Children Archives | Serendipityormadness

Hurricane Port

Quite a lot going on here in our family life, including a little attack of chicken pox and a half term holiday of 2 weeks, meaning that our latest role of full time parents has been pushed to the limit.

We are still feeling like a family that has been washed up in a port during a hurricane, and we have stayed here until we know it is safe to go out, and we know where we are going. This being easier said than done, and oddly (or not) our safe little port is my own beloved country.

When we rocked back up to the UK unexpectedly we managed to organise a temporary shelter in the storm for our children thanks to relatives, friends and the kindness of the people of Nottingham. It was not easy, but we managed to bring some normality back into our children’s lives and have even had some fun along the way. Life has been simple and totally revolved around the family and building a new future for all of us.

P1010695 — Woolaton Hall and Park. One of our favourite Nottingham places.

How are the children? I really don’t know how all this has affected them, but they have each other. Sleeping has become a huge issue and sometimes we feel as though we have 3 babies. I’m getting used to waking up with one child climbing into bed with me. These phases happen wherever you are and whatever you are doing, but they had their lives turned upside down, the contents of their home disappeared fast and they have had to live through a lot of uncertainty. Generally I am so proud of them, the way they keep slotting into one culture and language after the other. We are all together and healthy and that is the most important thing.

Rafa has been a rock as usual, but I have had my moments of emotional turmoil, mainly caused by the injustice and ingratitude of our recent experiences. My little ones had been thrown into so much uncertainty, something I would NEVER have done to them. Trying to find that way forward did not always seem easy. Once we had moved to our house and got the children into school and Saskia to nursery, we started to think about ourselves.

We had arrived in the UK on a holiday but now we had to think about what to do next. The first thing was to sort out Rafa’s papers here, we were nervous as leaving Cuba in 2 weeks meant that we had not had time to check everything out. We assumed that having put up with me for 10 years and being the father of 3 British children that this would be a relatively straight-forward process and made an appointment to visit the best immigration lawyers in town. Seventy five pounds later we fell back onto the fashionable streets of Hockley, pretty devastated at the mess we had found ourselves in due to our undignified exit from Cuba.

Although I had been psychologically healing and moving on, suddenly I was right back to square one and I could only think of 2 people from the film school, the short fat ugly one with bad teeth and her pathetic spaniel faced puppet. Very childish I know but it makes me feel better. I cannot use their names anymore as these two pathetic, dishonest and weak people disgust me so much, I have had to caricature them! In fact when I think about Cuba, despite everything, I think a lot about all the love and good people we knew, but then these caricatures pop up like some crazy spoof horror film, both unattractive and sinister. The kind of people happy to throw a family out of their home in 2 weeks. Would you respect these people?

We were realising yet another consequence of the undignified way that we were forced to leave Cuba. We did not have time to prepare Rafa’s papers to come to Europe. Europe was always part of the plan, we just thought we would make our move in a more civilised way. Anyway, we were told that cold September morning that Rafa would have to leave the UK for between 3-6 months, go back to Guatemala where they do not issue visas, fly to Panama where they do, pay hundreds and hundreds of pounds and hang around alone waiting for his papers to see if he could join his family to come and live with us in a country, where we were not even entirely sure that we wanted to stay. Our 2 years in Cuba had cost us a lot of money and it was looking as though they were going to cost us even more. We still don’t know when we will ever see our remaining possessions again and we are still living out of a few suitcases.

We had never been split up ever since I had rocked back into Rafa’s life from Buenos Aires pregnant, all those years ago. The thought of Papa not being with us for Paulo’s birthday, Christmas and Nico’s Birthday and all of us alone during a long winter was too unbearable to imagine. We wandered around the house in a daze, occasionally stopping and hugging each other and trying to work out a more palatable solution. Rafa had asked the Spaniel if we could stay 2 or 3 more months in Cuba to prepare our move with more care, we had 3 kids for God sake! He had mumbled his refusal, like he always mumbled.

Now we were thinking of wild and crazy plans just to keep the family together, imagine! I bet you can’t! And all this anguish caused by an institution that prides itself on international humanity and understanding. A tad cynical I have become.

Serendipity led me to meet a lovely Mum in a playground, who had worked as a human rights lawyer, and with a large book on European immigration law and her help and reassurances, we began to develop a plan, so we could set sail again, together, for a new life. It had to be a place we all wanted to live, and also a place where we could feel safe and NEVER suffer injustice or persecution again. A place that we could make our home ……. our own home!

Suddenly out of all the madness we had a plan again and one that was always a contender, even before all this happened. We began to feel a little bit better. Bad teeth and Spaniel would not win this one, and the scary pop ups began to go away again.

Meanwhile in our hurricane port, recovering and plotting our next move, my children have had an opportunity to be British and learn about their other half. They have been the coldest they have ever been in their lives and the whitest, but they have never complained! They have embraced the music and TV, and the fact that this is their country too, they love fish and chips and baked beans, Ambrosia custard (not the school one) and Ribena. Re-confirmed that British sweets and music are the best in the world, something announced to us by a friendly taxi driver a few years ago as he shared his toffees with us on the way to the airport.

The good people that we have met and who have helped us in these few weeks, we will never forget you. You accepted us for who we were and never judged us with our crazy stories from another world, another reality. I feel sad that I have had to break a few British people’s romantic notions of Cuba and tell them what it has become, no matter what it may well have been one day.

I have also seen my country in a different light. I admire the hardworking people and a welfare state that goes way beyond anything that existed in Cuba both in terms of healthcare and education. Although us Brits all love to complain, I value even more that ability to complain and stand up for your rights. I love and admire the amazing intellectualism and analytical thought that my country is famous for, and also the multi-culturalism, which means that even in the small city of Nottingham I have met people from all over the world, doing well and surviving on this little island. Also my children have heard me swear much less due to the fact that in my experience we are the most polite drivers in the world. After 10 years away I still cannot believe it when people politely let me pull out in front of them and everyone waves thank you for the slightest courtesy.

Every weekend my children have enjoyed amazing free activities in galleries and museums and parks. Saskia has a French class at her free nursery and my boys extra Spanish classes in their school. They have also learnt a fair bit about the Islamic and Hindu world and taken part in Eid and Diwali celebrations.

But ……….. nobody has any time anymore in England. Everybody is so busy in their little lives that spontaneity has fallen by the wayside. Or is it just living as an ex-pat all these years mean that I have learnt to embrace spontaneity and serendipity and grab every opportunity that life throws my way. I am not used to having to reserve and plan things weeks in advance.

Maybe I no longer know how to live like a Brit but I do know how to be a foreigner, and I don’t mind being the foreigner. The unbearable lightness of being? Now my family belongs to an international world that knows no borders and that is where we are going. And I want my OWN house to fill with my family, beautiful things, and friends visiting me from all over the world with stories to tell.

I cannot deny that I have learnt so much about humanity on my adventures so far. I could also say I don’t want any more adventures but I know that is not true, but I do want a bit of security and stability, at least for a while.

Going back to my roots

I was supposed to go and see a Cuban band on Saturday night, but in the end did not make it, my heart wasn’t in it. Rafa flew to New York the next day for the Icaro film festival that he founded in Guatemala many years ago, and I found myself with the children in a beautiful park in Nottingham, where by chance I got to hear a great local band reminding me of how much I love our cool urban edgy multi-cultural music. As I looked over to my 3 little ones contentedly devouring their mister Whippee icecreams, I felt strangely contented too. As I swayed to the music, Paulo gave me a nervous glance. Mummy please don’t start dancing, he said.

Just as I didn’t expect to be leaving my country pregnant 10 years ago, I didn’t expect to be arriving back here unplanned with my husband and three children a couple of months back, but here I am living in middle England …… literally!

We had planned a holiday back to the UK and France for a month but ended up with 5 huge suitcases and 2 small ones like shell-shocked refugees on our friend’s boat on the Thames in London. But just as we had left Cuba surrounded by love and support we arrived to the same in the UK! Thanks to all our wonderful family and friends who were absolutely there for us, listening to our crazy tales of another world that was beginning to sound more and more like something so weird and wrong that it was fading fast.

P1010431 — Going through a lock on the way to Tower Bridge

Then we headed down to Devon, finding it difficult to enjoy our stay on the beautiful Jurassic coast with grandparents, as we were still being bombarded with lies and libel online from people who should have known better. But when Rafa finally got chance to write his document telling the truth, they all shut up and really should be totally ashamed of themselves. But as I have realised in the last few weeks, some people have no shame. But we splashed on the beaches, ate ice cream, cream teas and fish and chips, found fossils, visited donkey sanctuaries and really did our best to salvage some kind of holiday. The children were unsettled and anxious, and I still felt angry about how their lives had been turned upside down by a few deeply vain and selfish people. But as the days passed I stopped waking up with a knot in my stomach that had been put there by so much injustice.

P1010526 — Chocolate chip icecream on the beach

P1010529 — Saskia in a place called Beer

Next we moved on to Nottingham, my old university city and where I had spent many happy family Christmases in my aunt and uncle’s beautiful house. We decided to stay, as my wonderful aunt and kindred spirit had a little house for us to live in and we had to start looking in earnest for schools to bring some normality back to my children’s lives. We bought a car, spent a lot of time in the school admissions department of the council, met some new friends, had lots of fun and lovely dinners with my aunt as we waited for our house to be fixed up for us. The children were still anxious and naughty and would not sleep ……….. but bit by bit everything fell together. But it was weird to be the one in charge, the Brit back in her own country and language.

P1010606 — In Newstead Abbey Lord Byron's gaff

Now we are in a lovely little house, Saskia has a free nursery place at the end of the road, we are registered with a doctor round the corner, have found a dentist for the first time in 2 years and finally at the last moment the boys got a place in a school less than 10 minutes drive away. We found some old carpet tiles in a rubbish skip, Rafa cleared out the cellar, carpeted it and we have installed the boys a Lego den downstairs. Second hand Lego from Ebay helping the healing! The children are amazingly happy in their school and have friends from Afghanistan, Somalia, Jamaica and a few from England. We enrolled in a beautiful little public library 2 minutes away, so they are forgetting about all the books they left behind too! I still have the odd pang when I see something in someone’s kitchen that I used to have or the children ask me where something is and I have to say, Mummy couldn’t fit everything in the suitcases …..

At times during my ten years away I worried that my children would never know what it was like to be British, so I say thank you to serendipity for this unexpected but strangely welcome opportunity and I intend to make the most of it. Not long to go until Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night (a truly British event) and maybe my children will get to see snow this Christmas, something I’ve been promising them for many years.

P1010677 — The next to go ..... love the smart new uniforms

So now I feel like a middle England Mum, enjoying the wonders of British supermarkets, (Aldi we love you), pootling around in my little car listening to Radio 2 (how ucool is that!). Everyone has been very gentle and friendly to us in Nottingham and we have discovered the delights of the alternative cinema and the new Contemporary arts centre, bumped into Latinos in parks and Ikea, and the boys are already playing football in the street with their Indian neighbours. How long we will be here, or where we go next we do not know yet, but for the time being we are safe and happy in Nottingham. Nobody can keep the Rosal Wilkie family down for long and we are having a well-earned breather until the next adventure begins.

Just off to browse on line for my first winter coat in 10 years …….. hmmm.

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

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.

P1010217 — Dancers at the Saturday afternoon rumba at Palenque

P1010255 — 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.

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

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 9^th 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!

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

saskia birthday — 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.

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.

P1010138 — 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!

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!

P1010161 — Sun goes down on another party

Easter in Cuba, a savage tree murder and a bonfire

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.

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 ....... — 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!

P1010074 — 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!

Guadalajara, chilly Cuba, next stop New York

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.

Ipad mini, NBC and my first ever script.

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.

Scripts, Saskia and Selfishness

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????

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

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 ………….