Guatemala Archives | Serendipityormadness

The honour of my family and my love affair with Cuba

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thieves, thieves everywhere ………

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Humanity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

La Candela!

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

Hasta luego

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.

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.

Family life, my first Havana Birthday and the first US official visit to the Film School

We have been here just over 6 months now and my family is settling into a new rhythm. I have just celebrated my first Birthday in Cuba, and for the first time in years, I didn’t organise anything, as being in Havana for us is just like one long ridiculous party at times. There is always so much to do and it seems we are always invited! January was supposed to be a quiet detox month but it has just slipped by as crazy as all the others. We headed out to Havana Vieja with friends to see the opening of an exhibition by Cuban artist Jose Emilio (JEFF), who, the day after he met me at a very fun dinner before Christmas, painted me! (I think it was my dancing that inspired his creativity!) We sat outside in the beautiful Plaza de Cathedral afterwards for a snack and a couple of drinks.

I am always amazed how quickly children adapt to new things, or at least mine do! I suppose they don’t have much choice – poor little international nippers. But they haven’t complained too much. Not even the lack of McDonalds, multiplex cinemas with buckets of coke and popcorn, youtube on tap and bad cable TV. Maybe it is easier to keep your children children here in Cuba. I can remember how terrified I felt in those last few days in Guatemala, and the idea of jumping into the unknown again. But hey, there is never much point in worrying and being in Cuba is all about not worrying.

On top of that we put them into a French school, just to spice things up for all us. Paulo is now speaking French (with an outrageous accent) to some of his new school friends, and one of my friends reported that he heard Nico speaking French at the school gates the other day. He denies it vehemently, but I feel quite proud anyway! Maybe it was just his favourite comme si comme ça shrug. He is learning to read really well in Spanish, English and French and managing his linguistic chaos with aplomb. As I am educating them in the world of Sean Connery’s James Bond right now, I tell them if they do well in all their languages they too can be a secret agent! How does James Bond have so many nobias Mummy? Nico asked me the other day! And both boys are beginning to sound a little bit Cuban too! Saskia swings her bum like a native. Talk about adapting fast!

THe US Interest section finally got their permission to go outside the 25 mile zone so they could visit the film school. This regulation was originally put in place by the US on the Cubans in Washington, and naturally was reciprocated in Cuba. Anyway John Caulfield the Chief of Mission and Gloria from Public Affairs were very genial and seemed genuinely interested in the film school and we spent a pleasant afternoon with them chatting and showing them around. John was remarking that Cuba was a wonderful place to be living with a young family and that the rest of Latin America was blighted by violence and drugs. There was a micro second of tension in the room when we resisted commenting that maybe, just maybe that violence and drugs could have something to do with their neighbour to the north who consume most of those drugs and are no strangers to violence. Historically, the US supported the rightwing governments of Latin America and really helped teach their people how to kill and torture. Is it just a coincidence that the most peaceful, crime free country in the Latin World is the one where they kicked the US right out ……. ? Anyway in the name of good relations, it is best just to let these things go sometimes! 😉

Through the boys school I have met a good set of friends, mothers and fathers from very diverse backgrounds and don’t feel quite so lost anymore as I sit through the parent teacher meetings in French and Spanish. Paulo played in a rugby tournament on Saturday, yes that’s right, rugby in Cuba! Who would have thought. I was just a little horrified that I had to get up extra early on the day after my birthday. I suppose that is all the fun of being a parent and all that joy and pride ……. but Saturday morning at 8.30. I don’t have much joy! THe Cuban children (mainly Afro Cubanos) who have just embraced this new sport whipped the pants off the French School). Undeniably Cubans just excel at sport in general. I could see a future team giving the All Blacks a run for their money!

I suppose the children have a routine more than I do, as in my life so far here in Cuba, every week is different, but it is always exciting or interesting or challenging. I am learning to be more patient, learning to be more creative when it comes to food and cooking as nearly everything is seasonal, and supply and demand are not two things that always go together in this crazy world. There are no rules. In fact the only rule here is that there are no rules. I think that is why the Cubans have learnt to let go. You can’t control life here in Cuba. It controls you. But luckily for us, so far, life has been pretty good.

My little Saskia, true to my prediction of being a girl born to live in Cuba is completely content. She is such a happy little girl that she infects all around her but as a friend commented the other day, she knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. I marvel at her ability to do this and I am trying to learn fast. But apart from this superpower, she is the most cuddly kissy sweet little ball of love.

She is talking more and more and at this stage of my children’s bilingual development, I have always found their ability to acquire two languages so effortlessly, nothing short of miraculous. How everyone around her says a word in Spanish 50 times and then along comes Mummy and says something different and she accepts it, quite happily repeating a complety different word as though humouring me. Paulo and Nico are not helping me out as they have decided that Spanish is their language for their sister. I keep trying to recruit their skills to my side of the linguistic table but ……… Luckily British grandparents are arriving on Sunday to remind her that it is not just her crazy mother who says the weird words!

New Latin American Cinema ……… and me.

The dust is settling on yet another Latin American Film Festival. I am becoming a veteran of these events, which is rather strange for a person who has never made a film in her life, Latin or otherwise. I am a self-confessed interloper in this world but I do love it! I used to escape home life of two baby boys, once a year to the Icaro Festival in Guatemala. My first visit to Guadalajara festival a few years ago is about the nearest thing Rafa and I have had to a honeymoon!

And quite frankly these days I don’t even get to watch many films during festivals or otherwise. Although I am introducing my boys to some classic James Bond to give them a little bit of British culture along with the Beatles and the Stones! I am well up on the latest Narnia, Harry Potter or other such delights of children’s cinema. Yesterday I had a discussion with Paulo and Nico on the reasons why Kung Fu Panda 2 was actually better than the first one! So you see the depths of film criticism that I am plundering.

So I have never made a film, but I do have 3 beautiful British Guatemalan Co-Productions to my name Paulo, Nico and Saskia.

This was my first Havana Film Festival, and I know it won’t be the last. The festival takes place in The National Hotel and several cinemas and locations around Havana. This year it also coincided with the 25^th anniversary of the Film school (EICTV). And as usual, the annual meeting of the Fundacion del Nuevo Cine Latin Americano, of which Rafa is a long standing committee member. And of course there was the most beautiful full moon too.

So very busy we were. The films I wanted to see but did not get to see include: all the Cuban films, all the films made by friends, all the Guatemalan films I haven’t seen and a few Brazilian and Norwegian ones too!

At least now I know I have access to the film school film library and can console myself with the fact that over the next few years I can work my way through some of the marvels of Latin Cinema at my own, mother of 3, pace. I am just so glad I got to see a lot of films and read a lot of novels in my not always misspent, and quite extended youth.

With 3 children, it is the usual juggling act of childcare whilst I escape to the many receptions and parties to which I am always invited, to see the huge gang of film makers that make up this wonderful community that revolves around the energy of EICTV and the Fundacion.

But what is New Latin American Cine exactly? I am told that the term grew out of the dark days when most of Latin America was under right wing dictatorships. When writers, artists and filmmakers trod a delicate line with the authorities. Also the filmmakers wanted to break away from the avalanche of Hollywood cinema hitting the region and defend the right to express themselves through their own images and stories during a time of great artistic repression. And from what I can see the movement has not stopped growing since those days.

When I met my husband (whilst interviewing filmmakers in Guatemala) and we began our family (the two events pretty much coincided) I did not realise that I too was entering into another family. A family of amazingly talented and passionate, independent filmmakers, good friends, warm and wonderful people, who never once made me feel like the interloper I so obviously am. Who knows maybe one day I will make a film ……… all about them!

The Party at the Film School was almost rained off, not something that happens too much in Cuba. The Van Vans, could not play and Rafa could hardly wrap up the ceremony as the heavens opened, but it did not stop most of us having a crazy night of dancing, reminiscing and drinking. Workers and their families mixed with diplomats, students and former students, musicians, film stars, directors, film festival Jury and of course little old me. Also a handful of my favourite Guatemalans to help me feel at home in my new life!

I had bought a new red dress for the event so I was rather too easily identifiable and I managed to stay up until 5am. I have to admit that it has taken me a few days to recover. I managed to keep going for the party in our house in Havana, which took place the following night but just could not make it to the closing party of the festival. Sorry to those friends I did not get to say goodbye to, but it was a school night!! I would like to take you up on your invitations some day to visit Brazil, Berlin, Costa Rica ………etc, etc. But I’ll see you all in Guadalajara in a couple of months, I hope. Guest Country Reino Unido ………. Oh yes that is my little country! I have not forgotten you.

Life is surreal ……. but I like it

I sat in the auditorium of the Museo de Belles Artes last night listening to some great British actors delivering a beautiful collection of Pinter’s plays and poems finishing with his incredibly powerful acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize for literature. The theatre was packed and the audience completely absorbed despite the ridiculously excessive aircon. I sat next to an employee of the museum who had her translated copy of Pinter to hand. It cost me 10 Cuban pesos (30p) for the entry and was all part of an international theatre festival taking place in Habana this week. I had driven there alone and parked right outside the theatre. After the performance I drove one of the actors, Roger (reluctantly famous as Trigger in Only Fools and Horses amongst his many other achievements) back to the National Hotel where we met the other actors and headed out for dinner.

I can drive right into the City centre at 7pm and not get stuck in traffic, park right outside whatever theatre, museum or restaurant that I happen to be going to. I don’t have to worry about traffic wardens, cameras, violent attacks or aggressive people. I can stop and chat to anybody and they don’t mind, in fact they always have time to chat. If I get lost everybody wants to help me find where I am going. Everybody has time ……..

As I was driving home I marvelled at how surreal and fascinating my life is here in Havana. I was exhausted and the salt water from the Malecon had sprayed my windscreen and I could hardly see where I was going so was crawling along like a campesino in the countryside as I tried to clean the screen. Here, in one of the most famous cities in the world, they are not big on street lights even in the centre. When I drove out to Hemingway’s beautiful house (a museum) the other day with some friends from Guatemala, I read a billboard (not many in these parts!) that reminded me that the first world uses three quarters of the world’s energy. That’s not fair is it!!?

The boys had half term this week and a good friend came from Guatemala with two sons so we were doing a few touristy things and keeping the children busy. 5 children in the house was quite a handful but we had 2 Cuban nannies recruited to help us keep our sanity! After they left I packed the boys off to school on Monday only to discover that the half term holiday lasted 1 week and 2 days. (Lost touch with reality and school holiday dates!) 2 more days to kill and I was rather tired of dragging out the Lego and jigsaw puzzles in the house as the stormy October weather kept us out of the sea. I decided to take them for some adventures in Havana and we ambled around chatting to lots of people and discovering strange modern Chinese video installations in one gallery and wonderful prints and etchings in another workshop where Paulo chose his Birthday picture of the Orisha spirit of fire. We stopped to buy lunch on the street and the boys splashed in the puddles in their welly boots in the little alleyways of Havana Vieja while I endeavoured to teach Nico the names of all the months in French by making up a little song.

Last week I had attended the UN day celebrations in an old palacio in Habana Vieja where I met people from the EU, the UN and the Nigerian Ambassador, who full of African charm promised to bring me one of those wonderful dresses from Nigeria when she goes at Christmas. Come round and visit me she boomed and I will take your measurements. I’ll take you up on that offer I thought to myself.

Anyway all these fun and surreal discoveries means that I am too tired and too stimulated to feel as though I am being a good mother or a good blogger for that matter. Too many things to do and not enough hours in the day to do them all, and sleep, and get woken up by Saskia at 5.30. Saskia has recently learnt the word apple just in time for apples to mysteriously completely disappear from Cuba and now every time she approaches the fruitbowl she jibbers on about apples and alas there are only bananas and pineapples. Thankfully the boys are now back at school and we have a bit of resting time before our next visitor arrives from England on Saturday. My dear friend and Paulo’s Godmother is trafficking Birthday Lego, Marmite, toothpaste, shampoo etc etc. and maybe, just maybe I will get that night out dancing ……………

Our house, the party and the French lover who fled the country

Our first party in our wonderful house all went very well. Everyone from the film school helped me to make it a success. Maeda arrived with flowers to fill the house from San Antonio and then a team of caterers from the school arrived not long after with food for 70 people and a chirpy barman who set up the bar. Havana friends all made it along and mixed really well so that I felt as though I wasn’t just the wife of the director and this was my house too!

This house is designed for parties, being right in front of the sea and having a bar in the garden. Up until now the bar has been used to house the paddling pool and various toys and inflatables but that night a barman was whipping up cocktails served in Coco shells (Coco Locos!) a few mojitos and whisky, beer and wine, as well serving me up something cold and bubbly brought by my Habana girlfriends.

I have begun to realise that our house, which has been the Protocol house in Havana for the film school for 25 years, is quite a little gem. It stands alone between a beach club used by the Cuban military and a huge ruin which most recently used to be the Institute of Oceanology (is that a word??). Apparently there are not many houses so slap bang on the sea in Havana. Many people don’t even know there is a house here even though they have lived in the area for years. It is very close to the leafy suburban streets and diplomat houses of Flores and Cubanacan but seems to be from another world. However, other people seem to know all about it and give me a knowing secretive look.

We are right at the end of Primer Avenida, el final, and as you drive the last block which looks forgotten and run down, it really does seem as though you have come to a dead end until you notice our unassuming house right in the corner. I love opening the front door to people as they are immediately transfixed by the Caribbean sea sparkling behind me and Cubans being Cubans, they almost knock me out of the way to have a closer look.

I began to wonder in the first few weeks ……. who built this house? Who did it used to belong to before the revolution or before the Film school? As Cubans love to talk and tell a good story it didn’t take me long to find out that this house does have a history …….

I intend to find out more but this is the story so far.

For those of you who don’t know who Batista is ……. here is a little description from a JFK speech on the run up to his election in 1960 whilst criticising Eisenhower´s government.

Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years … and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state – destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista – hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend – at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.

The house which has no number, is said to have been built in the early 50s for the French lover of someone pretty high up in Batistas pre-revolution government. Whoever she was she must have been a real character as the beach next door to our little one (now the military club) was known as the Francesita (the little French one). Bloody big house for one French ~~flousy~~ lady, but I thank her for my large walk in closet. Evidently she fled before the revolution as she was part of a more corrupt and dangerous time in Cuban history depending upon which side your bread was buttered. In the words of Arthur M Schlesinger when asked by the US government to analyse Batista’s Cuba.

The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the regime’s indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice … is an open invitation to revolution.

But the architectural evidence of La Habana harks back to another time when dirty money was everywhere. The beautiful ruin next door was also owned by one of Batista’s honchos who was enjoying regular meetings with Al Capone in his amazing palace with its huge private beach to discuss the blossoming future of the Mafia and more Casinos to be put into Club Habana, the beach club 5 minutes away which is where, somewhat ironically my children now have all their extra curricula activities!

I enjoy hearing about these pre-revolutionary days with the security of history and intend to find out more but I am glad that Fidel got rid of them all as after 8 years in Guatemala I know there is nothing remotely glamorous about gangsters or their girlfriends. And my family now lives in a paradise of tranquility despite the undeniable economic problems. I am not sure that even the Cubans realise what they have.

It could make a good film script though …….. somewhere down the line. And gives me something else to think about as I sit in front of the sea looking at the beautiful trees which line the beach next door as the sun goes down. Every night and most days people jump over the tumbling wall of this old mansion and get to the edge of the sea next door to us to fish and chat and watch the sea or whatever else they get up to. (Rafa was rather horrified how many condoms got washed up on the beach the other day when the currents were not in our favour).

I wonder what parties have taken place in this house? I need to investigate more ……….. just not sure how to yet. I will leave you with the words of JFK, an American icon (Oct. 1963).

I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.

Unfortunately, I think Guatemala is still paying for those sins.

My friend Tony says I can come round and use his zippy satelite internet connection whenever I want ……… so I may be able to post some photos soon!

Cuban Police and me ……..

I have just spent 8 years living in a country where the police are ………… quite frankly a joke. In fact, they are worse than that, they are a corrupt bunch of people who I would not call if anything remotely bad or good happened to me. I just wouldn’t trust them one bit. Also I knew someone who was raped by 3 policemen in Antigua and fled the country pretty soon with her daughter. Do you blame her? Rapists and the police have impunity in Guatemala along with a whole bunch of other low-lives ……..

By the end of my time there I had even stopped stopping for the police in Guatemala. My opinion of them was so low that even if they tried to wave me over in the road I would just wave at them like a foreign loony without a clue. One time I was involved in a police chase when I was taking the boys to their French class at Alliance Franςaise. I had touched the bonnet of a taxi whilst virtually stationary at a T junction and the taxi driver wanted to get a few quetzales out of me for his already falling apart taxi. I knew the drill and was so bored. The taxi driver managed to flag down a police car and they chased me all the way to the Alliance. I didn’t want the boys to be late and they LOVED being involved in a real life police chase. They ran into their French class as though they had just been on the best fairground ride ever!

I then had to go through the ridiculous farce of paying off the taxi driver and the police as any other option just isn’t worth it. At least the young police officer had the decency on this occasion to look a little bit ashamed. So my boys have always known that we did not have much respect for the police in Guatemala!

So here I am in Cuba a country with hardly any violent crime and certainly not of the organised variety. The police have a strong but unaggressive presence on the streets and I am glad they are there. Having said that I have already managed to get stopped twice! Schoolgirl errors, as really this is about the easiest city I have ever had the pleasure to drive around.

On my second Saturday I was suddenly filled with a desire to get out of the house and get Paulo’s hair cut before school began. Off we went down Quinta with a vague idea that someone told me that there was a barber shop near Nautico shopping centre and supermarket. Suddenly I saw it and swung across Quinta at the next opportunity. Peep peep peep went the policeman’s whistle. I was pulled over and a friendly policeman informed me that I had crossed a yellow line. Never cross a yellow line in Cuba, is a bit like never eat yellow snow. A good bit of basic advice.

The policeman asked me if I thought I should get a fine with a smile beginning to appear on his lips. Please no I am new in town and my son needs a haircut and I’m having problems getting my electronic wing mirrors on my new strange car to open. I promise I won’t do it again I was a bit confused! After this he helped me to back the car out and showed me where to park and where the barber shop was.

The second time I was on Quinta near our house on my way to get Saskia from her circulo (nursery). I have to say I am usually more bothered about going fast enough on Quinta as it says maintain your speed at 80 kph or 60 kph depending on which lane. So there I was trying to maintain 60 but falling short when I got pulled over. Maybe I wasn’t going fast enough I thought! A few teenagers crossed the road giggling and shouting suerte! I had forgotten that that part of Quinta was in a school zone where you have to go 40 kph. Quite right too. I was terribly apologetic to the polite and professional young office saying I had 3 children of my own etc etc. He asked for all my papers and when he realised that the car and the driver were in some ways connected to the film school he was even more friendly and kind. Apologising for bothering me. Not at all I said, el contrario! I think he even ended by sending greetings to the school and my husband. Once I got on my way again they drove past me waving!

So what have I learnt. Police in Cuba do their job but they are not officious nor heavy handed. Do not ever cross a yellow line on the road and watch out for school zones. And also that in a country that puts so much emphasis on cultural development like Cuba everyone knows the film school and our position here is a privileged one but in the nicest possible way. Rafa is respected for who he is, and what he does rather than how much money we have or have not or what model of car we drive.

In Limbo in Habana

My life has begun here in Havana but I still feel a little bit in limbo, mainly because the school term hasn’t begun for Rafa or the children …….. but after a few amateur mistakes, things are falling into place faster than I ever imagined.

Most importantly, we are all happy and relaxed as we never were in Guatemala and I haven´t even made any friends yet! But I feel so optimistic and happy for Rafa and I and our family life for the next 4 years. The energy here has let us all unravel. Rafa seems to be relishing his new role, and is getting up earlier than any of us every morning to swim in the sea and do Thai Chi. The children have hardly had their clothes on, especially Saskia, whose fat little bottom I am getting used to seeing waddling around the garden or sitting in her paddling pool. Her hair has also gone wildly curly and she looks prettier than ever! The boys spend more time swimming, chasing crabs, sailing off in their pretend boat to the island of Juventud ……. than fighting, as they had been during the last few weeks of uncertainty and stressful travelling.

Cuba loves children and everywhere we go my three are running around making friends. I feel so relaxed that I don’t have to worry about kidnapping or guns or narcos or just plain old uptight rich people judging us. Everyone has been so friendly ………..

I will always love Guatemala but living in that ridiculously unequal, repressed and violent society was not good for me. I feel things too much, even the things you don´t see. I wrote about Antigua life in this blog and will always love my friends but I can’t wait for them all to visit me here to see me in this new world.

When I think about the uptight rich Guatemalans and arrogant Americans who had never visited Cuba, but were so quick to tell me that it was a disaster. I will tell them, take a good look at yourselves before you criticise others. Cuba ain’t perfect but there is something intangibly special here.

So here goes my little update on life …….

We arrived to find out that both our cars were off the road. But now we have two cars outside our house. Mine is a big Chrysler Voyager with 3 rows of seats. Yikes! But there is no traffic in Cuba. Imagine 1950s England. After Guatemala and a month in UK this is driving paradise.

I had to deal with the cook, who introduced herself to me in February (our first visit) saying that she was in charge of the house. That is going to change, I thought to myself all those months ago. I didn’t like her from the beginning. Just her very presence in a room irritated me even before she opened her mouth and she would follow me around like a nurse in a mental institute.

The house had been empty for 8 years apart from the odd event or dinner and she had been ruling the roost. I couldn’t even go into my kitchen and get a glass of water without her breathing down my neck ……. literally. After 5 days Rafa came home to find me holed up in my bedroom like a depressed teenager on a school exchange. So she had to go! Her food was rubbish anyway and she hadn’t helped me find any of the things I had asked her. She wanted to be in control. Also there was a suspiciously large amount of food coming into the house that we certainly weren’t eating.

I think we have also found a nanny. I am not sure anyone can replace our beloved Juju but I have a really good feeling about this woman who is a friend of one of the ex-employees from the house and is a kind and gentle woman from the country. She is a teacher and a mother in her fifties looking for something less stressful and close to home (she lives in the first block of flats next to our house about 200 yards away).

Next the school issue. We were expecting to send the boys to the International School but after a quick visit to discuss payments we were blown away by the fees. The Film School had offered to pay for one of the boys but still we could not ask them to pay what they were demanding ……. a price expensive for anywhere in the world never mind Cuba. It was a bit of blow but sometimes things happen for a reason. We discovered the French international school was just 5 minutes from our house, a quick phone call and we found ourselves in the headmasters office filling out forms and laughing about how the French school was bringing rugby to Cuba. I have a feeling my little Nico will be good at rugby just like his grandfather and uncles …….. vamos a ver. I liked the headmaster, he had a little sparkle in his eyes like a good Santa.

So the boys will have another language, their third. They even offer French classes to parents which I will be taking ……… its 20 years since my days in France and I love the language. On top of that we have a very good French bakery round the corner with baguettes, croissant and pain au chocolat.

The food issue has not been such a big deal as I imagined and I have only been here just over a week. We are lucky as all our basics come from the Film School. I won’t have to shop for vegetables, rice, beans, meat, chicken, cheese, milk, yoghurt, flowers, water, beer, wine, cola, juice boxes, coffee, chocolates, serviettes ………. and a whole lot more. What we have already found is supplies of fish and prawns, Serrano ham and Olive Oil, Malta, tomatoes, bananas, onions, cream cheese and a bread that you could just about call wholemeal. All at cheaper prices than we paid in Guatemala.

What I foresee as the consumer issues are getting hold of good cheap clothes for the children and Rafa and good sunscreen and toiletries. But Rafa will be travelling and friends will be visiting ……. we shall survive outside the consumerist world I think.

Now to the technical issues. Rafa was so proud that he had sorted out my almost impossible to get hold of mac external modem and got me connected to internet in the house in a matter of days, only then to have a storm burn our modem 4 days later! He has just interrupted me to tell me that a Cuban Mexican friend from the school has already found us another modem in Mexico and is arriving in a matter of days to come to my internet rescue. She is also bringing Rafa a new MacBook which the school will pay for. We’ll be having a few mojitos with her watching the sunset when she arrives …….. my internet saviour!

We have also been told that all our things have got the green light from customs and we should have them by Monday. Oh my bed, my pillows, my kitchen stuff, Saskia’s toys, the boys Lego and bicycles we shall soon all be reunited!

So in a couple of weeks the children will be back at school, Saskia will start in her Cuban nursery, I will have a nanny, I will be online, we will all have the food we need, I will have time to write again ………. and maybe, just maybe, Rafa and I can get out for a night and go dancing.

We are coming up to a period of shooting stars apparently. As we sat outside last night looking at the stars I was wondering out loud to Rafa that maybe I felt happy here as I come from a little island off a big continent and here I am again on my island.

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Arrived in Cuba and dialing up my internet!

I bet you have all forgotten what that sounds like. I have to admit to feeling very nostalgic when I heard that old familiar noise.

Sorry for my absence from the blogsphere but the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster and I feel I have dragged my children all over England to family and friends for way too long with the usual highlights and low points that it always entails.

Now arrived in Cuba and just spent a wonderful day eating delicious food and tropical juices and swimming in the sea and most importantly getting my family back to normal.

So far loving the relaxed rhythm of Habana and the chatty friendly Cubans. My children seem so happy and at home and Rafa and I feel as though we are having the honeymoon we never had, holding hands and being wistful. Lets enjoy it while we can …….

Just watched the sun set over the sea and all my children are asleep in their own bedrooms albeit not in their own beds. Got all that to come … getting our stuff.

Will blog soon about jumping back into British society during a tense and sad summer of a mix of death (Amy Winehouse) and disappointment (the looting of new trainer and plasma screen riots).

My wonderful girlfriends that I left in Guatemala and London.

And first days in Cuba …………