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.

Losing control, peaceful Tuesday and approaching 8.

I appear to have lost control of my children. I don’t know when this happened, but I am trying to remain calm, as after many years I have realised that being a parent means that nothing is a permanent state. Nothing lasts, neither the good nor the bad.

I remember the days when friends visiting last Christmas were in awe at the ease I put my little girl to bed. She was even at times known to ask to go to bed! Pacha, cuna, Lammy! Pacha being Guatemalan for bottle, cuna Spanish for cot and Lammy, the inventive name of her cuddly lamb from her English godmother. I even allowed myself to be a little smug about it …. a dangerous emotion when it comes to children.

Anyway needless to say that this no longer remains the case. Now we get woken up all night by her refrains, the most heart-wrenching of which are ……. Mummy I LOVE you (she has this one down to a tee and it comes in various desperate and persuasive versions), Mummy I want to BE with you (as previous), Mummy I don’t want to be solita (her favourite Spanglish one). And then she does them all for Papa (sometimes she starts with Papa, as she knows he’s a soft touch) and anyone else she thinks could be in the house at the time. Not sure why this is going on, but we are beginning to lose patience and feel as though we are parents of a small baby with the amount of sleep disturbance and deprivation we are suffering.

She has become such a bossy boots mandonna. She makes us sit on the chair next to her bed, or lie on the rug. A couple of times we have fallen asleep on said rug. We crawl out of her bedroom on hands and knees, only to be rumbled at the last moment as the door creaks.

The boys are also not being so obedient on the whole going to bed thing either and it is noticeable how much happier as a family we all are when we get some sleep. Sleep has become a commodity that I am obsessed with like in the small baby days. My threats and negotiations to try and get the boys to at least stay in their beds reading, after the tooth brushing, storytime, quality parent time is wrapped up, do not appear to be having much success. In fact they just laugh at me.

Yesterday I dusted down the expensive and very US style responsibility chart that I bought years ago in Guatemala. It has things like Way to Go, Good Job, and baseball gloves and trophys on it and not many velcro stickers saying things like ….. rubbish! A long way off! Or a thumbs down sign. On closer examination I decided this thing but have originated in some God-fearing bible bashing state because it appears that the children don’t need it and it is just there to make the parents feel good and holy. I have images of sweet southern belle, hat doffing children full of yes sirs and yes maams.

Anyway I showed it to the boys and said that this week we would just concentrate on the going to bed one as I placed the bed Velcro sticker firmly on one side of the week. Paulo quickly retorted with a know it all sabe lo todo comment that the Velcro sticker was for making your bed. For my purpose it is going to bed, I said. Ahh but we know what it really is, he said. I realised that I was already losing my sense of humour and patience and contemplated throwing the responsibility chart at the sniggering pair. Then I promised them a special secret prize at the weekend if they manage 5 good school nights. Then I remembered it was Paulo’s 8th birthday at the weekend so the whole idea of getting something special on Saturday was a bit redundant and as Paulo is the main ringleader on the not going to bed and being cheeky racket, with Nico a willing accomplice, my reward angle was already on rocky ground.

So this week I have a huge piñata birthday party to organize in the back garden and as I am just coming down from the success of our biggest party last Friday in the house, my enthusiasm for organising a children’s bash is slightly waining. I have to admit to an inherent dislike of children’s birthday parties. I know I have 3 kids and many years to go but I would willingly give someone a fistful of notes and let them do it for me with a small cameo role for present giving and cake cutting expected whilst I hang out with my friends and enjoy an early glass of wine to get me through. I know I should revel and enjoy their happiness on their special day …….. but yeah well I just don’t.

So here I am enjoying one of my peaceful Tuesdays when I give everyone the day off and the boys are in school until 4pm after theatre and magic classes and I get chance to write and rattle round the house in my pyjamas with my little Lila the dog. But I know that this is the quiet before the storm of 30 children descending on the house with puppet shows and jugglers to entertain them.

Also the Havana film festival is just around the corner and I have another couple of parties to organize and a very un-Christmassy Havana Christmas with my biggest goal being trying to find somewhere to sing Christmas carols.

Meanwhile the Cuba winter weather is here, rather better than a British summer and I am marveling at how fast my clothes dry on their windy seaside washing line. Sad I know, but laundry is the only domestic task I quite enjoy, way more than organizing children’s birthday parties anyway. To me nothing more satisfying than a fast drying by the sun and wind pillowcase smelling lightly of the sea breeze. Hmmm maybe I am quite sad, but it is peaceful Tuesday when stroking my fast drying laundry is about as good as it gets ………… ,-)

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.

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.

Quinta Avenida, Embassies and Air Con

A month has flown by and my life is still not sorted but we have done so much in such a short space of time. We need to remind ourselves, on those days when we both feel exhausted and I’m lying on the Bodega floor (coolest place in the house) clutching a bottle of fine red wine …….. to take it easy and look how far we have come already.

We have met more interesting wonderful people than I thought possible in one month. Rafa had a visit from his oldest friend from film school days, Mariano from Angola. Mariano was here for an African film event in Havana so was pretty busy but they managed to spend some time together and catch up on 20 years of news, and talk about the old days. Through Mariano we met the extremely cool Tony, also Angolan and married to the Italian head of the UN here in Cuba. They are neighbours, and we look forward to seeing more of them starting with a party this Thursday to say goodbye to the Africans. Already trying to get some early nights in to prepare for that one as from what I see Angolans like to party!

I too have met some great mothers in a short space of time : Dutch, German, Guatemalan, Cuban and French. Even one British dad from Yorkshire!

We managed to get the lovely Maida to come from the Film school on Friday night to babysit and got out for our first night. We didn’t hit the underground dance scene in Habana as I plan to do, if my life as mother of 3 ever allows it, but went to two embassy events. One France, one Mexico. It was work for Rafa but fun too!

The film school was involved in an international meeting on Film archives and as the French presence was strong the ambassador had a reception. (No Ferrero Rochets in sight just a few mojitos). The French Residence is in a beautiful crumbling palace in Miramar so it was a very pleasant way to start the evening on their splendid garden patio. I met an interesting chatty Brit, Sue ex-BBC now with her own film archive company.

Next stop up the road to the Mexicans for a bit of mariachi and lots of delicious Mexican boquitas. Strangely enough nobody was dancing in the garden where they band were pumping it out with all the Mexican charm necessary to fill the floor. So quietly tapping my foot and swinging my hips, we spent most of the evening chatting to a couple of Cubans, one of them Rafa’s ex teacher from his student days at the Film school, a successful producer. They live close to us so I am sure we will see them again. For the second time since arriving in Cuba I was told that I don’t seem English, that my personality is more Latina! Hmm, I still think I am very bloody English, people just don’t know what us English girls can be like!

I spend a lot of time cruising up and down Quinta Avenida, the beautiful boulevard that runs from this smart suburb to the centre of Habana. Our house, the supermarkets, the panaderia, the boys school, Saskia’s new nursery in beautiful Miramar are all just off it. There is never much traffic and it is as straight and treelined as any Avenida should be. I felt quite at home listening to Leftfield on my ipod stopping to pick up passengers on my way back from Miramar this morning. (Yes hitchhiking is legal and safe in Cuba and I love giving people lifts and having a quick chat. As a rule I only pick up women but if I saw a wise old man I would stop too I think! Anyway I shall write a whole blog about the hitchhiking thing when I get chance. La Botella, they call it for some reason).

All the traffic lights have count downs here in Habana. I love it, you know exactly how much time you have to wait and if it is worth putting your foot down or just slowly cruising to a stop. Also it is helping the boys a lot with their counting backwards skills!

After one month I think I have finally mastered living with air con, still not quite sure what all the buttons do on the controls but I can now manage to put them on and turn them up and down which is about as much as I´ll ever need to know. In a few weeks the temperature will drop and I hope we can just enjoy the sea breezes.

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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On the run, safe house and processions …….

safe house, processions, on the run, Guatemala, Cuba, UK, Calle Camposeco, Antigua, — Calle Camposeco ......... of course!

Our possessions have all disappeared and are due to mysteriously arrive in another country where I am sure we will spend an eternity fighting with the customs …… but we are ready for it.

What if the ship sinks? I forgot to take the negatives out of my old pre-digital precious photos. No time for that kind of neuroticism, now we are officially on the run with all that we can carry, but we have been kindly lent a safe house in Antigua by Rafa´s sister to hide out in our last rainy days in Guatemala. I have to say it feels a bit weird ……. halfway between tourist and fugitive!

Calle Camposeco is a lively little street not far from the beautiful Merced Church. However, the day that we arrived it was extra lively. It happened to be their Catholic street party and THE procession event of their whole year.

So, shattered, after moving all day, or nervously watching the ants of Caniz dismantle my home at a frightening pace, we arrived to the pre procession party which in this neck of the woods means loudspeakers outside your window blasting out Mexican ranchera music. Not a genre that I am too fond of, and not one that I associate with religious festivals, no! far from it ……… generally fat ugly men being lovingly stroked by hot young babes on Bandamax videos.

They packed up at 11pm but were hard at it again at 4.30am the next morning whilst they made their flower alfombras, we had a brief interlude of marimba music before the ranchera music was back to terrorise us ……..

alfombre1 — Love the carpets but why the awful very uncatholic music?

IMG00841-20110703-0759 — View from our window

IMG00844-20110703-0931 — Our temporary neighbours

By the end of the morning Paulo was playing football with the neighbours (the ones of the elaborate shrine) and the procession had passed …….and quite nice it was too in the end to watch it all from our little window.

Tag: Guatemala