Tag: Saskia

Easter in Cuba, a savage tree murder and a bonfire

Easter arrived in Cuba.  After 8 years of dealing with Semana Santa in Antigua I am rather relieved that Easter like Christmas is not such a big deal, although I am sure my children don’t agree.  Luckily my German friend Katharina always organises a wonderfully tasteful German Easter with an egg hunt in her garden for the children and Easter bread very similar to hot cross buns.

Easter Sunday in Cuba

Anyway, Good Friday had been announced as a holiday here in Cuba but typically no mention of why or for what reason the whole of the country was being given a day off.  The French school, which doesn’t acknowledge religious festivals did a sneaky Monday holiday.  I totally forgot and turned up at the circulo with Saskia on Friday, realising pretty fast when there was no sign of anybody.  After all the chilly weather Good Friday was a typical hot steamy day.

Another happy customer

The night before some militares from our neighbouring beach club had stupidly set fire to some rubbish at the end of our road, for no particular reason other than to piss off everybody in the neighbourhood, as far as I could tell.  It was too far for us to reach with the hosepipe so we tried to chuck buckets of water but by the time we managed to put out the plastic the flames has spread inside the trunk of our beautiful seaside spruce which marks the end of our road.  I had grown very fond of the tree not just because it was tall and beautiful but it was also symbolic.  The boys are not allowed to cycle or venture past it alone.  It marks the limit of the dogs territory and the gang of gangster male dogs don’t often venture past it.  If cars drive past it towards our house we know they are lost or looking for trouble!

Anyway most of Good Friday was spent with a bunch of around 20 guys, sent by the local council hanging around at the end of my road watching one guy hack the tree to bits with a chainsaw on the end of a large crane.  Every time I walked past to get into the car and pick the boys or take them to fencing, with Saskia in tow with her little mantra poor tree Mummy , pobrecito, I had to take the usual chatback you get from workers who are not working.  Enquiries of my nationality, my marital status (rather obvious I thought) amongst the other usual repartee.  They wanted me to bring them all refrescos (soft drinks).  I retorted that there was only one guy working and he was not making a very nice job of hacking my tree to death, so I wasn’t feeling very well disposed to waiting on them all like a 1950’s wife.  Finally around 4pm they had finished their work leaving an ugly hacked stump and branches and debris all over the road.  I managed to just about drive through it later.  We had already planned a bonfire for Saturday night but now we had even more reason.

Friday night we all went to the film school.  A friend was having a Birthday party and we thought it would be fun to hang out and chat with staff and students.  It had been a pretty intense couple of weeks for everybody and thesis time is arriving so nerves are getting frayed.  We took the nanny so we could actually stay up late, not always a good idea with 3 children.

We made it back to Havana for lunch the next day and poor Rafa had to rush off to another film meeting and festival in Havana.  I sat and watched Les Miserables with the boys and Saskia.  What a boring musical, not one good track if you ask me.  I don’t know how it had such a long run in London’s West End.  Paulo with typical endurance was the only one to stay awake or interested.  He watched it to the bitter end, bless him!

We were all ready to sit staring at the bonfire by 7pm and Rafa and the boys helped build it.  We had new fast-burning spruce branches to throw on and I got well into it like a seasoned pyromaniac, at one point hurting my wrist as I over enthusiastically snapped branches but never-the-less carrying on like the crazy fire starter I realise I am.  (secretly I can’t wait for our next one, I don’t care about the children!)  Anyway I didn’t think too much about my injury but ended up in the hospital by Tuesday afternoon having an X ray but luckily no fractures.  We went out to a party on Tuesday night and after a couple of glasses of wine, I thought oh its nothing and began to use it again.  Later that night I could hardly sleep and was almost in tears, wailing …. this is worse than childbirth!  The next day I used all the Cuban remedies for inflammation.  A compress of grated malanga (a root vegetable very common here) and some strange leaf, the name I can’t remember.  Today I am a new woman although my hand still looks suspiciously as though it has had a botox treatment.

This weekend is Saskia’s Birthday and the little Diva has been talking about it for months so we are all getting ready for the big event.  She has many adult admirers so it is growing into quite a big party for all of us!

The Diva preparing for her big day!

New York preparations going really well.  We have 4 nights and it is going to be non-stop.  I am really looking forward to it.  I haven’t been to New York for around 15 years, and have generally got on with New Yorkers.  I like their straight talking attitude, and New York is almost as cosmopolitan as my dearest London.  We have lots of meeting with interesting people and film schools and yes I am going to power shop like a Cubanita!

Scripts, Saskia and Selfishness

Lots of important decisions to make this weekend and I am feeling as though I have two voices in my head …….. One says you deserve time to yourself to do your own thing, and the world is full of working Mums who happily leave their children in other’s care.  And the other one which is saying, oh my little baby girl is only 2 and needs her mummy.  Also she is the only one of my children who tries to speak Spanish to me.  The only way is to spend more time with her reading books and chatting, and also get her brothers to speak more English to her as her day to day world is completely Cuban.  On top of everything she is rather a joy to be with right now, talking talking talking and very affectionate.  Lots of cuddles and kisses and I love you Mummy.

I have been trying to do script workshops at the film school and it is not always easy to find ones that fit into my schedule and that I feel able to do.  Right now I am getting ready to start a course on “Short film theory and practice: creating characters, scenes and sequences” with Paul Duran from LA.  But I am in a bit of turmoil.  I am very lucky to have a nanny, who is both honest and a very nice person, but she is still not taking charge of my 3 children with enough energy or commitment.  She doesn’t work too many hours as most of the time I am here except the 2 days a week when I go to the film school.  Anyway, the idea being that she will learn from me and I will be more free to work in the future when she can step up. I know I am probably just being neurotic about leaving them.

So our yearly trip to Guadalajara is looming and I am thinking how can I do a 2 week workshop and then hop on a plane to Guadalajara for 4 nights, am I crazy?  I know that the guilt is not helped by the fact that I do not feel convinced by the nanny.  I must have faith.  When I am not around I think she will step up!

Teachers´party in the house tonight for 80.  Leaving party for our good friend Miguel who is sadly off to New York and a possy from the US (Morgan’s Creek etc.) arriving for drinks on Sunday night and I should be calmly preparing everything for my 2 weeks of going back to school.  Like what the hell am I going to write a script about????

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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