Postscript from Cuba and a little more

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Another day, another family, another roast pig……the sound of a thousand tiny balls, bearing…..thoughtlessly efficient design…..back on board….and so much less…..than last time!

Life in Cuba, the people, the country, can be described in many, many ways, but I can tell you one thing for nothing…it is NEVER boring! nunca aburrido!

Not that I get bored easily, as you know, I mean, I spent time staring out, just above the horizon, I could have done the hare krishna thing, I’m easily amused, but here, you know who wept! It is a constantly moving feast, altho’ that’s probably not the most appropriate saying as the food is the only low point, crikey, I could kill for a pizza.
Not that I’m fading away! But I thought I’d shed the pelt here, you know, exercise, plain food, fruit….but altho’ there’s much more variety and quantity than before, a lot of the tucker is fried, and always a lot of sugar, so…well, you’ve seen the photos, svelte, Bill no es!
One of the popular means of getting things around is to have a small cart, and for wheels, roller bearings from somewhere, but they are everywhere! so all the time, you can hear somewhere, the unearthly rattle and screech of tiny balls bearing the weight of many, being dragged around the streets. It is hard to believe just how penetratingly noisy this sounds, I’m constantly looking down from the balcony (I’ve moved upstairs to casa Betty for sleeping) thinking some gigantic mechanical contraption is struggling down the road, no, it’s just one guy and a little cart,

Elsa’s been pedalling away at the old Singer, she sews most of her clothes, it reminds me of my Mother doing the same, but that was 100 years ago. She asks me to help fix it when the belt comes loose. It is so classically cubano. A time warp. It comes back and bites me on the bum all the time. It’s easy here to get into the flow, see the sights, the stores with all sorts of products, traffic, restaurants, people getting about doing their things, just like any city, then something pops up and you are back, astonished, living in 1959.

I got an e from M this morning, just after I posted the last blog, saying the yacht was transiting the Canal today. Talk about a reality check! One week to go…jajaja. I had to bring up a photo to remember what she looks like, some analogy with fur balls comes to mind but probably as inappropriate.

Tash took my clothes to wash this morning then called to say the water was off. Not uncommon here. Well, she got it all done anyway. She did 4 years of psych at university and then joined the thousands of young people who work within the community, helping families in whatever way they can, both practically with health and domestic affairs, and also acting as negotiators between people and govt departments…what a wonderful concept! She gave me one of her old Tshirts, now I’m a social worker.

I rented another car, this time a brand new Kia, only been in Cuba 20 days. We head off, Leo and his new best friend, the fabulously gorgeous Milouris, she is like a doll and has the cutest little high pitched voice and Elsa in the back, Tash and I up front. Even tho’ we took this road less than a week ago I/we still have difficulty finding our way to the autopista. I think I said earlier there are 3 road signs in all of cuba, that was an exaggeration!
The term ‘autopista’ is generous. It is a divided road however, with beautiful mown grass and perfectly manicured shrubs with the most intense red flowers along the centre median.
Not a lot of preparation went into the construction of the sub-base so it’s a roller coaster ride, and always, unexpectedly, giant potholes, so concentration is paramount. This car has a CD player and we are blasting out some fine cubano music. There are no line markings so I’m free to wander all over the 3 or 4 lanes, there is bugger-all traffic and cars coming towards me flash their lights when there are cops ahead.
We got to san juan after dark, really scary last hour, off the autopista onto the old road, bug encrusted windscreen, no water, narrow road, horses, bicycles, pedestrians, cattle…slow…exhausting….finally to the casa. At the back door a big pig is hanging, every time you walk in or out it grabs you with it’s trotter…aaahhh
Next morning, 8am, Ricardo sets up the fire, this time it’s charcoal, just a little, burning on a sheet of corrugated iron, the pig is on a rack, butterflied, marinated, shmokin’
After an hour or so we turn it over, pack banana leaves around the gaps, sit back, drink rum, smoke a cigar. Ricardo tells me a little of his 3 years in the army, in Angola. For his service he got a medal and a bicycle. He shows me the medal, it is gold, and a card, written in perfectly authentically, strangled handwriting.
A few hours later another turnover. By 1pm morsels, samples, are being cut off and tasted, the skin is crackling fantastic.
At the store, buying shoes for Tash’s mum’s birthday next week, (shoes are cheaper here than habana) this store, like many, has a weird and wonderful collection of stuff …. clothes, electrical goods, hardware, food and drink, furniture, shoes, toys and more. Behind the counter of the hardware I spot a box of apples!!…whoo hoo…..back at the house I cause quite a stir, peel the apples, chop them up into a pot with a little water, into the blender, voila…apple sauce!
I bring it out as the crackling is getting passed around, some of them back away like it’s poison but soon everyone is into it, I’ve started something here!
Later, as great chunks of meat are being passed around, the apple sauce proves a universal winner.
From about 2pm thru until midnight we all wander around, in and out of the house, every time passing the pig I tear off another rib or 3, another chunk of meat, this is ‘pigging out’

Just as the absolute poverty of the campo manifests itself in so many little ways the wealth of some cubanos continues to amaze me. Going to one of the shmicker restaurants with Tash for my last supper. We’re out in Verado, one of the upper class hoods. The restaurant is so sophisticated I can’t smoke, so I head out to the bar. The food is fabulous, a fish platter, fish, prawns, lobster, fantastic sauce, salad, bread, unbelievable. But it’s going to be $35 a head plus. The place is full, nearly all cubanos!! Outside a queue is forming, waiting for tables, they are pulling up in audis, benzs, bmws, harleys, this is the other side of cuba life.
How do they do it? Several ways…
Many families have relatives overseas who pump in money and I reckon this is the most common way but also, many operate businesses (legal and otherwise) anything to do with tourists brings in lots of money, many families have a daughter working and the casas familiares bring in lots of dollars, also there’s the black market operators and god knows what else.
Waiting to cross the street at the lights one day Tash points out a guy in a new audi as a famous singer. So there are ways to accumulate dinero.
And you need it for lots of the stuff in the stores, like flat screen tvs for $3,000, dining table and chairs $800, shitty wardrobes $6-700. washing machine $350 (and just a little twin tub antique deal).
And yet, all around, the poor bastards getting peanuts: teachers $25, cops $25, cigar rollers $40, cleaners $10, bank workers $20, office workers $15 …..per month!!
I’ve given Tash the equivalent of nearly 4 years pay in her new job. She buys a new washing machine for the casa. The old Russian model has died. And a DVD player, as Martha, the wheelchair bound godmother, has only the tv for entertainment. I want her to spend the money on herself but this is what she wants.
And now, the end is nigh…I just can’t go into it right now.


Fcuk…what am I doing here??

Back on board. Got in late, straight thru customs, no dramas with the 120 cigars. Got a cab. Panama city is underway with a huge construction boom, 25 or more high rises, planned, underway or finished in 2 years. But no infrastructure support so traffic chaos is inevitable and eternal. 2 hours to the marina.
The pressure is showing on the captain.
But great to catch up with Jim again, and to meet Charlie, maybe with these 2 it will be do-able. Jim and I will be getting the supplies and cooking so it will be a relief to get some help there.
Looks like we’ll be here for another 5 - 6 days so I’ll see. I’m keeping one eye on the airport shuttle, Colombia beckons, I really don’t need any more of this shit. And I’m hanging on to my passport!

I’m sort of half heartedly looking at getting a ride thru the canal, or maybe fly up to Bocas and see the friends up there. Jim is keen to get away for a couple of days too, so we’ll see.
No, as usual we’ll dick around, making grand plans at night, spending the days in headless chicken mode until drinkies.

M has been much better the last couple of days and we are all getting keen to just get out of here and get going. But still a couple of small items to be fixed. We need a bit for the generator, without which we have no water maker, we also need the repair kit for the watermaker, without which we die. Plus a block for the main, repairs to the spinnaker, you know, minor but obligatory stuff.
Jim and I have been shopping…..not easy, usually exy, but fun and exhausting. Trying to work out so many meals, so much time, how long will the perishables last, who will eat what, etc etc.
On the upside it seems we’ll be in Tahiti in only 50 - 60 days. I was thinking much more, like double that!! It will always depend on wind of course, and currents, whales, breakdowns, shark attacks, pirates, getting runover by supertankers and all that, but this timeframe is making me feel a whole lot better.

Surreal parking where we’re moored at the entrance to the Panama Canal. Altho it’s still a couple of kms to the locks, this is very much the entrance and we can see the bridge of the Americas, the actual start of the canal, not too far away. Lots of yachts moored here and lots of huge ships also lolling about, luckily a bit further out.
It’s the scale of the place that gets you.

We’re sitting here with the other little boats and constantly, day and night, these huge monsters are quietly slipping by, going in or out of the canal. The smoothness, the silence of their passage belies their enormous weight, freighters packed with containers 8 - 10 high, long, strung out tankers, the 6 storey high blank walls of the bulk car carriers, and all of them just sliding thru’, and surprisingly, almost no wake!! The accompanying tugs churn up waves that knock us about but the big guys, nary a ripple. There are some weird looking ships I can tell you….I have no idea what some of them are all about, weird shapes, weird equipment on deck, weird weirdness….and never a soul to be seen on these suckers.

At night is when it’s really spooky. Lots of lights in the distance from the waiting ships and fishing boats and towns on the island, closer in, the bobbing lights of our companion boats, then thru’ the masts, the flickering of something moving, something very big moving. Just 100m away, another one, suddenly you notice a light, bright, high up on the bow, then way back in the distance a few more lights on the bridge of a massive tanker, and it is completely silent, and you never see anyone, maybe they are totally remotely controlled?
Some ships are more courteous and leave lights on all around the sides, like a floating Luna Park.
In between the yachts you can see the bright red and green marker buoys of the channel.
Over on the shore side, bright lights and traffic along the causeway, an artificial couple of kms of roadway that links 3 little islands with the mainland (there’s no shortage of fill here!) and provides marinas, sheltered parking, some pretty good restaurants and maritimy shops.
And it’s out of the way, 10 kms or so into the city, where all the big stores are, $4 - $10 by taxi, according to your knowledge, negotiating skills, urgency, availability or weather.
Jim and I do some more shopping runs uptown, exhausting, expensive, we’re running out of space on board.

I’m in ‘the shed’, single bed, I live with the water maker, ice maker, washing machine, the shelves at the bedhead have 4 slabs of beer, 10 bottles of rum, 20 cartons of camels, 9 wine casks, my humidor with 120 cigars, beside me, 8 gallons of emergency water, hanging on the wall 30lbs of spuds, some corn, in my small locker I’ve stashed some Indian treats I found, jars of chutney, cans of curry paste, coco milk. The rest of the cabins, every available space has something in it. And then we got 4 big sacks of citrus yesterday, limes, oranges and grapefruit, I’ve got no idea where they will end up.

At the WiFi restaurant on the causeway, I was talking about blogging when the waiter brought my coffee…..a tiny cup on a huge saucer, the size of a dinner plate and a big spoon. In Cuba this could have been possible by necessity, here it’s by design, I mentioned in passing that this was often the sort of thing that inspires me to write….so now I’ve got to put it in here altho’ now it sounds so lame-o….so there you do go!

Yesterday's trip to town for more shopping had some added excitement, heavily armed cops everywhere, a confrontation with the labourers, apparently a roadworker had been killed by a car the day before in Colon and they were all out in strength, in the taxi we had to turn back at the barricade, shots being fired, the driver ducks his head and pulls a screaming uey, a bit more back we watch...the cops are moving down the street, from the high rise construction the workers are hurling slabs of masonry and equipment, the cops llet off a few rounds, the workers ducjk back, they are 20 floors up, erratic groundfire from the cops, occasional huge crashes as the workers chuck great dumps down on them....a woman walking (rapidly) past says in perfect english, the cops have advised us to move, they are coming this way....we decide not to wait any longer for the indian shop to open and piss off.....
However, when ewe get to the causeway it is closed, more demos, we wait in a restaurant next to the action, a line of cops, plastic shields, teargas masks, guns, the whole shebang, walk slowly towards the barricade, it's all v well coreographed, then the barrage of rocks and missiles from the workers, back come the cops, teargas and rubber bullets, this is getting serious, I have the pescado entero, we watch the goings on, eventually, cops win, workers incarcerated, bodies removed, the way is now clear for us to get back to the boat...all in a day's shopping!
Next day, fcuking cops everywhere, and lots of the city closed off so we just do local shopping and this is it.....

OK, page 5 and pretty much done.

Once again it’s all dragging me down to a grinding halt.

And this surely will be the last for a while so you will have time now to go back and read the ones you just flicked thru’ at the time….jajaja

Hasta Tahiti

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Photos

my new job, social worker
habana

waiting in the car with Elsa
habana

Elasa, yo, Tash
the house of Polo Montanez...google it

the new washing machine
Tash and Mum, habana

pick the incongruity
buddha, japanese wall hangings, mindless china ornaments, chintzy table etc etc

yo on spit
san diego de cuba

Charley up the mast
panama

my shed
on board

the shed
somerset cat

causeway2
panama

causeway3
pannama

cockpit del frutas
panama

big ships passing
panama

el causeway
panama