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I’m back ………

I know, I know ………. I well and truly fell off my blogging wagon. But after a long hot summer with 3 children under 8, a certain composure has finally re-entered my house this morning (can a house be composed? not sure). I am alone at my computer and I have managed to get on line and there is no child screaming up the stairs for me or trying to climb on to my lap.

One thing that I was thinking the other day, as I was trying to come up with my next blog, and thinking that it better be good, because if I did have any readers I am sure they have all forgotten about me by now. Anyway I was thinking that really I need to write posts every day as Cuba is like one great big telenovela (soap opera) and you just have to learn to roll with the good and the bad like a true Cuban. Also Rafa’s life at the film school would be worthy of a good drama series and he doesn’t have chance to tell me the half of it. I know I have not worked as an occupational psychologist now for some years but I feel as though I am. Also I now manage 10 people in my house which is akin to a small business venture.

Also I had a few moments this summer when I really did not want to be in Cuba anymore which was not a good feeling as I probably have at least another 2 or 3 years to go! So I had to shake that feeling and get back my Cuba groove. The Olympic parties also made me feel terribly homesick for everything that I love about my country: great music, sense of humour, fighting spirit, throwing a good party. I wanted to be there on the back of the Rolls Royce with Jessie J spinning around the Olympic Stadium …….. and no stealing Cubans.

Yes you guessed it, the main reason I have been feeling down is that the stealing has carried on, or at least the discoveries of more missing things in the house has only just stopped. The thefts really bothered me and I had to work at being philosophical and think ….. its only money and we are all healthy and I have 3 wonderful children and a noble hard working husband who loves me. But at one point it didn’t seem to matter how much hard cash Rafa was earning it just kept disappearing. You need to bear in mind that Cuba is a cash culture and we are paid in cash and all our purchases are in cash. Prior to this, I was a girl who lived on plastic, and the whole thing of stashing money and moving my hiding places was a new game that I did not do so well it appears!

We are now the proud owners of a safe with a roundy roundy twiddly knob with our secret access code like something out of another century. I have until today been reluctant to learn how to open it which is beginning to slightly irritate Rafa. I am not quite sure why I feel reluctant, maybe it is because I feel like an idiot that all these thefts have happened under my nose by people that I thought I could trust and I don’t want to be responsible for maybe not closing the safe properly or losing my little piece of paper with our secret code.

Rafa and I spent the summer like two amateur sleuths trying to piece together when we last saw things and who could have possibly been inside the house to have got their hands on our stuff which pretty much all disappeared from upstairs (although the cook did a good job of removing a few things from my kitchen).

It was awful because some of the people in my life who are entirely trustworthy, I had to mentally put them through the process of being under suspicion, especially as I felt that my ability to know what people were capable of in Cuba was evidently poor and I had to get with it and stop trusting people. This is not my natural state. You’re talking to the girl who had a baby (and then two more) with a man she hardly knew ……but trusted, and then proceeded to follow him to two quite tricky countries.

Anyway, we had to fire another couple of people and re-organise the house so that the people who I have always trusted are working for me more and have had a big pay rise. It has taken me a lot of time to find a new nanny as the whole thing of letting another person into my house has been difficult. Marylin started yesterday so lets see …….

Anyway this week I decided that I had to believe that the people around me are all good and our bad luck has stopped and look to the future. And stop torturing myself with images of strangers handling and stroking my possessions and cackling to themselves at their good fortune to come across me!

Everybody is back from the summer break. The party season is upon us once more and I have already met a handful of new friends. We kicked off with the Brazil party in the Beach Club next to our house (Club Havana).

I still feel frustrated about my inability to get out of the house and do things for myself but I suppose every mother of 3 young children feels like that and not every mother is lucky enough to be living in such a beautiful house in front of the sea where everybody wants to come and chat whilst listening to the waves.

Also our new fairy godfather Santiago is sorting me out better internet connection so I don’t have to spend half and hour getting on line and the rest of the time worrying about the minutes ticking by on my dial up but knowing that to hop on and off line could mean another half an hour ……….. Soon I will have internet access from the film school and I can be on 24/7 and read some newspapers and maybe even download music.

I wanted to say a big thank you to all the people that have sent me and brought me presents ……. clothes, cheese, Vanish, toys, Nutella, tortillas………… And also a big thanks to all my friends here in Cuba who have listened patiently to my tales of thieving woe.

So I will endeavour to catch you up on the events of the summer over the next few days and fill in the gaps of this log book blog book.

Our first graduation at the Film school and the emotions and all night party.

Juju’s visit. Our wonderful nanny from Guatemala gets on her first plane to come and holiday with us for 2 weeks.

Our holiday trip to Cayo Santa Maria 5 hours drive away.

This week we have another party in the Mexican embassy (looking forward to the food!), and a party to welcome the new Guatemalan ambassador, and then we are throwing our first party of the season in our house with all the new people who have arrived at the film school ……….. but I shall be writing again I hope!

1950’s wife in Havana

1950s woman

I don’t know what it is about my life right now but I feel like a 1950’s wife. Is it Cuba or is it being the wife of the director of the film school or a bit of both?

It is true that life in Cuba in many ways has stood still since 1959. The most obvious icon is of course, the 1950’s car. There is something Madmen-esque about this world, even down to the Lucky Strikes, a world where men are men, like Don Draper. Ice cream parlours, art deco hotel bars, trilby hats, cigars, sling back shoes, hourglass figures, no traffic, slow traffic………. And the music.

When my friend asked for some more modern music at a party the other day the DJ responded with the line. In Cuba we are about memoria. I disagree; I think Cubans should be shouting from their crumbling rooftops that CUBA IS THE FUTURE and the future’s so bright you gotta wear shades. Otherwise Cuba will sell its soul to the capitalist devil along with Che memorabilia and black market cigars. And Cuba I really do hope you find your modern soul and get yourselves a future, I do, I do, I do …..

Another favourite expression I heard before I arrived was that your heels get higher and your dresses tighter in Cuba. I am not sure what that says about the island but I definitely have acquired a couple of pairs of heels since arriving to get me to the many receptions to which I am invited. And yes I have dusted down some of my more feminine outfits, which did not see the light of day on the dusty or damp streets of backpacker, American tourist town Antigua. More opportunities to get glamorous here definitely.

Are Cuban men more chauvinist, more machista than your average Puerto Rican, Mexican or Venezuelan man? I’m not sure. For me machismo is rife all over the Latin world, you don’t need to come to Cuba particularly to sample this cultural phenomenon.

However there was a Cuban documentary on the TV the other day just titled Los Machos. It appeared to be a celebration of all things male. Lots of images of good looking guys hanging out in the streets chatting, back slapping, playing dominoes, talking baseball……. laughing. Just generally making that whole thing of being a man in Cuba look pretty damn cool! There were even some very cute images of Cuban Dads with small beautiful children staring up into their eyes with love and admiration for their father’s tender manliness!

Obviously it wasn’t a serious or realistic documentary as I didn’t see any images of fat men with their T-shirts rolled up to reveal their sweaty large bellies or angry men clouting their young children for crying for a toy, like I saw in the plastic toy shop on quinta the other day. The shop was full and nobody said a word except me. I was so shocked and angry I had to tell him…well done, you’re a really strong man ……. Muy muy macho, muy fuerte! As I was watching the tears of confusion and shame fall down the cheeks of his toddler son.

But, truth be told, in general, Cuban men are an attractive bunch and their charm and seduction generally a little more subtle and laid back then many other races I have come across in my years of living abroad and travelling. But I am getting old, and now a mother of 3, so maybe I am no longer a typical target for any lustful lewdness anyway!

Although apparently according to some of the students at the film school I am La rubia con lo mejor swing ……… which is a very Cuban way of looking at things. It is not just about what you’ve got but how you move it! And unlike my husband I like to think that I am the one with the best swing who just happens to be blonde rather than the one with the best swing out of a small subsection of blondes. Yes, yes I know I am clutching at straws but we all need to clutch at straws sometimes to lift the ego.

But I digress, why do I feel like a 1950’s wife and mother? Is it an accumulation of many years of devoting myself to my husband and my children partly because I wanted to and partly because I didn’t have much choice if I wanted this family to stay together, and I did. Most days I see the upside of the story. I am lucky to have been able to be with them so much, I have always been provided for, I have had many wonderful experiences and adventures with my family, I have enjoyed the added bonus of a husband with an interesting job. No boring corporate partners dinners for me, just film festivals and parties and interesting film-makers both old and new. So I should be grateful for this life and happy to be with my children guiding them though their bi-lingual, bi-cultural upbringing. And I am very proud of them when their bickering and whining has not ground me down. The global mother of 3.

But on the other hand I have been feeling suffocated. Suffocated with the never-ending domestic trials and tribulations of living in Cuba and it feels like I have fallen into the last century. I have 8 people that come and work in my house (I know it is ridiculous, believe me!) and I still feel as though I never have time for anything, or any time to myself. If it is not my children that want my time it is my employees who need me to solve their problems. I have still, after nearly a year, failed to turn that dynamic around ……. I want them to resolve all my problems and leave me free for the fun stuff and the stuff that is purely mine.

Oh in the mists of time I did have a career, I was going places, I was meeting interesting psychologists and sociologists. My ideas about the creative career were bouncing around and taking me into new greenfield areas of research.

I have been wistfully thinking about my last summer in London when the sun shone, I cycled everywhere, did want I wanted, had an intellectual life, a career, people wanted to talk to me or help me, or collaborate with me because of my ideas and my research not because I was the wife of somebody.

Anyway …….. I took photos of the most amazing sunset last night, we have lots of friends flying in for the film school graduation and parties, we will get to have a holiday soon for all the family, I live in a beautiful house on a beach and I have a husband I love and loves me and takes care of me ……. and I have the best swing … sometimes.

But rising slowly up from the ashes is that feminist that I had forgotten about, the one that got out there and grabbed every opportunity going for herself, grabbed the moment and her own money ……. and she will be back, and she already has lots of ideas up her sleeve, just got to go downstairs and sort out the drama of the temperamental 1950’s plumbing and the drains in the kitchen which have flooded, but I’ll be back with more gutsy feminist adventures soon ……. I promise 😉

The Cook, the thief, his wife and her lover …….. in Cuba.

As I was thinking about writing this post, the Peter Greenaway film title that I stole for this post title kept playing around in my head all jumbled up and back to front. I think Peter Greenaway has visited the film school and if not he should be invited.

I have a new cook, there was a thief about, I am a wife but I don’t have a lover, although in Cuba a lot of people do …………. anyway on on ….

The boys have broken up from school and a lot of our more wealthy friends have left for the summer to their properties in Europe along with most of the diplomats and bureaucrats. Luckily we have enough Cuban friends and enough going on that I don’t feel too lonely and abandoned. A little bit of breathing space ……… and now with our new air con in the living room, things are looking up!!

I escaped for a few nights to a global city alone, such things have hardly been heard of in our house! I enjoyed walking the beautiful streets without having to keep my eyes on 3 little naughty heads, lunching in cafe terraces, visiting several galleries, finishing conversations with adults, topping up my fashionista desires ……… bliss …….. but that is another story for another time.

I returned to three happy but slightly resentful children, a husband ready to offload all his problems and trials and tribulations of being a single Dad and director of a film school ……… and yet another robbery in my house. We let our defenses down for a moment, and of course I wasn’t here to keep my castle safe!

So there was the usual ……why on earth did you let these people into our house? Because I wanted to get things done well you were away. ……. conversation.

On the few occasions that I have left my husband alone since we met, he is always intent on improving the house and/or my car for me while I am away, which can often lead to conflict as I like to be heavily involved in the style of said improvements and also who they are done by. He is then hurt, as he says he does everything to make me happy …… hmmm.

Anyway some workmen came to my house from the film school and were in my bedroom fixing the air con or pretending to fix other things and some cash walked. Not helped by the fact that we live in a cash world in Cuba and do not have a safe. Luckily we were approaching the end of the month and we did not have that much cash and they were decent enough to leave us some.

The film school was supposed to find us a safe but failed to do so. I have now taken all matters into my own hands and decided that the only people who come into my house will be friends, family or people invited by me who have already had my tough character analysis test. I want to be independent from the film school in all matters of administration and maintenance of my home. Apart from anything else they all like to have a good snoop and gossip is rife in any institution and all over the island. ‘tonces no mas!

To this end, I now have a new housekeeper and cook who is proving to be a great investment. Just as well as I had 9 adults and 9 children in my house over this weekend at various stages and I managed to just about feed those who were hungry. Mercedes lives nearby, is a hardworking, organised women who is transforming my kitchen into a place of homemade cakes and shortbread cookies and cottage pie and it is only week one!

After a few weeks of struggling alone with some help from my young babysitter Claudia, I decided that I needed to get on with finding another nanny before the long summer holiday began, still slightly reluctant to use my children as guinea pigs, but it seems it is the only way. Take them on a trial basis and see how it goes.

Still not convinced about the latest. I am trying someone who lives very close by, 5 minutes walk away, but although she seems very sweet and a good person she also gives the impression that she has really suffered a hard life, and that life has worn down her spirit.

I want to say to her …….. hey lady lets laugh and smile and skip with the children, lets make up fun games and holiday adventures. I am sort of hoping that we might be able to cheer her up a bit but she told me the other day somewhat despondently that Saskia has asked her why she had such a big belly! I was at the time playing footsies with a giggling Saskia throwing her around the bed. On the one hand I felt bad, but on the other I was marvelling at my 2 year olds communication skills and astute observational abilities.

Anyway Elena is a black lady, an afrocuban who studied Russian and spent 5 years in Kiev only to return to Cuba just as the Soviet system was getting the hell out and leaving them with the worst economic moment in post-revolution Cuban history, the infamous special period. Suddenly nobody wanted to learn Russian or bother speaking it too much when she returned. The Ruskies were gone and it seems that Elena has been sad ever since at her bad luck. Although she did tell me that she loved living in the Ukraine. Maybe she fell in love with a Ukranian who stole her heart forever. I wanted to say to her, well your belly’s not that big and you’ve still got a great pair of legs but in these situations it is best just to keep quiet I find …………..

Anyway a few more parties to organise before the end of the film school term, the graduation party being one of them. Juju, our beloved nanny of 7 years, who nobody has come close to replacing, is arriving from Guatemala at the end of July for a holiday and by the first week of August Rafa will be free ……… and we have to plan some Cuban adventures.

Where shall we go? Colonial Trinidad? Maria La Gorda beach? Cayo Coco? Exciting, cultural Santiago, the other side of the island, is calling me, but 12 hours in a car in tropical heat with 3 kids means I fear I might have to delay that one. But I want to dance to more Rhumba, meet a few more Cuban DJs, teach some recipes to my new cook, spend quality time with my children (woops I suppose that should have been first!), try to make my husband forget about the film school for at least a couple of weeks and entertain any pale faces Brits that make it over my Caribbean way.

Feeling hot hot hot!

Summer has hit Havana big time. It is steaming and I have now totally submitted myself to the world of air con, seeking shade and ventilation whenever I can. The air is heavy and I feel a weight pressing down on me. I am listless and without energy and trying to wear as little as possible without letting too much of my 43 year old body hang out! (My Thai friend and dress designer has been whipping me up some nice little summer frocks).

I have to mop the sweaty foreheads of my children. I go out at night with a fan. I get sweat stains on my bras (I know!), I open the glass doors to the sea in the morning and no cool breeze welcomes me. The sea is like a tepid clear soup and I can see little stripy fish and small rays darting through the shallows.

I have also been without a nanny this last month. Although I liked Sonia I was beginning to doubt her effectiveness at dealing with the job. The things she promised never materialised, she clearly did not enjoy cooking and I needed someone more steady, tenacious, patient and in some ways more appropriate! One little example ….. She had taken it upon herself to take the boys to the supermarket round the corner and buy her feminine hygiene supplies in their company, at the same time explaining about the whole menstruation story, which I was not quite sure was her place or their time. Pretty horrifying stuff for 6 and 7 year old boys. They have not mentioned it to me so I am hoping that they were not paying too much attention, maybe too busy having a fight or trying to buy sweets or icecream.

Anyway this was the first time I really had to sack someone who has worked so closely with me, but once it was done, she marched straight out the door without a backward glance and I felt an incredible sense of relief. I had muttered stuff about what a great person she was but she was not the one for me and how it wasn’t working out …….. like a teenager trying to let down softly their school sweetheart.

The first couple of weeks I felt content, alone with my brood, washing up an awful lot, but peaceful, serene even (no really!). Now the novelty is wearing off and I want my freedom back. No time to write, no time to investigate the new world of DJs in Habana, no time to nurture my wonderful new friendships, no time for much and on top of being a slavish hands-on Mum I have to find the time to deal with the administration aspects of the film school which requires a lot of patience and tenacity. I have plenty of the latter but not much of the former. I have been interviewing many nice women determined that this one will be the right one. Phew!

My garden is taking shape too, which is exciting. The back of the house which faces onto the sea, I can plant nothing pretty as the salt and the wind burns it all so I am turning the entrance on the road side into my colourful sun trap of flowers and hanging baskets. Such things make me happy and Cuban garden centres are deliciously cheap and cheerful.

I am spending too much time cleaning up the poo and pee of the dog and the daughter. The puppy just seems to want to sneak into the house to seek out my Guatemalan wool rugs as her toilet. Saskia is getting the hang of the potty but is at times a little too enthusiastic as she rushes around proudly showing to anyone interested (mainly me) how it brims with steaming turd and a coulis of hot pee. Accidents happen!

Moving swiftly on to another topic ……. a supposedly hot shot American Hollywood director flew into town in his private jet acting like some kind of diva who needed to be received by everyone including my husband. He spent 3 days at the film school and was not an easy guest, asking many pert and naive questions. Doug Liman made Swingers, Mr and Mrs Smith and the Bourne films. Also the TV series The OC for those who like the latest Dawson Creek type offering about rich angst-ridden Californian teenagers.

He seemed to think that the film school would be delighted to accommodate him and they did in a most gracious manner, even though they had no idea what he was doing there. As requested, they showed his first film Swingers to the students and 10 turned up, of which a handful left half way through and the others snuck out before the credits had finished (ie no questions to ask the director) leaving Rafa clearing his throat and suggesting a beer in the bar. I wonder if he realised that the film school has received some truly great independent film directors in the last few months as always and are not easily impressed by the Hollywood machine although Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola amongst others have all visited. Doug’s parting shot to Rafa was: Be prepared we are coming back. We were not quite sure how to take that mysterious comment……. some kind of Hollywood film bay of pigs attack!?

More parties parties parties. My first proper dinner in the house, another monthly party for all the visiting teachers and students from workshops. Our friends the Norwegian Ambassador and his Mexican husband threw a couple of parties this month in their beautiful house round the corner from us. Norwegian day of the constitution also happened to co-incide with the international day against homophobia and less appropriately the Cuban day for campesinos (loosely translated as farmers, yokels or peasants depending on the context). There was a big lunch for all the workers on the film school farm which Rafa attended. Guzman the boss made a point of saying that these campesinos were definitely not gay! Or at least if they were they would never admit it ….

Stephen Bayley, successful British film director and the ex-director of the National Film school in the UK was back in town giving his extremely popular and successful workshops on the Meisner technique for actors and directors. The Cubans love him! They get enthusiastic and happy and at times even tearful and emotional when he is around. We threw a party for him after one of the performances in the Bertolt Brecht theatre in Vedado on a breezeless balcony.

Last night it was the British Embassy party in the amazingly beautiful residence in Vedado. I big turn out of diplomats but I spent most of the night hanging out with Stephen and the Cubans actors, musicians and DJs who are becoming my friends. Rafa had been climbing in the Sierra Maestra with some documentary students from the film school and was waiting for me tucked up in bed after an exhausting few days. And then the air con in our bedroom broke ……….. phew. Feeling hot hot hot!!

Still Cuba intrigues, surprises and seduces me ………. what the future holds nobody knows. People speculate and talk a lot about what the changes will bring. which is one of the things I will always love about Cubans. You can disagree but once you talk and talk you usually both end up with a smile on your face. People don’t get aggressive or shirty. Just shrug your shoulders and have another cold Mojito, life’s too short to get angry or upset. I’m learning …………….

Gilles Peterson, the Bienal and the art of dancing

Rafa was in Venezuela signing some important film agreement and the Bienal was in full swing. The biggest art show in town, and its not just about art. There are some crazy performances, lots of good music, a few parties ………. and of course plenty of art to keep everybody happy from the most commercial to the most ridiculous.

I managed to get to La Cabaña, the old fort over-looking Havana Vieja, on Sunday with the boys, where most of the art of the Bienal was being displayed in various interlinking rooms of the huge venue. The boys were more interested in the cannons and climbing the walls of the fort but some of the more impactful visual stuff grabbed their attention. A room of mirrors, a room of wooden boats standing on their sides of varying sizes, some amazing interactive sculptures in the courtyards and various other cositas like the painting of the crying boxer!

Unrelated to the craziness of the Bienal, I bought a photo of the Malecon from a student of ISA. He arrived a little late round to my house where I was waiting with the photo for him to sign and me to pay. He told me that a whole street in Havana Vieja had been closed as naked people sprayed bronze walked up and down. He had been taking photos of the nudes and the faces of the Cuban public, who although used to seeing scantily clad people walking around town, were rather aghast at the nakedness!

I headed out to a party of an artist friend in his beautiful house in Vedado with some friends. We stopped off at the National Hotel to pick up a journalist on the way and had a quick drink on the garden terrace overlooking the bay before heading back into the leafy residential streets of Vedado. When we arrived the beautiful ruined house was already full of people and the music was pretty good out in the garden. I bumped into Havana friends and foreign journalists and people working at Havana Club rum (who seemed to be sponsoring a lot of stuff), lots of artists and random music people.

I was just thinking I should be getting home when I saw a very familiar face across the room. I had this strong feeling that he was British and that I knew him. A friend of a friend from London maybe? I approached him and asked him where he was from. England. What are you doing here? I’m a DJ and I’m playing at the inauguration party tomorrow. Excellent I thought, as he slipped out the door alone, no DJ gang to be seen. That’s Gilles Peterson, said a friend. I knew he looked familiar!

I managed to case the party and find 3 invites for the following night for myself and a couple of friends. With Rafa out of town I set up my young babysitter and her mother in the house so I could dance all night! And it was worth it, I needed to dance.

Gilles is a name in the UK. He has been a bastion of late night Radio 1 for what seems like the last 15 years. His serious of albums titled Worldwide where all about mixing world rhythms with his own take on drum and bass.

He recently visited Cuba and cut a record with some famous musicians and DJs and put his finger on the pulse of new Cuban music. I am still not in a position to say if he got his finger right on the pulse, but I like Gilles. He does his own thing and he appreciates differences. I kept bumping into him at the party and he was always alone. People watching, absorbing the atmosphere. He didn’t need to have a crowd of people around him and was happy to talk to anybody and everybody.

The venue was the Sala Rosada de La Tropical, a huge outside venue with a sweeping staircase going down to the auditorium. It was a hot night and everyone was quite sweaty dancing. I can’t believe I was worried about my hair before I went out because by the end of the night it was a rather attractive sweaty wet mass and for some reason people kept taking my photo. Gilles had introduced the evening ….. Gilles Peterson presenta La Havana Cultura Band, some live music from Danay Suarez, Osdalgia, Roberto Carcasses amongst others. Gilles himself rolled out a pretty good set and the Cuban DJs that followed also kept me dancing. Names to look out for Wichy de Vedado and DJ Simbad.

To wrap up with a quote from Mr Peterson:

“Having spent the last three years travelling regularly to Havana I’ve understandably become more attached to this fascinating, almost otherworldly city. I’m also slowly getting to grips with the relationship music has here with the spirits and its people… the drum goes deep.”
Gilles Peterson

The Drum goes deep …………. I like that!

Varadero Vulgarity

I had never been to an all inclusive resort and I have the feeling that this was the first and last time. I imagined all the tourists who come to Varadero and think they know Cuba after a 2 week break in a plastic resort. VARADERO IS NOT CUBA!!! Do not think for a minute you know anything about Cuba if your experience is a few days in Varadero with a quick trip to Havana to go to the Floridita bar (Hemingway’s haunt and a favourite with the tourists).

I had been told that this was low season and that I would find more Cubans grabbing offers but my Barcelo hotel was 90% blue collar or student Canadians with a surprising lack of families. Not the school holidays in Canada I suppose unless your children are in the International French school. Generally, I like Canadians so I apologise for this satirical post and want to stress that it is more about the kind of people who go to all-inclusive resorts rather than a nation. In Cuba it just happens to be the Canadians that pack these places out.

So, there were a lot of Canadians in my hotel, generally quite amiable ….. just fat, tattooed, red and white striped and getting drunk wielding their huge super size me thermos jugs with straws. They told me proudly with not one iota of irony, that they purchased them online especially for all inclusive holidays and could fit 10 drinks in them! I hid behind bushes by the pool that had the bar, like a wildlife photographer getting photos of my beasts, or a daring anthropologist approaching a difficult and unpredictable subject. One of them spotted me and good-naturedly got together his mates for a group picture. I happily obliged and snapped away. $800 for a week all inclusive flights, drinks and sunshine who can blame them??

When we first arrived we headed to our room, the boys scootering ahead of me somewhat recklessly but with no one admonishing them, so I let them go. And in fact those scooters became very useful to get around the huge smalltown-sized complex. We had a map and we needed it! They boys were loving it, only a little disappointed at the lack of children and only one tiny water slide.

After checking out the first pool of drunks, I grabbed the attention of one of the gardeners and asked him if there was a more appropriate pool for children. He directed us towards the other end of the complex so we had chance to check out the various eateries, the rather exciting (for us Cuban residents!) hotel shop, the large lobby with piano, and of course the undeniably beautiful beach. We discovered that the Cuban Michael Jackson was playing in the theatre that night. I promised the boys that they could stay up late enough. Thinking to myself that I really had to check out the house red to throw myself into the evening ahead.

The boys bought some ‘message in a bottles’, back packs and other assorted pieces of tourist tat. I managed to find a nice pair of Havaianas for 10 cuc then we hit the buffet to find everything to keep us all happy. In fact, the food was good, as was the service, for the price that we paid I was not complaining. It was more my fellow guests who were making my jaw drop. The boys decided to start counting fat people and large thermos cups to see which would score higher. They then wanted to start taking photos of both things so I managed to negotiate that they could just take pictures of the super size me Thermos jugs.

I was amazed watching how these people ate. The volumes and the choices. One man I observed doing 4 or 5 trips back to the buffet with plates piled up with food and that was before he had started on his pudding! As the boys ran around taking photos, I started talking to some young fresh faced students from Ottawa and found them so innocent that I couldn’t help but shock them with my progressive views on the world!

We installed ourselves in the theatre for the big show and got a decent table next to the sweet innocent students and a British couple who resembled Alf Garnett and his wife. Paulo insisted on getting his own seat away from us, right at the front, reluctantly followed by Nico. In fact they spent half an hour sneaking back stage and reporting on the dancers they had seen in various stages of undress. At this point I was knocking back the Spanish table wine with urgency! Trying not to upset Alf and his wife along the way, who were trying to engage me in conversation about British politics and how David Cameron should be in the Labour party.

Finally Michael burst onto the stage with a great troupe of dancers. Needless to say, my two were on the stage at the end of the night singing along to We are the World, getting their photo taken with Michael and trying to master the moonwalk and later asking me lots of questions about why Michael Jackson was always touching his willy. (I couldn’t find a good answer for that one!)

We went to the lobby bar with the masses after the show where I was cornered by another Canadian claiming his British roots in Leeds. I politely replied that Leeds was a fun city, to which he replied no its not anymore its full of Pakis! As my jaw dropped still lower I decided it was really was time to take my children and myself off to bed, just before the wife of the bigot chipped in with the immortal line ….. we don’t mind brown people if they are suntanned just not when they are born like that. What are you doing in Cuba then I thought to myself? and then I remembered, they are not in Cuba they are in Varadero.

As I contently drove the straight easy road back to the city with the boys watching Harry Potter in the back of the car, I thought about the very different Cuba that I know in Havana enlightened and global ….where I meet interesting and open minded people every week, of every shade of beautiful brown, suntanned or born like that!

More school holidays and a new puppy!

This is the worst time of year for a mother at the French school. They seem to go holiday crazy. I have only just recovered from a 2 week break; remember our jaunt to Viñales? And then I had to take the boys out of school when it actually was Easter so we could go to a wedding in Guatemala, and then I get back for another 2 weeks holiday.

All these holidays without Papa. But the man has a big job to do I know, and I have a lot of help available to me but the bottom line is there are only 2 parents and parenting can only be done by the parents. Sometimes too many helpers can cloud the already tricky area of getting the discipline and love balance right. There are some aspects of being a Mum or a parent that are the same no matter where you are in the world, or how rich or poor you are.

Right now I have two boys who no matter what I ask them their response is …Who cares? or just plain brazen NO. I am feeling worn down, useless, ineffective, negotiation skills failing ridiculously.

On top of all that I am always under pressure to think about where I am going to get my next packet of nappies. Saskia is beginning to show signs of wanting to use her potty but still you just can’t rush these milestones, rites of passage, whatever you want to call them! I believe in celebrating every little achievement and at the moment when she ‘achieves’ anything in the potty, the whole family jumps around as though she has just scored a goal against Germany in the world cup. However I am not looking forward to the sleepless nights of sheet and pyjama changing and the inevitable accidents when you find yourself scraping poo off the most unimaginable places. Maybe our recently acquired puppy will be helping out with a bit of poo cleaning??!

Yes, it is day 2 of the holiday and we have inadvertently acquired a puppy. A very small one, called Lila. We headed up to Habana Vieja yesterday for some adventures, just me and the boys. Saskia is still in her nursery and has her sleep after she gets home so we headed off late morning leaving Saskia in good hands. We had lunch in Plaza Vieja, 2 very good hamburgers for the boys and half a pint of lager, brewed on the premises for me. I also had the mother’s pleasure of eating up their left over salad and bread. I enjoyed chatting with some British tourists whilst the boys chased the pigeons around the square. Then we pottered around looking at art, going to the mini model Habana Vieja museum, the Natural History Museum where we played drafts in the children’s room. At some stage in the afternoon Paulo came to give me a hug and tell me that he and Nico had decided that they were going to be really good during these holidays. Really I said, nervously waiting for the punchline or negotiation that never came.

The boys bought funny postcards, some Cuban chocolates and spent a few minutes looking at the rather over priced collection of tie pins in Plaza de las Armas. As I was dragging them tired through the streets back to the car, I stopped for some flowers as I saw some beautiful lilies. Arms full of flowers and bags of popcorn I noticed that there was a photography exhibition in the gardens of San Francisco church. Just one last adventure I thought. Next thing I knew we were in possession of a ridiculously small and cute little puppy, named Lila after the flowers Mummy was carrying. It seems people come and leave their unwanted animals in this church and this one had been living in the churchyard for 2 weeks. Apparently after two weeks they are booted back onto the streets again. I am not sure how true this all was, but it did not make much difference, there was no refusing the boys pleading faces. Arms full of flowers and exhausted they had an easy target and it didn’t take much before we were driving down the malecon with a new puppy. Anyway, nothing wrong with a bit of serendipity when it comes to acquiring children and pets! 😉 Now just got to get rid of all the other unwelcome guests that have come along with street puppy ……. flees, parasites and worms ……. and Saskia just wants to kiss her all the time. hmmm hmm.

Today a neighbour came to give the boys some extra Maths classes and then they escaped to my nannies house to ride their bikes in the park and go to the Aquarium whilst I hang out with Saskia and try to write during her siesta ……….. I will try to escape with the boys for another adventure outside Havana next week. Have managed to line up some extra French classes too so things are panning out!

Don’t cry for me Guatemala …….

Don’t cry for me Guatemala, the truth is I never left you……..

Well I did. We did. And a couple of weeks ago I went back with my family, with my 3 Guatemalan hybrids and without my Guatemalan and it was damn weird going back in time, solo parent, Saskia on my lap, and my boys either side on the two planes via Panama.

When I discovered I was pregnant in Buenos Aires in 2004, I walked the streets of Palermo slowly processing the consequences of my rapidly changing life. There is a part of Palermo where all the streets are named after Central American Countries and I stopped at Guatemala and took a long look. I even took a photo of that street name. I realised that if I decided to have our baby, which I already had, I could never forget about that troubled little country that the world had managed to forget about ………. A genocide that some people want to sweep under the carpet. Maybe we all do in a way, because the reality of what happened in Guatemala is too much for a lot of us. But thankfully there are some people like my husband’s family who could never turn their backs on the truth.

There is nobody who could look me in the face and tell me that the name Rosal Paz y Paz is not a noble one, no matter what side of the fence your politics falls. Principles, humanity and honor are things that we can all recognise in people.

I spent 8 years in Guatemala. All my children were born there. I met some great people and learnt a lot about love and life. I can’t say I was happy living there, but my husband and my children brought me a quota of happiness that was just sufficient to get me through and good friends contributed in keeping me topped up.

I made Guatemala a paradise for my boys, but at times I could not hide my unhappiness from them and I regret that. It became my prison. My beautiful prison, with Volcanoes and Jacarandas and Bourganvilias. I thought I would never be able to leave. The feeling made me anxious but my boys always brought me back to life. I was a mother and a wife and that was what I had to try my best to be and do, regardless of the madness of the country, the history, the hypocrisy, my frustration, my boredom.

But an opportunity in Cuba came along and rescued us, just in time. We escaped as history began to repeat itself. A military government back in power, noble people persecuted and accused. Short memories, and a fresh batch of hypocrisy and lies for a new generation.

So I went back for a week, travelling on British passports without my Rafa and I spent that week recreating the paradise for my children. Their town, their friends, their nanny, their old daycare, their volcanoes. Good friends who love us and we love them. I have always been fortunate to find the good people wherever I am……….. and I thank those people for saving me when the serendipity and madness balance was tipping dangerously over to the wrong side.

My Rafa says he wants to die with his volcanoes, but right now we are relieved to be away from it all . My beautiful dark-eyed Saskia, who is a happy soul, will grow up with her first memories in Cuba with the added bonus of a much more relaxed mother. We already have good friends here and I don’t have to keep my mouth shut or keep looking over my shoulder.

To all the sweet kind people of Guatemala. We will be back one day and I wish you all a lot of luck in the meantime.

Phew ……… it took a long time coming that one. Next stop back to crazy happy days in Cuba 😉

Film check: The best documentary I have even seen about Guatemala …….. Lecciones para una Guerra by Juan Manuel Sepulveda. Synopsis taken from Festivalscope:

Between 1982 and 1996, the Ixil and Quiché people took refuge in the mountains as a last resort to save themselves from the massacres carried out by the Guatemalan Army, which took the lives of more than 200,000 indigenous people. After those fourteen years, the communities ended up settling in the northeastern part of the range, an area currently under siege due to the wealth of natural resources to be found there. LESSONS FOR A WAR is a celebration of the resistance of people preparing to defend themselves against another coming war. A chant of hope of a community that will not give up.

E for Entertainment Cuba style

Cultural life in Havana is very good and there is always enough things going on to please anybody. Beyond that there is always spontaneity and good music and parties to be joined. Cubans are an educated bunch and they put culture way up on the list and they all love to chat!

I actually enjoy watching Cuban TV and we have felt no desire to try to get cable or satelite. Firstly there are no adverts. Can you imagine what a pleasure that is!! In Guatemala I was forced to watch more adverts on cable TV than actual programming. It was something that I resented a lot. Here I have to deal with a few Cuban public service announcements, which I usually find either entertaining or interesting and they never interrupt a good film. To name a few ……the one about how to get rid of bugs in your house and fumigation. The one about how you shouldn’t use public transport when you are drunk and leery and others involving manners and how to respect your fellow Cubans. Endless tributes to Jose Marti and the heroes of the revolution, and actually relatively little on Fidel. Emotional pleas to free the Cuban 5, imprisoned in the US without a proper trial and many more, short exerts about beautiful parts of Cuba you should visit etc etc …….

The programming is pretty good. I enjoy the many discussion shows on art and literature and social topics. Interviews with interesting Cuban and visiting Latin personalities. The famous Mesa Redonda (the round table) tends to be more national social, geopolitical or economic discussion so I can’t say I sit watching that too much but Rafa tunes in from time to time.

Last night I watched a discussion about being a single parent on another chat show (this one is triangular) hosted by somebody who works at the film school. Interesting and good for my Spanish! I watch Cuban news, which is not bad for such an apparently isolated country, they cover more international topics than in Guatemala. I have seen many good films, independent, foreign language (although can be tricky reading Spanish subtitles whilst listening to Bollywood Indian or German science documentaries) and also a handful of better Hollywood films. Such US things as CSI, Private Practice, Seinfeld and White Collar have appeared too.

International sports events that Cubans take part in are pretty well covered. When we arrived we had international athletics, the Panamerican games from Guadalajara, and lots of baseball which Rafa likes to dip into although I still haven’t got a clue what they are up to. It seems to me like the epitome of male narcisism. The way the pose and wiggle before every move like preening peacocks twitching and pulling at the tight pants in a jerky dancy fashion.

Also it goes without saying that you can watch an awful lot of good music from all over the world as well as Cuban. On Sunday I watched Adele playing live at the Royal Albert Hall. A week before I watched an amazing performance by the Cuban Symphony orchestra outside in a beautiful square possibly in Havana. All the musicians were pretty good looking which can’t help but add to the experience! And the children’s TV on the, what appears to be legitimately pirate channel of MV is a great mixture of BBC, Discovery kids and a bit of Mexican TV but blissfully advert free. So my children don’t spend half their time saying Mummy I want that and that and that for my next Birthday/Christmas!

I have been able to take the children to see 4 wonderfully professionally produced plays, last week was a French musical organised for the week of francophonie in Vedado. I took the boys to a pyjama story time party at their school. We took them to see two Dutch films during the week of Dutch cinema. All this is without even checking the ads in the paper. Not a week goes by without some country having a week of their independent cinema. I made it to a couple in British Cinema week, next week is Iran. I have been invited to Norwegian, Belgian , Canadian, Brazilian, Danish … and oh so many other film weeks that I can’t remember. I have never had to check the listing page of any newspapers in Rafa’s position we tend to get invited to most things.

As always, I do want to check out more music nights though, it is just finding the time and the energy!

Oh yes, and the Pope arrived last week for a flying visit to Havana and Santiago. Can’t say I would have been rushing down and fighting the crowds for that particular event. But I am happy for all the Cuban catholics who were terribly excited! And that he persuaded Fidel that Good Friday should be a holiday in Cuba!

My next two posts will be my attempts at reviewing all the wonderful independent cinema that I am able to watch and access. So get ready for my reviews on some great films from Cuba, South America, Spain and UK.

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.