIONS ON THE STREET
>
> To begin with, when one arrives in Cuba, the first thing that is a
> noticeable difference is the 5-mile ride into Havana from the airport. One
> begins to see billboards within a few minutes on the road, but unlike the
> U.S. and other places I have been in lesser devolped countries ( Mexico,
> Jamaica and Brazil ), one does not see billboards of Coca-Cola, cellphone
> companies, and even condom advertisements. Instead one sees billboards
> with revolutionary slogans with pictures of Che Guevera, Camilo Cienfuegos
> and the Cuban Five imprisoned in Florida. This is when it hit me that I
> was actually in Cuba.
> On the streets one sees about one in every four vehicles that are pre-1959
> American cars, small Fiat looking Russian vehicles from the 1970's and
> 1980's, many motorcycles with side cars, an occasional newer Japanesse or
> European vehicle, as well as many horse drawn carts and newer Chinese city
> buses.
> For a city of 2-million people, the traffic was steady but not congested.
> The first evening I observed a lot of social activity occuring in the
> streets and along Havana's sea wall ( El Malecon ). Young people with
> unusual haircuts, piercings and tatoos like you would see in the U.S. or
> Europe. A diverse and intermingled racial mixture of people socializing
> together. Individuals, couples and families of all ages walking around and
> hanging-out at the seawall, drinking openly in public and various
> individuals and small groups of people singing and playing musical
> instruments. My first thoughts were that this did not seem like an
> oppresive society.
> In the U.S., the police would not tolerate such large informal social
> gatherings in public on the streets drinking alcohol, and would be sending
> in riot squads to break-up any such gatherings that did not have official
> approval, restrictions and permits.
> One saw Cuban police mainly in the tourist areas and unlike Mexico,
> Jamaica and Brazil, no where did I see the police patroling with shotguns
> and automatic weapons, with arrogant attitudes and glaring at the people
> on the streets, looking and acting like they were hoping for a
> confrontation with someone.
> I have even seen this occasionaly in the U.S., but not in Cuba. I felt
> perfectly safe walking around at night. The one danger in walking at night
> in Havana however is the occasional uncovered sewer manhole or busted
> chuncks of concrete on the sidewalks in certain areas.
> In subsequent evenings during my 7-day stay in Cuba, I found to my suprise
> that the Cubans I spoke to were :
>
> 1) Very well informed about what was happening in general in the U.S..,
> politically, economically, etc..
>
> 2) Not at all timid about stating their opinions about what they liked and
> disliked about the Cuban government and society. Several people stated
> that Fidel Castro, despite his outstanding leadership in the Cuban
> revolution, should have stepped aside years ago, and that younger people
> in general should be in leadership positions at the national level. Also
> that corruption is pervasive. In particular, if one needs something like a
> service they are entiltled to under Cuban law from a low level government
> official, that bribery is often needed to obtain what they need in a
> timely matter.
>
> 3) Very proud of their healthcare and educational system, and were shocked
> to hear from me examples of how much both healthcare and university
> education cost in real terms compared to what myself and the average U.S.
> worker earned.
>
> 4) Stated repeatedly the evils of the U.S. embargo and did not blame the
> American people, but instead the U.S. government and those who control it.
>
>
> 5) Were cautiously optimistic about the future in terms of ;
>
> a) The U.S. embargo ending and a subsequent influx of U.S. tourists and
> products.
>
> b) The Cuban government transfering state run enterprises into worker
> owned cooperatives.
>
> c) Being able to travel abroad easier.
>
> d) U.S. companies moving into Cuba providing products and jobs but with
> restictions upon them in terms of their ability to control the economy and
> influence the government.
>
> e) Being able to protect their healthcare and educational system from
> adverse changes.
>
> What also suprised me was the abundance of people who owned chickens in
> Havana and the number of rooftop vegetable gardens.
> With the exception of my first night in which I was " persuaded " by the
> tour group to stay in an overpriced hotel, I stayed in casa particulars (
> Cubans who rent rooms to foreign visitors ) and because of this I had
> another oppurtunity to get the opinions of my hosts as well as sample some
> delicious home prepared Cuban food. What was really amazing was how
> tasteful simple items like eggs, milk and butter were and how thick and
> flavorful various fruit juices were compared to the U.S..
> It was obvious that Monsanto, ADM, Carghil, and other agri-businesses with
> their chemical and preservative laced products and their livestock factory
> production of egg, meat, and dairy products was not present in Cuba.
> The downside of Havana however was the terrible condition of most of their
> buildings, literally falling apart, even though inside people's apartments
> everything was clean and well maintained.
> The building elevators were very scary and as I stated previously, the
> sidewalks were in many places torn-up.
> The streets were in decent condition and many of the two and three hundred
> year old buildings in the old part of Havana have been beautifully
> restored. But when one walks a few blocks away from the tourist areas with
> it's magnitude of hustlers and aggresive prostitutes, one finds entire
> blocks of buildings in some areas that looked as if the U.S. military had
> bombed the area five years previously.
>
> IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
>
> The fourth day I was in Cuba I traveled to a town 3-hours west of Havana
> called Vinales, which has about 20,000 inhabitants and is located in an
> agricultural area that grows ; tobacco, coffee, and a variety of fruits,
> vegetables and livestock. The primary attraction of the area of Vinales is
> the haystack shaped mountains ( Mozotes ) full of caves and protected
> forests that has been a UNESCO nature site since the mid-1970's. Hence
> there is a fair amount of tourism every year.
> The drive to Vinales was an interesting glimpse of the Cuban country-side.
> The interstate higway that we took three-fourths of the journey was not in
> as good of condition as interstate roads in the U.S., but considerably
> better than similar roads I have encountered in the past in Jamaica and
> Mexico ( with the exception of the expensive Mexican toll roads ). Along
> the interstate I saw people on bicycles and horse drawn wagons traveling
> on the shoulder of the highway, as well as groups of people standing under
> various overpass bridges, waiting for transport trucks to stop and in
> exchange for a few pesos give them a ride to town exits along the way.
> During the 120 mile or so ride on the interstate I saw an occasional
> agricultural field, but the vast majority of the flat-lands ( with
> mountains in the distance ) were unused grasslands and scattered shrub
> trees. At the previous days conference in Havana, I had learned that Cuba
> is only currently using about 20 % of it's potential of land that could be
> used for agricultural production. One of the future goals of the Cuban
> government is to try to significantly increase the development of unused
> land into agricultural cooperatives. An importent priority in a country
> that imports 70 % of it's food supply.
> Once we left the interstate and traveled the last 15-miles or so on two
> lane roads to the town of Vinales, I saw a lot of small farms with many
> fruit trees and various small to medium sized parcels of land growing a
> variety of crops, in addition to a fair amount of pigs, chickens, goats,
> and an occasional milk cow and/or cattle.
> All of the houses I saw were made of either log cabin type solid wood or
> concrete block and stucco with a variety of different roofs of clay tile,
> concrete, metal, or in some cases thatched vegetation.
> No where in Cuba, either in the outskirts of Havana or the country-side
> did I see the familiar metal and / or cardboard shacks that I saw a lot of
> in Mexico, Jamaica, and parts of Brazil.
> Nor did I see large amounts of trash, garbage dumps, or rivers and streams
> used as open sewers as exists in the above countries.
> On the two lane side road to Vinales, I saw both arriving and during my
> departure several days later, transport and pick-up trucks with doctors
> riding in the back, wearing white robes and hiking boots and carrying
> black doctor's bag of medical supplies, making their weekly rounds to
> small villages.
> In the town of Vinales, other than the main road into town where about 5-6
> blocks of businesses were located, all of the streets were rough dirt and
> gravel with a considerable number of pot-holes, with many chickens and
> pigs wandering around.
> In contrast, people's homes were in some cases very well maintained inside
> and on the exterior, to the point of looking " middle class ". In general
> it appeared that the people in this small city had a higher standard of
> living than most people in Havana.
>
> CONCLUSION
>
> Cuba is a very interesting country that is currently in a period of
> transition. The next five years or so should be interesting as to how and
> to what extent Cuba changes for either the worse or the better. In many
> ways it is like things have been frozen in time since the 1950's in the
> case of many functioning automobiles or more accurately the 1970's in the
> case of it's " newer " buildings, with an unbelievable amount of unspoiled
> and untouched nature as well as an abundance of older buildings that are
> still standing in various degrees of restoration or disrepair, some dating
> from the year 1650. But also an incredible number from the 1890's and the
> 1920's that have an incredible amount of ornate architectual detail.
> It is my opinion that none of this preserved history and nature would
> exist if the Cuban revolution had not been successful.
> Capitalism would have destroyed most of it years ago and in it's place new
> sterile high-rise office buildings, condos and shopping malls would have
> been constructed.
> In terms of human beings, one of the things I noticed was how good of
> teeth everyone had. How I saw no people sleeping in the streets, begging,
> nor extremely thin or extremely overweight people, or that
> " beaten down " look of despair, desperation and defeat. Which is more
> than I can say about other places I have been in Latin America / Carribean
> ( Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil ) or even in certain areas of the U.S..
> Cuba has many problems, in particular the general condition of housing and
> infrastructure in Havana. But Cuba has a much higher standard of living
> than any of the neighboring countries in the Carribean / Latin America, in
> particular Haiti and Hondurus.
> It's main economic source of revenue is ; tourism, tobacco, and sugar,
> although it has made some significant economic advances in recent years in
> alternative energy such as wind, solar and hydro-electricity, as well as
> the beginings of a solar panel manafacturing industry for both domestic
> use and export. The overall economy has grown in the last 2-3 years,
> including a 24 % increase in tourism. Ironicly though the tourism
> infrastructure has been barely able to keep pace with the increase. I was
> told at the conference that if the U.S. embargo against Cuba would end next
> month, there would be a mass influx of U.S. tourists and that Cuba would
> not be able to handle the increase in the number of visitors.
> Although I wondered when I was in Cuba, if Cuba really needed the U.S. for
> anything considering it's current economic relationships with Europe,
> Latin America, China and Japan ?
> Ending the U.S. embargo I was told would help Cuba in many ways such as
> cheaper food prices and some medicines with U.S. patents, as well as a
> larger variety of products that would be available. As long as there were
> no political and economic " strings attached ". Of course if U.S.
> corporations would be allowed in to Cuba with no restrictions on their
> operations and behaviour, how long would it be before the IMF and World
> Bank would begin to move-in ? If that would be the case it would only be a
> matter of time before they would try to privatize everything and the Cuban
> people would lose their free health-care and free educational system.
> My wife's cousin who lives in Poland experienced first hand what a total
> transformation from a State run economy to a capitalist economy is like.
> Almost overnight when this happened in Poland in the early 1990's, half of
> the country lost their jobs, rents doubled and food prices tripled. This
> has since been termed " Shock Doctrine ", and several of the Cuban
> Presenters at the conference used the term and stated emphaticly that
> current Cuban government officials have stated that they will under no
> circumstances allow this to happen. I hope this is the case and not as in
> the transformation of Russia where shock doctrine also occured with the
> cooperation of Communist Party government officials who became very rich
> in the process via bribes and kickbacks.
>
> In general not only is Cuba fascinating and it's people engaging and
> friendly, but it has something very special about it which is difficult to
> describe.
> Although I was only in Cuba for 7-days, and I woulld need to live and work
> there for at least a year to speak with any real confidence about what
> life there is truely like, I nevertheless saw that what I had been told
> about Cuba all my life via the U.S. government and the corporate media was
> an absolute and total LIE !
> I hope that the Cuban people are able to keep the best of what they have
> and change for the better the inadequacies. I am both worried and hopeful
> as probably many Cubans themselves are in terms of what the future will
> be.
>
>
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