The honour of my family and my love affair with Cuba

In my last days leaving Cuba, Shakespeare quotes were running through my head, lines from Julius Cesar and Corialanus, now in England I am listening to Danay Suarez and it all makes sense …………. Yo soy individual y me gusta el blues y me gusta el rock y me gusta el Jazz,   ……….. y  esto no va a cambiar…..

I wish I had more time to spend with you Danay, one day we will meet again and have that cup of tea you promised me.  Like all the wonderful Cubans I connected with you rapidly, and will never forget that interview in your mother’s house in Santa Fe.  But we didn’t get to hang out as we wanted ….. but you are going places and so are we, so I think our paths will cross.  In the meantime all my friends in the UK are going to know about you and your music!

We arrived in Cuba with so much love and TRUST.  We were so glad to have got out of Guatemala, away from the violence and corruption, and so happy to be in Cuba with Rafa working somewhere as wonderful as EICTV, the school he loved so much.  We were safe, we would be looked after.

Or that is what I thought, how wrong I was.  We had been left a 15 year time bomb by the last director and it was ticking ….. Even after she left she had her spies in the school informing her of everything Rafa was doing and was writing public emails to criticise and damage him.  Recently she wrote waving the white flag …… way too late for that!  Maybe she too was a little unstable after 4 years in the school …. anything is possible.

My husband was a student at the film school in the second generation, to him in those days it was a utopia, and it was the school of 3 mundos (3 worlds).  They were pioneers creating a new world of cinema as many of the students that followed were.  I have met a lot of his friends, they are all still great friends and wonderful inspiring people.  Now in 2013, nearly 30 years on, what has it become?  Just another film school?  But a  film school in Cuba with a great heritage, and one lucky enough to have exceptionally good teachers ……….   I met a lot of great people at that school but also an awful lot of fake people holding on to their lies, some more clever than others.  They were the ones that disappeared from the scene when the going got tough.

One woman spent the whole of the first year showering us with presents, the children too, acting as though she was a good friend, I never trusted her and I was right.  I felt sorry for her boyfriend who always seemed to be following one step behind her like a loyal dog.  Another character, who Rafa invited for over a decade to Guatemala for the film festival, paying her flights, was nowhere to be seen.  Did not even call us to say goodbye.  Is this the way decent people react?

My love affair with Cuba was intense and dramatic, of course, how else could it be?  I will always remember MY Cuba.  The sweet kind people that came into my life and they were the ones that were there for us at the end to help and support us, when all the bureaucrats in the government, the foundation and the film school, had done their work at ruining a family life in a few days and possibly psychologically damaging my children.  I still haven’t found them a school place in their new home, we arrived too late.  But who gave a shit about my family in the end?

The other side of the Atlantic, another beach ..... safe and together.
The other side of the Atlantic, another beach ..... safe and together.

A few weeks ago my husband told the children over a Saturday breakfast that he was no longer director of the film school.  Nico, my 7 year old just shrugged his shoulders and sighed and said that at least we wouldn’t have to worry about saving the film school anymore.  But things got tough when they realised they were leaving their beloved French school and all their friends and Cuba ……..

A cowardly, total lack of humanity is the only way I can describe what has just happened to me, and my family.  Ironic that with film school money, a previous director had co-produced a documentary series called Ser un Ser Humano.  Not much humanity came my way from the people with power at the school.  The anger and indignation, and also the horror of what we have just been put through, is lessening day by day, but writing this blog, I hope will be some kind of catharsis, and help me turn the page and leave all this soap opera behind, and move on to better things.

Also ‘me and my blog’ have become one of the characters in this ridiculous story, which should be a film script or a myth.  The British wife is now, like Miss Scarlett in Cluedo one of the characters of this tale, where we became victims of corruption, deception and betrayal.  I remember in the last tough days, receiving a phonecall from a woman (who thinks she is a lady) from the fundacion, telling me that she was a friend and a professional.  I had to laugh, there was nothing friendly or professional about this woman.  She behaved like the worst kind of bureaucrat from the beginning to the end.

My husband has had to take a lot of personal punches in the face and plenty of bullshit over the last few weeks, but everybody who knows him knows that he is an honourable man, who loves and protects his family, and loves Cuba and that film school.  He is also Guatemalan and has been through a war in a country where you are taught to keep your mouth shut, and not share your worries, and at times in Cuba, there seemed no other option.  We always thought we were going to be safe though.

We have received accusations of being counter revolutionaries and having private meetings with the American office of interest.  So ridiculous.  We met the poor guy 3 times.  Twice when they threw their huge annual party for all the people involved in culture in Havana and the usual Havana personalities, journalists and other diplomats, and once when he came to visit the film school.  We invited a lot of ambassadors to visit the school in the 2 years we were there, and when we invited the Head of Mission we really did not think he would make it, as it was outside their 25 mile zone.  To his credit he applied 3 times and finally got permission.  We admired his tenacity and received him once in the film school, I wrote about it in this blog.  This was our only time meeting him.

Thieves, thieves everywhere ………

When I arrived in Cuba, our house, although beautiful, was a crumbling den of corruption by the sea, the tip of the iceberg of what we were about to discover.  The woman in charge was running a food, beer and coffee business from the house, selling through the rubbish collectors and whoever else.  When I arrived it didn’t take me long to get to the bottom of everything.    All this stuff in the house and there was nobody living there.  Food for hundreds of people, including many luxury items had entered in the last 6 months, we could do nothing as everything had been signed off.  The woman still works in the kitchen at the film school and I dare say she is still stealing.

We could not ignore what was happening, as it was right under our nose in our own house.  As I said, we threw them all out and then our house was burgled.  Nobody at the film school who could help, seemed to want to, in fact the opposite, the head of administration was openly hostile towards me when I wanted help with the police and the investigation after the robbery.  Other ¨friends¨ in docencia (the faculty) told me just to forget about it and it was all conveniently swept under the carpet.  It took us a year to get the guys to pick up the rubbish again, they were really pissed off at losing their business, the British wife had made a stand and she would have to pay.  We certainly did when thousands of dollars worth of money and property disappeared one night from our house.  Rafa was about to travel and only a few people in the school knew that he had cash in the house for a few hours.  Too much of a coincidence.

I tried not to let all this dark stuff get me down, and we were happy to be away from military fascists, narcos and violence in Guatemala.  I loved Cuba but I was wisening up fast.  The people who I had found to work in my house either refused to work with the film school as they described it is a nido de ratas (a rat’s nest) and pushed everything back onto me, or they ended up stealing from me too!  After a year I had almost cleaned it all up and had my great right hand woman in charge.  Without her I could never have got through the last year, she was my rock and one of the most wonderful and honest and hardworking people you could want to have at your side.  Rafa on the other hand had more than a house to deal with …..

I was already falling in love with my Cuba, a world of good and interesting, decent people.  But at times I felt more comfortable on the terrasa of my friend’s apartment in Buena Vista than playing the role of director’s wife in my beautiful beach house.  Many aspects of the film school for me had begun to represent all that was going wrong with Cuba, and I had to keep it to myself.  There were good people in the school, and I tried to focus on them and not the fake ones.  In the second year some great women arrived bringing with them an international vision and experience, there seemed some hope that the school could move forward into the real world.

I loved meeting all the people who came to visit and the wonderful teachers who brought their energy.  When there were a lot of workshops happening the place could be buzzing with healthy energy from outside the madness.

The wise grey haired academics*, always treated me kindly, the good team in production and photography, Luciano and the ladies in the library, the sweet people in the dining room, the humble workers, tired of working amongst a mafia.  But I had become tired of dealing with so many doble caras (two faced people) full of their own self importance.  My Havana life was much more fun and genuine.

* Especially Daniel Diaz Torres who directed one of my all time favourite Cuban films: La Pelicula de Ana.

Every month we had parties in the house to thank the teachers who travel for little money to give classes at the school.  I threw some great parties, we all had fun and danced a lot.  I love music much more than film, and like to push people out of their comfort zone.  My days of working in record companies in London meant that I had a huge appreciation of diverse music.  I will always remember how much people danced in front of the sea and how my favourites became theirs.  In Cuba, I got into my rumba, always loved cumbia, rediscovered Blaxploitation, and fell in love with Danay and her gang.

I always wanted to invite the students more so they could escape from the pressure cooker, but the first time I did invite a group and took some time and had fun chatting with them and made sure they had some special cocktails that we did not normally serve but in the end, someone stole 26 electric candles from me!  I had just bought some new ones on Amazon half price and a German friend had brought them over for me from London.  I felt like a little girl who had just had her birthday present stolen, I loved my cheap but cool candles and everyone knew it.  Another stealing mystery, but we couldn’t touch the students, some of them were just too full of entitlement and hostility.  It seemed I deserved to have my candles stolen ………  In the end some students even stole the words from my blog but that’s another story.

I met many lovely students on an individual basis, especially in my first year, but as we entered our second year, they seemed increasingly more interested in complaining about petty issues rather than looking at the big picture, and their way of dealing with everything seemed to be with hatred and violence and lynching amongst themselves most of the time, but the Rapidito Mafia (as they had become known) were always happy to lynch anyone available from what I could see.  A Shakespearean mob manipulated and misinformed and sometimes unstable.  One week they would be saying one thing and the next ……

As a psychologist I began to find their behaviour erratic and often disturbing.  I felt a bit sorry for them, maybe this so called utopia had turned into something more akin to Lord of the Flies or One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest then anything more poetic or wistful.  The isolation of the school and the intensity of the community did not seem healthy anymore.  Havana was so close but so far.  It seemed cruel to isolate these young people from life and Cuba.  If you ask me the school should move to Havana and maybe things could be a little bit more normal rather then some over-rated psychological experiment that has passed its sell by date.

Humanity

I just wish I had had more time to dance with my friends, instead of listening to the problems Rafa was dealing with, night after night after night. It drained me.  This organisation was on its last legs and we were realising that even people we had considered friends could not be trusted ….. and the time bomb was ticking louder and louder ….

The Cuban State is what it is and it seems they have been looking for scapegoats everywhere in these last few years.  Two Brits just got out of prison, there are now 20 Canadians in prison, all for minor allegations.    They threatened my husband with prison 3 times, mainly for irregularities which had been going on at the school for over 15 years.  He took it like a man as they told him to do so!  Then they took him to the school and did it in front of the whole school like a crucifixion, with no chance for the truth to come out.  The people who should have been up there, those that had been sucking the cow all those years, were nowhere to be seen.  Cowards!

When we were thrown out of our home and the whole family left the country in just 2 weeks.  I had to give away most of my possessions from a family life of 10 years and 3 children, everything in my kitchen, most of my clothes, my books.  I was scared of what could happen to us.  Can you imagine going through that?  I wept as I tried to decide which books to keep from the children’s collection, which memories.   Hiding their Lego in boxes to be taken away.

They were unable to say goodbye to their school and half of their friends, they had to see their books, bicycles and toys being sold and given away,………or disappearing, and their mother working like crazy under enormous pressure to organize everything in record time.  We could not have done it without the help of all our wonderful friends.  We shipped a few precious personal things to Guatemala where we were not going, and ran with 5 suitcases to England leaving so many things in the house to be given away.  The school paid nothing towards the move.  Everybody warned us, don’t leave Rafa behind, you all have to get on that plane together.  At the airport security they went through everything in my hand luggage touching my underwear with much interest and studying my magazines.  It was pathetic, I had to bite my lip as I snatched a pair of my favourite knickers from his hands.

But in those last 2 weeks, our house was full of Cubans looking after us and keeping us safe in more ways than one, some people who had been friends since the beginning, others who appeared like knights in shining armour to help us with everything and anything.  Filmmakers and their families, artists, students, actors, writers, dancers, and our wonderful team in the house making us eat, and helping by taking the children out to have fun and keeping things as normal as possible for them.  Thank you everybody we couldn’t have managed without you.  Maybe you were the counter revolutionaries we were supposed to be meeting with?  I think you were all just decent people and wonderful kind friends!!!  To be a counter revolutionary in modern Cuba is I believe verging on an oxymoron, if that makes any sense.

Also everyone in the diplomatic and international business community who reached out to us, my great friends in the international press, UNESCO, NGOs and human rights organisations and of course the wonderful Mums in the French school, an eclectic bunch.  I will never forget all those people, friends for life who came to sit with us and give us hugs and love in our stunned bewilderment.

It seemed that some Cubans were grateful for the truth, but horrified about how we were being treated, they were truly ashamed, therefore they couldn’t do enough for us.  Nothing seemed real, but we just had to keep our mouths shut and get out, but we thanked them for their solidarity.  One thing I can truly say is that we came to Cuba with a lot of love and left with even more.

I miss my Cuba and my friends and my Latin world of good and genuine people some of whom I never got chance to say goodbye to ……. but as we would say in English ………. We were always between a rock and a hard place.  Or that is how it felt like to me, and maybe to those Cubans crying in my house …… so much emotion.  As Danay sings ……….. lagrimas, lagrimas, lagrimas, lagrimas…….. (tears)

Does utopia exist? I don’t know but what happened to my family is a reality.  That everyone involved in this ridiculous fiasco has to live with their shame and they all know who they are.

And still some people kept telling us, stay calm, stay quiet ……. Think about the school.  Phew ………….  Think about the school?  What about my 3 children and half of my possessions, and how they were trying to dirty my husband’s spotless reputation????

But on the upside I have never received so many messages of love and support ever in my life from all over the world, messages that touched me and got me through the toughest times.

The Cuban way to turn a blind eye is not what Raul is spouting in his doctrine of anti-corruption.  But change is tough, and Cuba, or at least the film school, was not ready to change, now it has to ……… as all the truth came tumbling out …. THAT’S WHAT THEY WANTED.

La Candela!

Te quiero MUCHO Cuba ……you are survivors, just like Rafa and I, and my family and I wish you all the best!

Hasta luego

Me and my Cubanita!

New Brits ….. rabbits, quails eggs and aubergine gratin

Last night we were invited to a party at the beautiful Vedado residence of the new British Ambassador.

It was my first official invitation to an embassy actually in my name  …..   The party was essentially an excuse to meet the new ambassador and his family, who I had already met briefly outside the French school gates and at the reception of the Guatemalan embassy a few weeks before.

Tim Cole and his family appear to be exceptionally down to earth and normal, and the party was fun, the excuse being an Olympic handover to the Brazilians.  So a bunch of miscellaneous Brits and Brazilians were hanging out in the gardens with a smattering of Cuban Olympic stars.  I already knew most of the Brits but met a very nice teacher from Wolverhampton and the head of Virgin holidays who lives in Varadero (all inclusive beach holiday central).  There was a very large Cuban wrestler with an impressive neck measurement, a female Asturian bag pipe player (I was informed), a few friendly journalists and us.    After a short speech the Union Jack Umbrella baton was handed over to the Brazilian Ambassador as the Scotch Eggs and mini Roast Beef and Yorkshire puddings were whisked past my nose.

This afternoon, my wonderful chef will arrive to concoct my randomly acquired food into delicious dishes for the rest of the week.  So this morning, I had the pleasure of planning menus knowing that I shall not be the one that cooks it.  How fantastic is that domestic arrangement?  And the fun is that in Cuba you just never know what we will get our hands on.  It is a bit like Ready Steady Cook in your kitchen once a week.  This week we have a very large rabbit so I have two rabbit recipes one with white wine, thyme, cream and garlic (Jamie) and the other with olives and tomatoes (Delia).  I bought some quite expensive baby aubergines a couple of days ago and intend to have them deep fried in olive oil with a yoghurt dip and then make the rest into a parmesan bread crumb gratin.

Recently I have also had an abundant supply of quails eggs, which hard boiled and chopped up on a lettuce based salad … rather delicious, or just dipped into mustard mayonnaise.  Saskia eats them likes sweets some days when she gets back from the nursery.  And then a few shortbread biscuits that we can eat with Vanilla icecream and a strawberry coulis.  The good frozen strawberries appeared again in 70 supermarket last week.

Later I am meeting with Amado my diminutive 80 year old upholsterer as I have finally found some material in Havana Vieja so he can do my art deco chairs and sofa.

Rafa is off to Margerita Film festival tomorrow with strict instructions to find a Zara and buy himself some clothes.  I shall be filling the house with friends to keep my children amused and eating lots of rabbit and aubergine ……………….. happy that life is slow and easy in Havana. 🙂

Next week will I get to do a one week workshop on script writing ……………….?  Or is that just pushing my proverbial luck!?

Cuba blogging

I am not sure who reads my blog.  I never check the statistics, not even sure if I know how.  I don’t do all the right things to promote it to the blogging community.  I don’t read many other blogs and put my address, even less so now I am in Cuba.  In fact I am always quite amazed when I meet someone who reads my blog who I don’t know, especially if they tell me that they enjoy it!

I am also quite surprised about some friends and family who are quite evidently not interested enough to read my news either. Busy lives soaked with too much information maybe ……… But I know that most people in the rest of the world can access their emails and read them on the move …… at the bus stop or in bed or waiting in a queue.  I however have to be sitting at my desk when the children are at school, slowly dialing up for a connection that sometimes does not come!  Most of you can’t remember what that is like, so you have to at least admire my tenacity to persevere and get this blog written, when sometimes I get bounced out and lose everything and have to start all over again.

I know I do have some faithful readers since the beginning, like Selena and Bass who often make interesting comments.  I know people read me in Ghana, Dominican Republic, Italy, Mexico, Costa Rica, Scotland, Spain, Hong Kong and a few other places.  A Guatemalan living in the US translated one of my posts, the great US journalist Robert Parry published one.  So the quality of my readership not the quantity is my mission.  I want people to discover me through serendipity and an invisible network of good people.

So all you blog friends out there old and new, please tell the good people about my blog. People who are interested in someone with a different life and perspective who tries to blog with a positive tone and not just moaning and griping like many ex pat bloggers living abroad.

Somebody asked me the other day why I bother to write a blog.  It is not because I arrogantly think I am a great writer, it was others who encouraged me in this.  From my uncle Al who always admired my postcard writing, to Marina who pushed me into it and got me sorted with a man in India to do my website.  Also, it disciplines me to sit down and record my thoughts and experiences.  I realise that my life for the average girl from Co Durham in the north of England is not typical.  I want my children to have a record to read, to go along with all the photos to explain who they are and how they got there.  Not many British Guatemalan families living in Cuba …. or haven’t met any so far!

With a lack of Internet time and capacity, I want to keep in touch with friends and family and maybe just a little bit of the rest of the world.  Also, I admit I do want to educate people in the first world to step outside their own smug security and realise that there are other worlds out there and not everything in your life should be parochial.  We are all humans, whether we are in Africa, China, Lyon or Milton Keynes.  Some of us are rich and some of us are poor, some of us don’t realise we are rich and just want more.  Also I do want to bust a few myths about the countries where I live.   And although, where I sit in all this madness with my family and Rafa, his job and his history, it means that I have to show a modicum of diplomacy.  But I always try to be as honest as I can.

I had lunch with a wise and energetic British film teacher and his wife visiting the film school this week.  His wife is from Yorkshire (a county in Northern England).  He said to my husband, these northern women don’t mince their words.  They shoot from the hip!  Well maybe we do, but at least you know exactly where you are with us.

Anyway I cannot write about what is really on my mind in these last few days or the next few days for political reasons with a small p and a capital P so I have decided to take you through my unreal world of entertainment since I have arrived here in Cuba.  When I can, I will fill in the gaps of my real world …

My next 3 posts will be about Cuban TV and entertainment, Cuban films and independent films from other parts of the world available to me through the wonderful library at the film school.