Water

The Cuba Report

Who's reporting and from where?  I'm a middle aged physician, fluent in Mexican-American Spanish, who has been to Cuba many times - I think 17 - and has developed close ties there.  It isn't really a Cuba report in the sense of all Cuba,either.  I spend most of my time in Havana, in Municipio Marianao where I stay and where most of my friends live, with side trips to Yaguajay, a town in Santi Spiritus province where my god-child lives with his family, now mine also as these things go.  Marianao is a "barrio marginal" in Cuban terms - not a place where upper class people ever lived.  It's poorer, Blacker, more revolutionary than, say, Vedado, for example.  Nonetheless, like most Cuban neighborhoods, it's entirely mixed. (It's not just neighborhoods - in Cuba it is not unusual at all for Black families to have White members and White families to have Black members. Plus - many people considered White in Cuba would be considered "Latino" here.  And many people considered Black here would not be considered Black in Cuba.  Life is very complicated and race is a social and cultural construct, which doesn't make things any easier for those on the negative side of the constructs.  That's another report, which I am not qualified to write.) There are no tourists in Marianao, nor any services for tourists, which makes it very easy and comfortable - I'm just another person on the street, the bus or in the market.  When I open my mouth people say "Mexico."  When I keep it closed I'm just there, though I've been asked twice if I was Russian. In Yaguajay, small enough so that everyone knows everyone's business, people know know exactly who I am.  It's an unusual place in that there was a strong socialist-Communist movement there before the revolution.  When the Revolutionary Army arrived, they were ready, and the older members of my family there were active participants.  So that's my Cuba.  Your mileage may vary.

I have lots to say about the US blockade of Cuba, but not right now.  This report is about water.  When I'm at home, I live in the mountains.  Our water supply is a well, with pumps and pressure and storage tanks.  We are, needless to say, suffering from severe drought, trembling as we watch trees die by the hundreds.  Many people have had their wells run dry and the water delivery truck runs along the roads at all hours.  We're still OK but  the water table is a box of unknown size and fullness.  All we know is that we are taking more out than goes in.
Cuba is also suffering from drought.  The most obvious effect has been on agriculture, but what I know about is how people manage at home.

Water in Yaguajay.  It comes straight from the aqueduct and is good to drink, is the first thing I was told, and it seems to be true.  Different parts of the town get water at different times of the day.  It comes to the center of town about 9 PM and lasts overnight.  This means that either you have a watertank on the roof and a pump, or you need to fill enough containers for the next day's water supply during the evening or early morning hours.  You have to remember not to leave taps open after you check to see if the water came yet, or you'll have a flood to clean up.  In the daytime, you flush the toilet with a bucket.  The majority of toilets in Cuba flush this way anyway.  If you have a pump, you need to wake up and shut it off once the tank is full or it will just keep on splashing water down all night, driving the neighbors crazy, though they probably won't say anything because they've known each other all their lives.  To take a shower, you use a big bucket and a smaller container to pour the water on yourself.  Most people heat the water, on the stove, of course.  Washing clothes - backyard washboard/sink or Asian-style washing machine - 2 tiny wash/rinse and spin tanks filled and/or drained by hoses controlled manually.

Water in Havana - Marianao, remember.  It's every other day.  Either you have a pump and a watertank on the roof (manual  turn-on  and shutoff, again), or someone has to be home when there is water running to fill enough containers for the next day and night.  The pressure and volume isn't much either - usually not enough to reach the sink faucet - so  buckets have to be  filled at the knee-high tap in the courtyard, and used  to fill a bunch of 5 gallon buckets in the yard and kitchen.  Somewhere between 2 and 3 hours, typically.  Filtered water for drinking is available at the Martin Luther King Center, about 1 1/2 miles from this particular home.  Most people just drink tap water if they are this far away.  Toilet - bucket all the time.  Shower - bucket and dipper.  There's a drain in the bathroom floor, you just mop up after.  Washing vegies or dishes - tin pitchers, dip and pour.  You can see why it is common to peel the root vegetables first, then wash them after.  The water is probably good quality when it enters the system but after traveling though old leaky city water pipes which are probably near the sewer pipes, who knows?  It's common to freeze some drinking water; it thaws fast enough in tropical temperatures and the freezing process may kill some microorganisms and precipitate out some impurities.

It's a lot of work being Cuban, compared with a middle class life style here.  As 3rd world countries go, it's a walk in the park, though.  But other 3rd world countries aren't the ones trying to kill the Cuban economy and make people miserable through embargo/blockade of trade and denial of access to finance everywhere in the world.  We are, us with our  24 hour running water, and huge washing machines, and hot water heaters, and master baths and garbage disposals in the sink and all.  Aren't you kind of ashamed to let this go on?  I know I am.

A Cuba Kitchen
The 5 gallon buckets under the counter are the household water supply for 2 days.
They were filled at a knee-high tap in the courtyard.

Men who cook!
The difficulties of daily life don't slow down the Cubans when they are ready to have a good time.

RESISTANCE, SOLIDARITY AND HOPE

Resistance, Solidarity, and Hope.

For more than 50 years, the US has maintained a trade, economic and financial blockade against Cuba.  We don't trade with Cuba.  We try to prevent other countries from doing so.  We attempt to cut off their access to credit and normal international markets.  Food and medicine and medical devices - heart valves, medication for children with cancer - are included in this.  The plan is to pressure the Cubans into changing their government by causing suffering.  The suffering has been real, most intensely during the Special Period  of the '90s.  It hasn't made the Cubans back down

The response of IFCO Pastors for Peace was to organize Friendshipment Caravans to Cuba.  These caravans bring aid, mostly medical equipment and supplies, which are a drop in the ocean of needs, but a sincere expression of solidarity. Solidarity isn't charity and it isn't support.  Support can be given and taken away.  Solidarity is finding and acting on the goals and interests that we have in common.  

The caravans allow us to defy the blockade and the US travel ban and see Cuba for ourselves, to share our information with others and advocate for change. As people of conscience we travel to Cuba without a license as an act of civil disobedience.  We are calling attention to the US blockade of Cuba, which uses denial of essentials like food and medicine as political weapons, and working to change that policy.  We advocate a policy based on mutual respect, morality, and justice, not domination and repression.

The Pastors for Peace Caravan is "people to people" and for me that has been true and important, not a slogan.  On my first Caravan, I went with the group to the Camilo Cienfuegos Museum in Yaguajay, and a group of veterans of the Cuban Revolution spoke to us there.  I was delighted that one of them was a woman; we began a correspondence which became a friendship. My husband and I visited her and her family the following year and I've been able to stay in touch and visit at least once a year since.  

An introduction: this is my friend Zaida Navarro Fernandez.  She joined the Young Socialists when she was in her teens, and was part of the Clandestine Struggle during the revolution - taking arms, supplies, and information to the fighters in the mountains, while pretending to ride around visiting friends on other sugar plantations.  This was desperately dangerous.  Those who were caught were tortured and killed.  Shortly before the triumph of the revolution she was at the Central Narcisa (a central is a sugar plantation, with its processing plant) which had been captured by the revolutionary forces and was under attack by Batista's army.  Many families had taken refuge there and people were hiding in the huge vat of the clarifier to shelter from gunfire.  An airplane circled overhead for a bombing run, went around once, twice and then dropped its bomb on a field nearby where there were no people, making a huge crater - it would have wiped out the Central and everybody in it.  After the victory of the revolution, this pilot was found and questioned, and he said that he had seen children's clothing strung on the line outside the central and just couldn't bring himself to bomb them.  This shows, Zaida said to me, that you can sometimes find good people in every situation of life.  She was not quite 21 when the revolution was won.

Before I come to Cuba I write and ask what I should bring and she writes back that in Cuba they are used to doing without and that she doesn't need a thing.  She owns her home, there is electricity, and some food on the rations, though it's not varied or interesting.  In terms of consumer goods and choices, her life is incredibly sparse compared to mine.  A substantial part of this is due to the US economic blockade of Cuba.  I think that it is wrong and wicked for your government and mine to try to starve and deprive my friend Zaida to force her to give up the revolution she helped make and is so proud of.  When I asked Zaida and other Yaguajay veterans of the revolution why they risked so much, they said, "Things were terrible here before the Revolution.  The plantations owned the land and they could just kick you out any time.  There were no schools, there were just a few doctors for the rich and people died all the time from diseases that could have been prevented or cured."

Zaida didn't have much, but she had the experience of helping create a revolutionary transformation of her country.  I deeply envy her that experience.  This is the hard part - she died of cancer July 16, 2013, one day before I arrived in Cuba.  She had had chemo  and surgery and had fought it out; she really wanted to live. 

Normally when we corresponded we would write about family and life events and so on.  Her last letter was different.  (My husband asked " Why is Zaida writing to you about these things; that's not the kind of things she usually writes?" and we had looked at each other, realizing that she had understood that she might not survive.)  She wrote - the translation is mine -

" About the revolution:

Everything is well, I'm not saying that it's perfect since as you know even in revolutionary governments there are those who are really opposed and who try to do damage.  Also, the CIA has its people here.  In the early years this did affect us greatly; they did a lot of big things, so I don't know how we were able to resist.  But now what they do doesn't really affect us, and as time goes on we keep getting stronger and more secure in what we have achieved.  Every day there are more countries that have diplomatic relations with Cuba and all those who come here for the first time are enchanted with Cuba, which always tries to help countries in need with what little we have.

In the United Nations Assemblies of the last few years there are only 3 countries who vote against Cuba: the US, Israel, and another that I forget; eighty-something other countries vote in favor of Cuba and for ending the blockade, but the government of the US isn't interested in truth or justice but only in taking over other countries with bombs from unmanned aircraft, using terrorists as an excuse to kill off people in those countries, whether they are children, women, or old people who have nothing to do with the affair of terrorism.  They are just interested in accumulating more millions and not in the lives of human beings.

You know that because of the blockade they can't sell anything to Cuba.  But don't be angry and upset by this because, as I've told you, we've been living like this for many years, with many unmet needs, so that it's normal for us now - it's been 50 years and we've adapted.  They thought they would get rid of the revolution in this way but now they know that this is completely impossible.  That we live happy and secure in what we have.  Here no one has died of hunger or for lack of medical attention.  All children go to school and are well cared for. There are no old beggars, for they are well cared for by the state.  Over there it's not like that.

When you get this letter I may be in the hospital since on the 21st (May) I'll be going back to the oncology clinic for the first time since my operation.  Greetings to Barry and your sons, and love  from one who won't forget you - Zaida

Zaida's daughter dressed her body in her Asociacion de Combatientes shirt and pinned her medals on,  because making the revolution  - and she continued to do so in many different ways; even in her 70s she was a poll worker for every election - was central to her life.  

Her funeral cost was 0.  Her medical bills were 0.  Her grandson's wife graduated from medical school the week after Zaida's death and her education was free.  The young doctor started her family right away - my godson Lian Carlos was born in February, and his mom is now taking the one year maternity leave to which she is entitled.  

As Zaida said, the revolution is not perfect, but it's good enough to terrify those who want you to believe that the US's savage economic mess, environmental disasters, and violence both within our country and directed at others is the only reality and the way things have to be.  I would suggest to you that you try to find a way to see this other world that is possible and that you join me in trying to end the blockade of Cuba.

Not Afraid

One of our Fresno participants in the Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba commented about his trip to Cuba: I've never felt so safe.  He was at the Black Lives Matter demonstration on August 10 when he said this; remarkably, all four Fresno area participants in this year's Caravan independently went to this action without any prior communication or arrangement.  For the Caravanistas, our most recent prior demonstration was in Mexico City on July 16 when we joined in a  Cuba Solidarity demonstration in front of the US embassy.   The large crowd listened to speakers like the Bishop of Saltillo and Rosario (Chayo) Hernandez, the head of the Organización Popular Francisco Villa de Izquierda Independiente, our hosts.  Then the police began to arrive in huge numbers, lined up shoulder to shoulder behind their riot shields, completely surrounding this peaceful gathering. Fr. Luis Barrios, of Pastors for Peace, took the mic: "I have a direct line to God and to the President of Mexico," he said, "and I told him to send all the Communist police and all the Christian police, so they could hear this message and join our ranks..."

 



  A group of us, mostly African-American women from New York via Haiti, took the Cuban flag and displayed it in the faces of the police line.  It didn't feel safe, but it was Mexico DF, not Ayotzinapa, and we're OK.  Fresno didn't feel safe with police surrounding the demonstration, but they decided on a "deferred bust" policy this time.  The bogus charges were delivered later or will be in the mail.













So what feels so safe in Havana?  

Part of it is just the general non-violence of ordinary Cuban life.  This is even more obvious for a woman: you are just not at risk out late on the street, or on the bus, or even in a  jitney cab when the other women get out.  This at first can be hard to get used to.  Why is it like this?  Not only the law but the general organization of society is protective, for fairly complex reasons like education and accountability, and the relative absence of violence used as entertainment, and the absence of drug sales.  (This doesn't mean Cuba is crime-free; keep a hand on your wallet in the bus.)

Part of it is the absence of official violence.  Police exist, and they  do "card" people and check what folks are up to, sometimes when they shouldn't.  Although there is no structural racism, attitudes may persist, and young Black men (who is considered Black in Cuba is a whole other complex subject) are most likely to get questioned by police.  But as my friend Manolo ( young, Black, male), originally from NY but now living in Cuba while he attends seminary in Matanzas, pointed out, "I'm in the demographic that has most contact with police, but I've never had a policeman in Cuba threaten me, point a gun at me, make me lie on the sidewalk, hurt or sexually abuse me.  All these things have happened in the US."  Police in Cuba are not an alien hostile occupying force in the communities.  And don't say that 'the press in Cuba is controlled; you wouldn't know if it happened.'  The press in the US is controlled and the way we know what really happens is by communicating with each other.  Ever hear of "Radio Bemba"?  Cubans have some of the loudest mouths in the  world, and not much gets past them.

Part of it is the absence of the violence of poverty.  The violence of poverty includes all the illness and deaths from preventable causes and untreated medical conditions, all the malnutrition deaths, the people who suffer from having no work and no place to live, and those who are imprisoned victims of the war on drugs.  It includes the "austerity" and "structural adjustment" that destroy public health systems and school systems and worker organizations and safety and health regulations, that throw people out of work and leave them no hope and no future.  The financial rulers of the world don't get excited about the suffering and death from the violence of poverty, and they don't want you to notice these things either.  They want you to think violence is a broken window, while their policies kill millions.  Cuba is poor enough; it's an under-developed country economically.  But it is one which has placed the highest value on the social debt - meeting the needs and demands of the people for education and health care and housing. 

So come take a look for yourselves.  Don't worry about "seeing Cuba before it changes."   Cuba has been changing ever since the Revolution, which is a work in progress.  And they've been thinking for all of that time how to deal with the US, and it never did, doesn't now, and never will include letting corporate capital take over Cuba.

Before we forget: THE BLOCKADE IS STILL IN PLACE.  It's long past time to end this cruel immoral policy.  Tell Obama, and your senators and representatives: end the blockade, and meanwhile strip it out leaving a hollow shell; support  Senate Bill 491 - Lift the Trade Embargo on Cuba, Senate Bill 299 - Freedom to Travel to Cuba; HR 664 - Freedom to Travel to Cuba, and Executive actions including instructing the US representative to the UN to vote to condemn the blockade in the yearly UN vote. 

And to end where we started: BLACK & BROWN LIVES MATTER.  Assata Shakur, living in freedom in Cuba, refers in her autobiography, ASSATA, to the Cuban people - 

"They stand with their hands on their hips, acting like they own the place.  I guess they do.  They're not afraid."

 

Assata, An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur, is published by Lawrence Hill Books.