The curious story of Chanel the cat, rumba at Palenque and more bad times in Guatemala.

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

The cat and the dog .....

A few weeks ago a kitten appeared one night on our terrace in front of the sea, Rafa found her and brought her inside.  She was so tiny I thought she was a hamster.  The next day our little dog Lila adopted her and we fed her milk through a syringe until she was strong enough.  Nico, looking through my New York magazines decided we should call her Chanel and it stuck.  We thought we saw her mother and each time we put Chanel outside to see if her mother would take her back, but I think she had started to smell too doggy and although the mother was interested in watching her at a distance she didn’t want her back.  Then one night the mother emerged from one of the old crab holes next to the sea with another little kitten.  So now Chanel lives with her dogs inside the house and garage, and her family live underground in the old crab city in the garden.  A little tele novella.  Many Cuban women of my generation only have 1 child, citing financial reasons usually for their decision.  Maybe Chanel’s mother decided that she too could only afford one!

 

Last Saturday I finally made it to the regular rumba party that takes place every week in the Centro Cultural El Gran Palenque.  It starts at 3pm in the afternoon, we arrived around 4 with the three children.  Saskia who was all ready for action with Papa’s Cuban hat fell asleep in the car on the way and therefore arrived a little grumpy.  There was a good crowd of people and everyone was really friendly.  I always feel at home in a rumba crowd.  They offered us chairs and chatted to the children.  Someone offered me a local fruit wine he was drinking out of a coconut shell!  Saskia spotted a new friend and trotted off right through the performing dancers without a backward glance.

Dancers at the Saturday afternoon rumba at Palenque

 

Hanging out with new friends .......

Eventually, Paulo, 8 going on 13 announced that he was bored and started to fight over my iPod so after a quick dance we hot-hoofed it home around 6.15 just as the party was getting going.  Deciding that we will go back soon just the two of us.

The last few weeks have been quite an emotional rollercoaster for anybody connected with Guatemala.  We have been following the trial of Rios Montt, the ex dictator, who was involved in the genocide of 200,000 mainly Mayan people and the disappearance of many thousands, including my husband’s brother.

Brave women gave evidence at the trial of the rape atrocities that took place during the armed conflict.  Stories that made me cry as I sat at my desk in Cuba after 8 years of living in Guatemala, thinking of all the people I knew, who had lost family and loved ones in the bloody attack on an indigenous community that had already suffered so much injustice and still does.  Narco traffickers, international big business polluting their beautiful country and corrupt politicians selling everything with impunity.  Guatemala is a country that people just don’t want to hear about because it’s history is just too tragic and nothing has really changed.  The rich Guatemalan’s deny everything just like the holocaust deniers and money keeps on buying their lies.  We celebrated briefly as Rios Montt was sentenced to 80 years in prison only to hear that his sentence has been annulled by some idiotic legal loophole.  It seems that, at least in Guatemala, money can still buy you freedom no matter how much blood you have on your hands.

I remembered one night when I was sitting in a bar in Antigua with a group of acquaintances a few years ago, a fat finca owner sitting next to me declared that most of the atrocities during the war were by the guerilla (so wrong, but his self belief was terrifying, UN figures: 94% of the deaths were caused by US backed army).  He then puffed his chest up even more and announced that the indigenous people were still starving because they were too stupid to know how to eat properly.

Thank goodness I no longer have to live smiling through gritted teeth.  To all my friends and family in Guatemala still living amongst the hypocrisy and injustice, I know you will be strong and brave and keep on fighting for human rights, the right to acknowledge the truth so a society can begin to heal.  We are not living there anymore but we are with you 100% and know that the brave people of Guatemala will never give up in their pursuit of justice.

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Where is Mariel, and what mysteries does it hold for us?

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

Mariel still has the beautiful palm trees blowing in the wind

After another party in the house to get me back my Cuba groove, yet again the boys were on holiday (do they ever work these French teachers?).  I wanted to get out of Havana with the children on some mini-adventure not too far away.  We have recently gone from a no technology household to one that now has an XBOX and two ipads, so I have been dealing with the challenge of how to deal with their new found obsessions, Saskia being the worst.  Mummy darling can I have your ipad please, cocking her head to one side and smiling sweetly until I say no and then she throws herself to the floor in a tragic fashion and wails I want your ipad for as long as I let her.

Mariel is a place around 30 miles away.  Amongst other things,  it is the most industrialised town in Cuba and nearly the most polluted.  I was imagining something like a tropical version of Middlesbrough or Sunderland, the places that inspired Ridley Scott in Bladerunner.

 

This Hotel had seen better days but who enjoyed it in its heyday I wonder?

Also Mariel is now rumored to be the location of the next biggest port in Cuba, apparently a Brazilian investment.  I decided to go and investigate with the 3 children in tow.

Since I got back from New York my car has been off the road and we are still waiting for the parts. Rafa has rented me a little Kia Picanto, which the children are absolutely delighted with.  You’d think it was an E type Jaguar the way they are acting and spend all their time spotting others on the road.  And there are many, believe me, so this little pastime has become a little tiresome.  So off we went in our little rental car.  As we set off , the heavens opened and I began to think what am I doing heading off to the Cuban equivalent of Port Talbot in the pouring rain, but the children still seemed up for it so we ventured on.

A quick look in Lonely Planet confirmed my opinion that this was definitely not a tourist destination, which was what I was looking for.  How boring to just go to the places on the tourist trail.

Look at the mysterious house on the hill ..........

Saskia was convinced that we were going to see some nice woman called Mariel so was very confused when we got there.  Where is Mariel? she kept saying.  This is Mariel, I said cheerfully.  The sun had come out and the place was not looking so bad, considering that its claim to fame was being the most unattractive town in Cuba.  She was sleepy from the car and very grumpy and could not get her head around it.  NO we’re IN Mariel I kept repeating to no avail.  We went looking for a new port under construction but found nothing that looked as though it was new or being built.  In the distance was a huge castellated mansion on the hill, looking down on everything.   I suppose it belonged to the rich industrialist patriarch pre-revolution days.  Now it is said to be a naval academy.

After Moa in Holguin Provice, Mariel is Cuba’s most heavily polluted town.  The filthy cement factory looks like something from another century.  But you know despite all this Mariel was not such a bad looking place.  I failed to find anything resembling a bar or café for us to hang out in, so we found a road which headed up to the mysterious looking castle  on the hillside.  As we drove up there we saw that there had been an enormous stairway to the main doors made up of very shallow steps and looking like something you could imagine Cinderella running down and loosing her slipper.  The stairs were now all falling down and the building looked as though it could too.  The boys ran on ahead and I stayed at the bottom watching them with Saskia, thinking I should probably stop them but couldn’t blame them for wanting to explore.  They got about 3 quarters of the way up before some militares appeared and told them to get down.  This was all well and good until one of them decided to take a pee right in front of them that even I could see right at the bottom of the hill.  Don’t do peepee in front of my kids I shouted indignantly up the long and steep staircase.  I bet they were thinking what the hell is this crazy blonde woman doing with her huge (for Cuba) family and her red plated rental car.  She must be lost or bonkers.

Look at this staircase .... did CInderella lose her slipper here?

All the cars in Cuba have different colour plates so everyone knows exactly who you are.  I normally have orange ones which signifies joint ventures, now I have a rental car which just means dumb tourist.  We stopped on the street to say hello to some kids as we usually enjoy a bit of a chatter in the calle and the boys make new friends really quickly once the locals discover that they talk just like them.  One of them was so lippy that we didn’t stay for long.  He was cackling and asking us for chicle, chewing gum.  I told him that we weren’t tourists and he shouldn’t be asking for chicle.  He retorted by grabbing his crotch in a Michael Jackson type fashion.  I was a little bit horrified at seeing this brash little 7 year old acting in such a vulgar fashion so we pressed on and got lost on the estate next to the factory before heading home.

Cuba, South Shields or Bladerunner .......?

Mariel boatlift was the biggest exodus the island had ever seen and took place in the summer of 1980, while Carter was still the president, so prior to the days of the genocidal, maniacal Reagan.  A Cuban dissident had driven into the Peruvian Embassy in Havana, the Peruvians refused to give him and his mates back to Fidel and he, in a rare little strop, declared the gates open and thereby ushered in what was known as the Mariel Boatlift.  On April 9th 1980 he declared the port of Mariel open to any of those who wanted to leave and Miami Cubans organised a flotilla of boats to pick up Cubans.  Fidel also used this opportunity to get rid of a few undesirables from the prisons and loony bins.  Some of them never were granted asylum but in Brian de Palma’s movie Scarface a Marielito cocaine-addict, Tony Montana famously depicted by Al Pacino, was let out of Cuban jail to run amok in Miami.  I saw a few Tony Montana faces in Mariel but they didn’t look as though they wanted to run amok!

 

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So near yet so far …. travelling from Havana to New York

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

I finally did it!  I got on that plane to New York, after so many years of plotting.  Our great friend Diana organises the Havana Film Festival in New York HFFNY and for years she has invited us, Rafa has been twice, we nearly made it last year, but this year we were taking no chances.  Diana booked our hotel for us, we booked the flight via Toronto, we got Rafa’s transit visa, we arranged meetings with film schools, New York woman in Film and our new best friend in New York, Daniel Minahan was throwing a party for us to introduce us to some New York independent film makers.

We crept off in the early hours of the morning leaving the children in safe hands, good friends sleeping the night and a team of driver, nanny, housekeeper for the day.  Air Canada proved to be a good choice, polite staff, good film choice and no delays.  We were in our hotel by teatime and marvelling over our ability to get connected with our iPad and iPod.  Only people who have lived in Cuba understand this hunger and amazement.

The Maritime hotel was a cool retro 70s kind of place with very helpful staff and a nice lobby full of books with an open fireplace to give it a cosy touch.  A mountain of packages from Amazon were waiting in the hotel room for me to unpack.  I could see the river from our room and the high line (disused railway line now a walkway and park), right in front of it.

We got ready and headed downstairs to meet up with the festival organisers and other festival folk to be taken to a cocktail at the Cuban Office of Interest (ie the Cuban Embassy in New York).  We met up with old friends Eirene from Scotland who is making films in Cuba, Monica a Guatemalan actress living in New York, Luciano from Cuba who was presenting his book, Luis director of the film school in Costa Rica, and other party partners in crime.  In fact we were quite a solid group by the end of our 4 nights.

The festival girls!

After the reception we all headed to an Irish bar to catch up and talk about Cuba.  So many people interested in coming to study in the film school and wanting to know how, or if they could.  If you are qualified to come to a workshop we told them, apply and we get you the permission to come.  The moveable wall, curtain, shower curtain between the US and Cuba is not so impenetrable when it comes to film.  Since the film school began Americans have been coming to learn, to teach, to study, to share and to rise above the politics that have created so much fear and paranoia on both sides.

Everywhere I went in New York I met Latinos, obviously at the festival but also in taxis, in shops, in restaurants, on every street corner.  If you are Latin American and want to learn English, New York is probably not a good idea, you can get by on Spanish pretty easily.  I almost forgot where I was sometimes slipping between the two languages.

The next day Rafa headed off to Columbia Film school and me to try and get some of the things I had promised the children.  The sun was shining and I peeled off my layers one by one and then ended up buying a ridiculous pair of woman shoes, and feeling like Carrie Bradshaw, I popped them on and walked the grid, stumbling (almost) across City Bakery for my lunch and finding all the things the children has asked for.  They got their jelly beans and gummy bears and all the other little treats.  I found a great bookshop for children called Wonderbooks, and spent way too long window shopping.  Marvelling too at the service.  I walked into shops and people greeted me enthusiastically and asked me how I was.  I felt so special, even if I knew they don’t really care about me like they seem to.  After a year or so of living in Cuba, where on entering a shop it is almost guaranteed that you will be ignored, not even a glance in your general direction.  Once I entered a shop to find a woman really going for it squeezing a zit with no shame.  I pointed out that maybe it wasn’t the time or the place for such personal hygiene, she assured me that she was actually trying to pull a hair out of her chin.  Oh so that’s ok? I said!

I digress.  Overcome with consumerism and high on fake bonhomie, I staggered back to the hotel to get ready to head out early, as Rafa was presenting EICTV and some student films to New Yorkers and anyone else at the festival.  We showed 4 short films, Rafa talked about the school and fielded questions from the audience, all this followed by a homenaje to Fernando Birri, the first director of the EICTV.

We left the theatre and headed for a piano recital in a smart apartment organised by the festival, where we were elegantly fed and watered and met up with Ruth, a teacher and friend who comes to the film school twice a year from New York to give a script workshop with her husband Bill who composes music for film.  We decided a relatively early night was in order and headed back to the hotel where we still managed to stay up too late checking emails, just because we could.

The boys having a quick cuddle!

Rafa headed to The School of Visual Arts the next day feeling more and more confident about his English.  Before then we had a meeting with a wonderful lady, Alexis who is president of NYWIFT (New York Women in Film and TV) and threw around a few ideas for future collaborations followed by a lovely lunch together and talked about life and children and where we should live next, something that is beginning to weigh on my mind.

Those 4 days in New York I felt so happy to be back in the fast lane.  It felt like such a can do place, everything felt possible and everybody was so positive.  I thought about how in the old days New Yorkers were nipping down to Cuba for their weekends of sin …….drugs, Casinos, women and now it feels like, in some ways it is the other way round.  I feel as though I need to escape from Cuba to indulge in the guilty pleasures of capitalism.  Even things as superficial as buying a pair of cool shoes and lunching in City Bakery whilst flicking through my emails.  But living there, would it all be too much?  There are a lot of things I have begun to take for granted here in Cuba …. no violence and people who are truly genuine because they don’t know how to be anything else.  In New York and London the meter is always ticking away and the cost of living is at a premium.  Can I go back to that?  Some of me wants to, and some of me doesn’t, but what is best for my family?  All these things spun around in my head, would my teenagers be happy or better off in New York or Havana and what will Havana be like in a few years?  I know they have to be in an international, cosmopolitan world but where and how do we get there?

That evening Daniel had invited some really lovely people to meet us in his pied-a-terre with a great view across Manhattan.  A few of our friends made it along and we headed off to one party and one bar after the other.  Finishing up in a great blues bar with Sweet Georgia Brown singing the blues as they should be sung!

The closing night we saw a Paraguayan film.  A first for a lot of people, and an interesting insight into the psyche of Latin America’s most mysterious country!  No-one talks about Paraguay.  All I know is that they have an absurdly long national anthem.  We ended up that night in one of New York’s cool nightspots The Box for a few burlesque performances that kept everyone titilated.  We bumped into Cucu Diamantes and the guys from Yerba Buena who had a documentary in the festival, and they shared their table and some Vodka Crans with us, whilst we talked about what we can do together in Cuba and at the film school.

We made our flight the next day and like Cinderella who had gone to her New York Ball, I hurried back to my children and dear Cuba with my suitcase packed full of fast city goodies.  If I could go to NYC or London every couple of months it would make all the slightly more challenging things about living in Cuba easier to handle.  In my case those things are mainly lack of internet, getting hold of things from toothpaste to children’s bicycles, and I’m sorry to say as I was soon to find out, more relentless stealing in my house.

I came home to the typical Cuban problems.  My car was off the road as we don’t have any parts, a custodio stole my favourite cashmere sweater that I had clung on to through every crazy night in New York, and we had to fire him.  He’s a plonker as nobody will pay the price for a cashmere sweater here in Cuba, even if they needed one!  Half of Havana seems to be trying to tear down our fence to get to the beach the other side of ours.  3 times in one day we had to engage in verbal shenanigans and threats of the police to stop them trekking through our back garden after they had cut a huge whole in the fence.

So now I need to get my Cuba groove back …………….. which I will, no doubt very soon.  You can’t stay down for long on the La Bella Isla, especially with so many friends and good people around us.

Rafa and the ever glamorous Diana

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Meeting Sandrine Bonnaire and French Cinema month comes round again

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

Last week was a very exciting week for me.  Before heading off to New York, the French Film month had begun in Cuba, and the Friday before we had gone to the opening night to see Les Intouchables, the second biggest box office success in French history.  For me the film managed to stay just the right side of sentimentality due to a storming performance by Cesar winning Omar Sy.  I had tears in my eyes by the end, and it was clear that the packed Chaplin cinema crowd had enjoyed it immensely.  A feel good film based on a true story.  A wonderful evening finished off with a few friends joining us in front of the sea in our house.

We have always enjoyed a good relationship with the French in Cuba and there is a mutual appreciation for French independent Cinema and what the Film school represents.  Last year we met Isabelle Huppert, a French icon but this year I got to meet Sandrine Bonnaire, the new French star, who is much more than just a pretty face.  I had managed to watch a couple of her recent films before meeting her and was already intrigued before her visit to the school.  Her documentary about her autistic sister is really powerful and well worth watching.  Monday came and although I was really crazy preparing to leave the children for 4 nights and go to New York I had to get myself to the school.

Meeting Sandrine with Rafa and Llou

Immediately, I felt a connection with Sandrine as a person and a woman even amongst all the inevitable protocol of a formal visit.  She was so unaffected, so warm.  You could see her desire to answer the questions from the students, as honestly and openly as she could.  She seemed genuinely interested in the school and Cuba, kept sneaking cigarettes between every formality and had a charming nervous humility that surprised me for such a seasoned star.

I spoke English with her as she said her English was better than her Spanish, but I felt bad about losing my French because I wanted to speak French to Sandrine.  Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter that she was this hugely successful star and I am just another mother living on the edge of this world of cinema, observing it from outside.  If I ever get that script written I will send it to Sandrine, I dreamed to myself as I drove home, rushing to see the children and pack for New York.  She wants to make a film for children next, so I’ll be waiting with my little francophones!

We invited her to come back to the school to teach a masterclass.  I really hope she comes back as I would be first on the list to join that class.  I can still understand French quite well, its just when I try to speak that Spanish starts to mix up with the French still in my hard drive.  Hopefully our trip to Paris in the summer will revive it.  Doing French grammar homework with the boys is drumming some of it back into my head too!

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Beyonce hysteria, date night with my son and the real Diva finally gets her party!

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

BIrthday Girl ....Card from Grandma and photo and frame from Mummy

Well last week, the whole of Havana was wetting their pants about Beyonce and Jay-Z gracing Cuba with their presence and causing a bit of a rumpus down Havana Cafe Thursday night, including a lot of grown ups who really should have known better, diving over chairs and tables to get their photo taken with her.  I admire them both for their ability to make shed loads of money out of very mediocre music, you gotta hand it to them on that count, and also the fact that they seem to remain basically well-mannered all things considered.  But anyway I had more important things to worry about than star hugging …

Paulo had been complaining that he doesn’t have enough time with his Mum by himself, so I decided to take him out alone, for an early dinner to one of the new places in town El Cocinero.  From Cuba Absolutely …..

El Cocinero opened in February 2013 and has instantly become a smash hit. Located underneath the imposing brick chimney of the same name (which used to be a vegetable oil factory), this bar/restaurant is reached via 3 flights of circular stairs, which go up vertiginously lighthouse style. It is worth the effort to reach the sunken roof, which has ample space for drinks and food. This place has a renovated industrial space look, good music, nice décor and has attracted a mixed crowd of affluent young Cubans, expatriates as well as families for dinner which is also (for now) served on the roof terrace.

So off I went with my first born on date night.  We didn’t have much problem finding the place thanks to the large chimney reminiscent of the Truman Brewery on my own dear Brick Lane ….. and this place reminded me of being in London’s East End.  Cool and urban.  Paulo was impressed immediately as we climbed the stairs.  The main restaurant isn’t open yet but will be on the second floor, with I imagine not a bad view.  Upstairs on the terrace there was also a mirador (viewing terrace) where you could see right across the Puente Hierro to the Malecon and the other way across the rooftops of Vedado.  Paulo had a Coca-Cola, the real thing of course and me, not a bad glass of Chilean Merlot.  We ordered Fish and sweet potato chips to share, and desserts of course.

first glass of the piñata!

Paulo’s main interest was reporting to me how much underwear and bare flesh he had managed to see.  Unashamedly, without a touch of lechery.  And as the Cuban summer has well and truly arrived he got quite lucky with the ladies. One pair of knickers flashed by the young lady opposite, a butt cheek cleavage with more knickers (quite a common sight), and whilst coming down the spiral stairs a good surreptitious view of a pair of Cuban tits.  In between these reports, when I was thinking, crikey he’s only 8, we discussed school and sport and friends and what he wants to do this summer in London and Paris.

As we left, he took the car keys from me and opened the car door, while insisting that he wanted to ride in the front of the car which is illegal in Cuba.  We put the seat belt on and took the risk as we headed home down quinta avenida with the sun going down.

Birthday girl In the hammock with Havana friends

Next big event in the social diary, Saskia’s MUCH awaited Birthday party.  Yes the real Diva in Havana was finally getting her own party action.  The day began windy and cloudy but ended up sunny and beautiful.  Lots of friends came from the circulo and the French school and the film school, and she actually was the perfect little hostess. No tiaras or tears!  We got out the piscina, a few toys, some tasty nibbles from the film school (a new chicken one that went down a storm amusingly titled Pollo chicken pickin!) ………… and everyone had a good time.  Even me, who was slightly relieved that that is my last piñata of the school year……..phew!

Birthday Girl!

The possy from the circulo kept their distance but seemed to have a good time and I hovered between the two groups of people.  It kicked off around 3, we had a magician and the last guests left around 9 while we tried and failed to get the children to bed for another hour or so.

So the sun went down on another party and the little Diva was happy!

Sun goes down on another party

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Easter in Cuba, a savage tree murder and a bonfire

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

Easter arrived in Cuba.  After 8 years of dealing with Semana Santa in Antigua I am rather relieved that Easter like Christmas is not such a big deal, although I am sure my children don’t agree.  Luckily my German friend Katharina always organises a wonderfully tasteful German Easter with an egg hunt in her garden for the children and Easter bread very similar to hot cross buns.

Easter Sunday in Cuba

Anyway, Good Friday had been announced as a holiday here in Cuba but typically no mention of why or for what reason the whole of the country was being given a day off.  The French school, which doesn’t acknowledge religious festivals did a sneaky Monday holiday.  I totally forgot and turned up at the circulo with Saskia on Friday, realising pretty fast when there was no sign of anybody.  After all the chilly weather Good Friday was a typical hot steamy day.

Another happy customer

The night before some militares from our neighbouring beach club had stupidly set fire to some rubbish at the end of our road, for no particular reason other than to piss off everybody in the neighbourhood, as far as I could tell.  It was too far for us to reach with the hosepipe so we tried to chuck buckets of water but by the time we managed to put out the plastic the flames has spread inside the trunk of our beautiful seaside spruce which marks the end of our road.  I had grown very fond of the tree not just because it was tall and beautiful but it was also symbolic.  The boys are not allowed to cycle or venture past it alone.  It marks the limit of the dogs territory and the gang of gangster male dogs don’t often venture past it.  If cars drive past it towards our house we know they are lost or looking for trouble!

Anyway most of Good Friday was spent with a bunch of around 20 guys, sent by the local council hanging around at the end of my road watching one guy hack the tree to bits with a chainsaw on the end of a large crane.  Every time I walked past to get into the car and pick the boys or take them to fencing, with Saskia in tow with her little mantra poor tree Mummy , pobrecito, I had to take the usual chatback you get from workers who are not working.  Enquiries of my nationality, my marital status (rather obvious I thought) amongst the other usual repartee.  They wanted me to bring them all refrescos (soft drinks).  I retorted that there was only one guy working and he was not making a very nice job of hacking my tree to death, so I wasn’t feeling very well disposed to waiting on them all like a 1950′s wife.  Finally around 4pm they had finished their work leaving an ugly hacked stump and branches and debris all over the road.  I managed to just about drive through it later.  We had already planned a bonfire for Saturday night but now we had even more reason.

Friday night we all went to the film school.  A friend was having a Birthday party and we thought it would be fun to hang out and chat with staff and students.  It had been a pretty intense couple of weeks for everybody and thesis time is arriving so nerves are getting frayed.  We took the nanny so we could actually stay up late, not always a good idea with 3 children.

We made it back to Havana for lunch the next day and poor Rafa had to rush off to another film meeting and festival in Havana.  I sat and watched Les Miserables with the boys and Saskia.  What a boring musical, not one good track if you ask me.  I don’t know how it had such a long run in London’s West End.  Paulo with typical endurance was the only one to stay awake or interested.  He watched it to the bitter end, bless him!

We were all ready to sit staring at the bonfire by 7pm and Rafa and the boys helped build it.  We had new fast-burning spruce branches to throw on and I got well into it like a seasoned pyromaniac, at one point hurting my wrist as I over enthusiastically snapped branches but never-the-less carrying on like the crazy fire starter I realise I am.  (secretly I can’t wait for our next one, I don’t care about the children!)  Anyway I didn’t think too much about my injury but ended up in the hospital by Tuesday afternoon having an X ray but luckily no fractures.  We went out to a party on Tuesday night and after a couple of glasses of wine, I thought oh its nothing and began to use it again.  Later that night I could hardly sleep and was almost in tears, wailing …. this is worse than childbirth!  The next day I used all the Cuban remedies for inflammation.  A compress of grated malanga (a root vegetable very common here) and some strange leaf, the name I can’t remember.  Today I am a new woman although my hand still looks suspiciously as though it has had a botox treatment.

This weekend is Saskia’s Birthday and the little Diva has been talking about it for months so we are all getting ready for the big event.  She has many adult admirers so it is growing into quite a big party for all of us!

The Diva preparing for her big day!

New York preparations going really well.  We have 4 nights and it is going to be non-stop.  I am really looking forward to it.  I haven’t been to New York for around 15 years, and have generally got on with New Yorkers.  I like their straight talking attitude, and New York is almost as cosmopolitan as my dearest London.  We have lots of meeting with interesting people and film schools and yes I am going to power shop like a Cubanita!

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Guadalajara, chilly Cuba, next stop New York

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

Well Guadalajara seems a distant memory of sitting in the bar of the Hilton Hotel catching friends as they flew past from one film or party to another.  We did a press conference, we met some of the recent graduates, we saw old friends from Mexico, Guatemala and everywhere.  I ate too much spicy food as usual, probably even more as now I live in Cuba where there ain’t much spice!

I forgot how the dry desert climate and the pollution of the big city irritates my eyes and makes them water for 3 days.  They usually get used to it just before I leave.  I was also horrified by the amount of shops and the fact that everyone seemed to have big huge monstrous new cars.  Have I been Cubanised or is Mexico getting even more Americanised?  Obscenely huge four wheel drive vehicles with darkened sinister windows and huge growling wheels.  I was persuaded by the reception of the Hilton against my better judgement, that we should go to the new bigger and better shopping mall.  We waded through spaghetti junction streets packed with traffic and spotted in the distance the biggest Office Depot of my life and a huge Walmart and a Zara that looked as though it could disconnect itself from the Mall and conquer the world.  I want to do some shopping, but I don’t want this I wailed pathetically to Rafa, who hates shopping at the best of times.  We did a U turn and fled back to the hotel.

But hey I still love Guadalajara and Mexico.  The Mexicans full of smiles and good service and great food.  After my aborted attempt to check out the new shopping centre, I did my usual run to Grand Plaza to power shop, get a much needed new wardrobe for Rafa, taking the plunge into kiddy technology and buying an XBox for the boys late Christmas and Birthday presents from us and Grandma.  Also a quick trip to Walmart to do the usual supermarket basics that only us Cubans have to do.  We even bought new smart luggage to use one day when we can travel like normal people.  Now I still have to take my big old suitcases everywhere to fill them up, even on the shortest trips.

We got home to a Cuba decidedly chilly, and cold front after cold front blowing down from the north and through the windows of my beach house.  I tried to see if I could turn my aircon into a heater last night but with no success, so back on with the cashmere cardy and Rafa’s socks.  I know I shouldn’t be complaining as most of the UK is still suffering snow, sub-zero temperatures and winds blowing in from Siberia, but this is not normal for March in Cuba.  But maybe just as well as I have no air con in my car, and we are not sure when we can get hold of the parts to fix it.  Also recently butter, lemons and bacon have been tricky to get hold of.  The ebb and flow of products here in Cuba always keeps you on your toes but I am missing my bacon and tomato sandwiches.

I have also been enjoying time with my children and trying to get them back on track.  Saskia is hitting tantrum time and I am learning how different little girls are, especially this little princess manipuladora who rules the roost but in such a charming fashion.  The boys tantrums revolved mainly around fights over toys and were resolved by time outs.  Like two wild puppies they would fight and scream and yap and I would be constantly breaking them up and separating them.  Things have improved but still the same model applies:  Paulo is a total wind up merchant and knows how to press all his brother’s buttons, especially as he is verbally adept in 3 languages.  Nico is reduced to an emotional mess of injustice but his shouts and tears drive us all crazy.

Saskia on the other hand knows how to play all of us and Mummy has to be the one to stand up to her, although her brothers too are beginning to loose patience and have been caught swiping or pushing their dearly beloved little sis.  When I am dealing with her tantrums and trying to be consistent (the hardest parenting conundrum) her favourite thing right now is to wail for her Papa or anybody else she can think of, which I have to admit is sometimes hard to ignore and rise above.  Anyway a list was drawn up for Paulo and Nico 2 nights ago and there have been some slight improvements.  Also I have been strict with the nanny that she has to make them clear up toys and wash up their plates otherwise she is not helping me.

Drama at the film school never abates and Rafa has been having a tough time trying to resolve everyone’s problems with little help from the Cuban authorities, and students at their tense emotional time of pre shooting their thesis have been creating dramas of their own which inevitably have to involve us.  The injustice of one particular drama has upset me so much that I haven’t wanted to go to the school this week, I don’t trust myself, I may just have to give a few people my opinion and that is probably not my place.

We had promises of donations of cameras in Guadalajara but it all came to nothing in the end, and we are having to leap through burning hoops whilst playing bagpipes to get cameras here in time for the students to shoot.

The French school visited the Film school and for one morning my two worlds came together.  The children had  a great time and asked lots of questions like  ….How do you make blood?  How do you make it look as though someone’s head has been chopped off?  How did they do the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park?

Anyway all is going well for our preparations for our trip to New York which is not easy as we have to fly through Mexico or Canada depending on which flight we get.  We will be there for the Havana New York Film Festival organised by our dear Colombian friend Diana and I am looking forward to it so much.  We already have meetings with 3 Film schools and a lot of interesting people who support and love the school.  I feel very positive about the people in New York and the good connections we will make but frantically organising things so that the children won’t miss us too much the 4 nights we are escaping.  I can’t believe I am doing it again but feeling happy in the knowledge that we are all going to the UK and France for our summer this year.  The boys can’t wait, they love going to the land of their mother and it has been a couple of years since they last went.  They also want to try out their new language in situ and go up the Eiffel Tower and through the tunnel ……… and up the Elephant and round the Castle.

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Ipad mini, NBC and my first ever script.

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

I have just spent a delicious week locked up in the house with my gorgeous little Babygirl (known as Saskia to everyone else) for lazy mornings snuggled up in bed, she with Charlie and Lola, and me with one of Rupert Everett’s amusing autobiographies, kindly smuggled by a new European contact.  The weather has been unseasonably cold, which means like a good English summer and perfect for skulking around indoors wearing my cosy cashmere cardy over normal Cuba attire.

Although I have been chastising myself for my inactivity and all the things I should have been doing in this beautiful and fascinating island, sometimes we Mums just have to bed down again with the infants.  Another international party in the house tonight so I will re-launch myself like an ageing rock star.

After 3 exciting weeks out of the house I have returned to Havana life slightly jaded, not helped by the disappearance of 2 of the more genuine people in my life, one escaped to New York and the other to Paris.  I suddenly felt as though I was doomed to return to a social life of po-faced mothers and gossiping diplomats.  Which is entirely untrue, as I know plenty of lovely mothers and diplomats and I just need to be reminded of all the wonderful bohemians and down to earth people in my life and get them all together again.

I have also been fretting over what appears to be an in-growing eyebrow hair problem, which does not abate and is disproportionately painful.   I am rather embarrassed that my first visit to the doctor’s here in Havana will be for this slightly ridiculous ailment.

Many weeks have passed by without me clocking in and I have many heady tales to tell so not sure where to begin.  Off the island, Chavez died (big shit for Cuba) and we got a new Argentinian Pope.  On the island the new Cuba battles on trying to grow in a graceful and dignified manner and not always being allowed.  The film school remains an exciting hotbed of passing talent and interesting worldly friends with a background scenery of one of the best soap operas you could wish for ….. eat your heart out Eastenders and new Dallas.

I managed to make it through my workshop, although the odds and gods were against me, way too many things going on around me.  Old friends rocking up, new dear friends disappearing, children on holiday, grumpy nanny not stepping up, my chef gone slightly loopy and dressing like a hooker, my car broke down and we had no parts to fix it.  I got food poisoning at the end of the first week and the film school doctors finally got their hands on me, injecting me in the butt cheek and putting me on a drip for 3 hours with me pathetically saying … I want to go home, and then giving in finally when I remembered I had the first series of Breaking Bad on my laptop.

So somehow, throughout all this, I got to write a script and Paul was a wonderful teacher and mentor.  A laid back Californian scriptwriter, with many other talents and a thoroughly nice guy.  This course was very practical and although I did not have much time for writing my homework in the end, I did finish a script outline and fudged together a first draft for a short film.  I did however, get a really good sense of how to pull one together and still have to get that Final Draft scriptwriting software I was sniffing around for the whole of the second week.  Maybe when I do my rewrite I will share it with you right here on my blog ………  I expect you can’t wait!

My house has now become more technical although we still don’t have broadband, ADSL, wifi or anything else of this century we are now the proud owners of an X-Box (guiltily purchased for neglected nippers in Guadalajara) and an Ipad mini, that I didn’t even know existed.  But there is a story behind that …

We had a visit from our new American buddies from Morgan’s Creek (not Dawson’s!) and NBC and some other production houses.  David, Kim, his wife and Kia arrived 2 and a half hours late to our house.  We were all quite pissed off, Rafa and I and two other friends working at the school who shall be named S & S.   It was Sunday and I was starting my workshop the next day and wanted to get the children and myself to bed early.  When they arrived I shot from the hip along the lines of …… if there is one thing I expect from you Americans it is to be on time (years of living in Latin America have made me appreciate this punctuality).  They apologised and took it all with good grace and proceeded to charm us all evening, and we had a lot of fun.

The previously planned seaside sundowner drinks were reduced to us looking into the black of the Mexican gulf listening to the waves crashing, but we made it out to the local newish Sushi restaurant around the corner and then back home for more drinks and chat.  At one point I could see Rafa’s face looking slightly concerned and the warning bells sounded as I lightly skipped to his side like a gazelle on too much Cava to see what was going on.  He was refusing to accept their very generous gift of the aforementioned Ipad mini.  I did some verbal shin kicking and reluctantly Rafa received this wonderful present that even has his name engraved on it.  I on the other hand was getting on with everybody so well I would have felt justified in receiving a couple of cars from whoever at this stage, and Kim did manage to give me a pair of cool reading glasses which the (grown up) boys later confiscated from me for bad hinatera behaviour.  I got them back the next day and now don’t know how I lived without them, as you do in the material world.

Kim had confessed to me at dinner that his mother’s cousin was Meyer Lansky, shady character numero uno of pre revolution Cuban gangsters.  His mother had been very ashamed of this side of the family and refused to talk about the old mobster, merely spitting under her breath…… He was a killer.  It just all seemed too weird and wonderful that here I was nearly 60 years later sitting not far from Lansky’s old empire and planned Vegas of El Caribe talking to his second cousin.  Gotta be a script in there somewhere.  Maybe I’ll write it for NBC and make them loads of money ……. on my new iPad mini of course!

So the iPad sat on Rafa’s desk snarling at us with its sleek cool new world look until Rafa brought it home and the boys got their hands on it and that was that …. No going back.

 

Next stop Guadalajara and Mexico City.

 

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Scripts, Saskia and Selfishness

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

Lots of important decisions to make this weekend and I am feeling as though I have two voices in my head …….. One says you deserve time to yourself to do your own thing, and the world is full of working Mums who happily leave their children in other’s care.  And the other one which is saying, oh my little baby girl is only 2 and needs her mummy.  Also she is the only one of my children who tries to speak Spanish to me.  The only way is to spend more time with her reading books and chatting, and also get her brothers to speak more English to her as her day to day world is completely Cuban.  On top of everything she is rather a joy to be with right now, talking talking talking and very affectionate.  Lots of cuddles and kisses and I love you Mummy.

I have been trying to do script workshops at the film school and it is not always easy to find ones that fit into my schedule and that I feel able to do.  Right now I am getting ready to start a course on “Short film theory and practice: creating characters, scenes and sequences“ with Paul Duran from LA.  But I am in a bit of turmoil.  I am very lucky to have a nanny, who is both honest and a very nice person, but she is still not taking charge of my 3 children with enough energy or commitment.  She doesn’t work too many hours as most of the time I am here except the 2 days a week when I go to the film school.  Anyway, the idea being that she will learn from me and I will be more free to work in the future when she can step up. I know I am probably just being neurotic about leaving them.

So our yearly trip to Guadalajara is looming and I am thinking how can I do a 2 week workshop and then hop on a plane to Guadalajara for 4 nights, am I crazy?  I know that the guilt is not helped by the fact that I do not feel convinced by the nanny.  I must have faith.  When I am not around I think she will step up!

Teachers´party in the house tonight for 80.  Leaving party for our good friend Miguel who is sadly off to New York and a possy from the US (Morgan’s Creek etc.) arriving for drinks on Sunday night and I should be calmly preparing everything for my 2 weeks of going back to school.  Like what the hell am I going to write a script about????

 

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Nearly lost it! and the ridiculous story of internet in Cuba

Posted on 2013 by JosephineEmail This Post Email This Post

I spent a few tense days last week, when it appeared that this blog had disappeared into cyberspace.  I couldn’t find my website and I couldn’t get into the website of any of my host or domain suppliers to update information.  In the end in desperation on Friday night I went to a friend’s house where they have satelite and managed to get onto my site only to see that there was nothing there but a page saying that if you want to buy this domain name go to this link. What!  They’ve disolved me and are selling my name to any Tom Dick or Harry.

All that time I spent writing and although I had some copies and could ask faithful readers to email me back the ones I couldn’t find, the task of collating and getting everything back, especially here in Cuba, where being online is about the most expensive and difficult thing you can do, seemed an insurmountable and desperate task.

The film school is being asked to pay a monthly fee of 11,000 cuc ($) for their internet serivce which is much better than the dial up in my house but a long way off what you folk in the rest of the world are used to.  This is a ridiculous amount to pay and we are still struggling to negotiate something more palatable.  In the meantime we are at the mercy of whatever speed they seem to feel like giving us on whatever said day.

This is the reality of Cuba and although I do not like to criticise when I write about Cuba, I really feel that this futile refusal of a basic human right has to stop and I hope one day before we are off this island.  Meanwhile my children are not allowed to go online, I cannot download them kindle books from their grandparents or music for me and I live with the stress of a clock ticking on my online life.  Hence that this blog and facebook are about as much as I can manage.  And the rumours are that the broad band cable is already working ………… so why so afraid to give the people what they want?

If you ask any young person in Cuba what they would like to change here, the first comment is always undoubtedly THE INTERNET, in fact the almost shout it in unison, as if, what a daft question!  Those of you who have been reading me for a while will remember my fear before I came.  Imagine a world where there is little connectivity,no wifi, no connected iphones or ipads.  I began to dream of an ADSL connection but that requires a letter from the Minister of Culture which could take months and will leave us with a monthly bill of $600 which I would feel slightly guilty about.  That’s a flight for god sake!

Here in Cuba the lines of the Stereo MCs (old favourite of mine) often ring in my head.

Gonna get myself connected
I ain’t gonna go blind
For the light which is reflected
I see through you, I see through you
I see through you, I see through you
……………….

If you make sure you’re connected,
The writing’s on the wall
But if your mind’s neglected,
Stumble you might fall
Stumble you might fall
Stumble you might fall

Anyway I tucked into the wine in my moment of grief, and had great fun at the first British Embassy pub quiz trying to forget about it, and then woke up the next day feeling even more tragic.  And remembering how my new Pub Quiz friend Kester had told me that he read my blog and thought it was really funny.  Alas no more I thought and I think I am about to lose my sense of humour big time.

The next day a lunch with friends in a beautiful restaurant with botantical gardens, I kept my misery to myself.  By Sunday morning before Nico’s Birthday party I decided to make an international phonecall to see where my blog was and my 2 and a half years of writing ……….

Needless to say I got it back but still a mystery as to what happened, as everybody I spoke to claimed to have not messed with it.  Was I hacked by some malignant force?  I had received a couple of nasty comments lately from some old stalking acquaintance who is somewhat short of a few marbles but with many technical skills.  But maybe that was coincidental?   Not much time to write today so I am celebrating by managing to post some photos although for some reason I don’t seem to be able to chose which ones so here is a very random selection of my nippers ………….

Saskia and Nico big cheek to big cheek

 

My boys with their Cuban hats in Viñales

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