ABC200,

Some needed education for you on the matter.


Ten Million and Forty Years Later
August 16, 2010 | Print This Post Print This Post Email to a Friend Email to a Friend

By Yusimi Rodriguez, photos: Bill Hackwell

Taking the harvest to the mill. Mario Munoz Sugar Refinery, Matanzas, Cuba

HAVANA TIMES, August 16 – On the last Thursday of every month, issues of the country’s history and present are discussed and debated. These gatherings are held at the Cuban Film Institute Center (ICAIC) known as “Strawberry and Chocolate,” which is located in the corner of 23rd and 12th streets in Havana’s Vedado district. On Thursday, July 29, I attended one of these “Last Thursday Forums” for the first time.

First, a panel of specialists on the issue at hand gives a presentation, and then people in the audience pose questions or express their opinions. After this input the panelists respond. Though this forum is not promoted in the mass media, nor is it censored.

Attending regularly are intellectuals, writers and artists, as well as anyone who wants to participate, since admission is free. The topic of the forum that I attended was “The Harvest of Ten Million.”

Cane cutter.

That discussion took its name from the Cuban sugarcane harvest of 1970, when an effort was made to produce ten million tons of sugar. This goal was not reached and the harvest was a failure, though at the same time it was the biggest harvest in the history of our country – but at what price?

Discussing the failed campaign

The panel consisted of planner Selma Diaz; economist Julio Diaz Vazquez, a member of the National Institute of Land Reform in 1970; and the sociologist Juan Valdes Paz. They covered the carrying out the harvest and how cane was sowed anywhere and everywhere, even to the point of moving cattle off grazing land to devote more fields to planting, which strongly effected the agricultural and livestock industries.

Due to the resource allocation problems in sugar refineries, the shortage of qualified personnel and limited time to make the necessary adjustments, some government ministers even wound up managing refineries. When it came time to actually cut the cane, it was necessary to mobilize the whole country. Though lacking experience in this work, workers from all industries, students and even the members of the armed forces were called on to assist in a campaign that distorted the Cuban economy.

Cane cutter.

One person in the audience who spoke in the debate was 14 years old in 1970, but even at that age they went to cut cane. Their inexperience in this type of work led to getting cut with a machete. Nonetheless, this was not their bone of contention; instead, it was the fact that —as opposed to the point of view of historians, economists or politicians— there doesn’t exist a work that describes the harvest of 1970 from the perspective of those who directly experienced and suffered it.

Sewing sugar sacks.

The train in which this person traveled to cut cane was routed along a preferential railroad line so they arrived at their destination in a little more than one day. To return home, a bunch of oranges was the provision for each one of those passengers on the train, which —no longer having a preferred route— took three days to reach Havana; the bags of oranges lasted one. They returned tired, hungry and without knowing the outcome of the harvest, the result of their effort.

Even if the ten million tons had been reached, would that have compensated all the effort and the sacrifice, or all the resources that were devoted to the harvest? Before attending this forum, I had heard that during those months classes had closed and even the night schools were shut down. The rest of the industries in the country were practically paralyzed. People who participated in the debate and had lived during that time only confirmed these facts to me.

Pyrrhus of Epirus, one of the greatest military leaders in history, conquered the Romans in the battle of Asculum; however he lost 3,505 soldiers against the less than 6,000 Romans who fell. When his was congratulated for his victory he responded, “With another such victory I shall be ruined.” The harvest of 1970 didn’t end up being a pyrrhic victory – it was worse. It was a pyrrhic defeat because the ten million tons were not reached and the cost was that the harvest lasted longer than normal, land was left devastated, and agriculture and cattle breeding suffered damage from which the country has never totally recovered.

Revelations around the fateful decision

How is it possible that the ten million ton goal was not achieved despite the massive labor force that was dedicated to cutting cane, despite the enthusiasm with which the Cuban people took on that task, and their unbridled confidence that it was possible to achieve it?

Sugar train. Mario Munoz Sugar Refinery, Matanzas

I’ve known people who worked in the harvest and they’ve told me that when they participated they were convinced that they were building the economic future of the country. It was the moment for each to make a sacrifice for a prosperous tomorrow in which shortages would never again exist. Now I find that naïve, though I look at them with respect. I’m sure that if it had been possible to produce the ten million tons of sugar, if it had only depended on the effort of the Cuban people, it would have been accomplished.

Many cried when it was announced that the ten million would not be achieved. At that moment, the immense majority of people ignored the fact that our leader, Commander-in-chief Fidel Castro, had been alerted that the goal of ten million was impossible. Over the years I heard rumors and speculation of this in different versions: “An engineer warned him,” “a French economist alerted him,” “the Russians told him.”

Mario Munoz Sugar Mill

On Thursday, July 29, the “Last Thursday Forum” was focused on learning the truth about this matter. Any other information would be interesting, especially from the mouths of those who were involved in the harvest. But what I wanted to know was if the country’s leadership —more specifically, our leader— knew ahead of time that it was not possible to reach the ten million ton figure.

Selma Diaz related that she had been part of the group in charge of analyzing the capacity of the country’s sugar refineries to achieve a harvest of ten million tons. That analysis began starting with the mid-1960s. When that commission met with our commander-in-chief, they told him that it was only possible to produce 8.5 million tons. He said that it should be nine, and when they met again he increased the figure to ten.

Consequences of being closed to criticism

Rumors are hardly ever groundless. I’m sure that all of us present at 23rd & 12th had heard that the person responsible for establishing that impossible goal had been Fidel Castro, but we wanted to hear it from the experts. We needed to hear it said aloud in an official setting, or at least in one that up until then had not been censored. A secret in hushed voices is not the same thing as a truth stated in public. The novelty was not the information in and of itself, but in the fact of hearing it directly, in public and from the mouth of someone who was involved in the event.

Sugar refinery worker.

I told this to a friend at the beginning of last week. I was dying to tell it to someone and I did it with the air of someone who had a scoop, because although she must have heard the same rumors as me all her life, she hadn’t attended the forum.

My friend is 59. I found out her exact age that day and also that her father had worked in the sugar industry for many years prior to the victory of the Revolution. In 1970 he had enough experience to know that it was impossible to produce ten million tons of sugar. As the true revolutionary he was, he tried to alert people in a meeting at his workplace that this goal could not be achieved. That cost him his membership card in the Communist Party of Cuba.

As his daughter, my friend told me that he didn’t have to wait long for time to prove him right. Though he had been recognized as being among a “national vanguard worker” for many years (thanks to which my friend got to go to a house at the Varadero beach resort every year), they didn’t return her father’s Party card to him until he was much older.

I don’t think I would have accepted it. I wouldn’t want to be member of an organization that I couldn’t question if it were acting in a way that appeared to be wrong and in which I couldn’t express an opinion that contradicted the official line.

Moreover, that is not only a situation of the past. Recently, Esteban Morales was “separated” from the Communist Party of Cuba for publishing a letter with criticisms and matters that were not received well by the leadership of the Party. While they ceaselessly repeat that “Revolution is to change everything that must be changed,” according to the “Concept of Revolution” voiced by comrade Fidel Castro in 2000, they continue applying the same policies.

Continued counterproductive whitewashing

For me, what was most paradoxical on Thursday, July 29, was the cover of the official Granma newspaper that day. For months, the newspaper has been publishing fragments of old speeches by the Commander-in-chief with the clear intention of demonstrating to us the present validity of his ideas from those times. If now it’s necessary to eliminate many jobs across the country, for example, they show us on the cover of Granma an excerpt of a speech by the Commandant from thirty or forty years ago criticizing excessive staffing (despite the fact that this has existed in our country ever since that time).

Sugar refinery worker.

Reading these excerpts in Granma, you have to ask yourself how it’s possible that we’ve faced and continued to face so many problems about which our leader has warned us in the past. It turns out that our official press continues to highlight the role of the leader and recalls his successes. His errors though are orphaned and enunciated in passive voice (“it was not foreseen,” “it was not planned,” “it was not understood”) or wrapped in an “us,” which makes us all responsible for the errors of a single person.

The fragment that I read in the Thursday July 29 edition of Granma in fact recalled his speech from September 3, 1970, from the same year as the harvest that constituted such a tremendous failure.

But in the excerpt, Fidel called people’s attention to a minority of people who effectively exploited the general public because they didn’t work yet enjoyed public resources. “When the inhuman factors disappear that previously forced people to work, the alternative of this is the maximum development of collective consciousness and the employment of a coercive force of working society against those who aspire to live parasitically off of others… “

I wonder what that use of coercive force would consist of exactly. But I especially wonder whether the ten million tons of sugar would have been achieved if those “parasites” had been incorporated in cutting sugar cane? Were they the ones responsible for the failure of the harvest and the country’s subsequent economic problems? In that harvest, the refineries couldn’t process all of the cane that was cut. But while people’s attention was diverted toward those people who didn’t work, they didn’t have time to reflect on the errors made by the highest leadership of the country.

" they didn’t have time to reflect on the errors made by the highest leadership of the country."

I guess in times of crisis scape goats are necessary

so, Atabey, tell us that you are going to copy and paste us an article with a different spin. you know..one written by someone with different political leanings. i mean, posting one guys side is not education...it is indoctrination.

You're intellectually dishonest and given that this piece comes from a news outlet in CUBA that purports to write WITH AN OPEN MIND. I can understand why the concept and the writing may not register in your dead weighted brain. Drink some strong coffee. It just might awaken a few memory cell and their connecting synapses.

A Sliver of Power
October 6, 2010 |

Yusimi Rodriguez

Shot from Revolution Square Havana by Stephen Morgan

HAVANA TIMES, Oct. 6 — Though fascinated by it, I was thinking of putting the issue of power on the back burner, at least for a while – though lately I feel like everything has to do with it. Yet what I chose to write about today was “The Last Thursday,” a regular monthly forum organized by Temas magazine and held in the Strawberry and Chocolate facility across from the Chaplin Theater in our capital.

On September 30 the forum was dedicated to the “Special Period” economic crisis, a stage that many Cubans aren’t sure has ended. Unfortunately, I’m compelled to write about a different aspect of the gathering.

I arrived at the locale running at about four o’clock, the time the “Last Thursday” forum begins. I saw that the door was closed and I thought that the gathering had been postponed. I asked the man standing there, who was holding a walkie-talkie, if the discussion was going to be held. He told me that it was but that no more people would be allowed in because the place was full. I told him that I didn’t need a seat; that I could stand or sit on the floor, that it was my birthday and that I had dropped other things to come to Last Thursday.

It was true; on September 30 I turned 34. But that didn’t matter; the man still told me that I couldn’t go in, even though I insisted. Other people came and we all pleaded for the same thing, all saying that we were willing to stand. I still don’t know why I didn’t just gave up. The fact was that it was humiliating to have to beg that man to let us into a place where admission was free, to an event that had been publicized on TV.

Despite this, he didn’t even bother to look at us in the face. He simply sat down there inside and left us standing there outside, as if we were some mutts. He only condescended to go to the door to open it for some worker or to let someone out who was already inside.

The best part, or one of the best parts, was when the director of a renowned Havana cultural institution showed up also wanting to get in. I imagined that because he was who he was, they were going to let him in, and I had already begun thinking through my editorial about privileges granted to some people who hold certain positions have in this country.

Yet surprisingly they didn’t let him in either, though he said he had received a special e-mail invitation to the debate (as had many of those who were standing there). But the gatekeeper didn’t bother to give the illustrious guest an explanation; he merely turned his back on him just as he had done the rest of us. The culture official told the guard that he didn’t know who he was talking to. I thought he was going to say “I’m the director of…,” but he didn’t go that far. Instead, he used the argument that he was one of this country’s writers, that this fact should be enough, at least to win him a little respect.

Havana mural photo by MarcoPetrovic.

I don’t like officials. In other circumstances that same director of a cultural institution would have represented power to me. I’m sure that in other circumstances he would have felt like he was a representative of some power, a figure with certain privileges, someone who could sit down with our Minister of Culture and who could travel abroad on occasion. That’s what I thought. But now they were treating him pretty much like a sack of potatoes, and the gentleman looked disconcerted.

Welcome to reality, my friend.

The situation brought a kind of relief for the rest of us. We even cracked jokes about the circumstances, perhaps because we’ve become used to these after such a long time. In fact, it was during that Special Period —which has spanned a good part of my adolescence and my adult life— that I heard, “You’re not allowed in here,” and I didn’t expect any explanation. I didn’t even think we were owed explanations.

But the writer/executive felt too insulted and pushed the door. I thought that there was going to be a physical altercation, but at that very moment there finally appeared someone who was able to explain to the guard who he was dealing with (or, better said, who he was abusing). But the gatekeeper said that though he would eventually let us and the others in who were standing at the door, he wasn’t going to admit the writer/executive. In case someone hadn’t made it clear, it was not the organizers of “Last Thursday” who had the power to decide who got in – but him.

Since I’m not a well-known writer who can hold up some little book, and nor am I a culture official, I asked for a favor from that individual to please (I said please something like three times in a row) to please check with the organizers inside to see if there was any possibility that they might take care of things and allow us in to sit on the floor or to remain standing, because the issue being dealt with in the debate interested us greatly. The man told me that he would try and went to take a look inside. I really wanted to think that he was going to.

The best part of things like this is the solidarity that emerges, the jokes, and the things that you learn. It turns out that this same individual is always on the door when Last Thursday is held, and on other occasions he prevented people from entering by telling them that there was no room inside, though later we found out that it was a lie.

Complaints filed but the guard remains

What’s interesting is that people have started filing complaints about the way this guard deals with the public. Someone even found out that he has a police warning about making threats. Notwithstanding, they’ve kept him on there (or could it be that his position with the public is what makes him the most suited person to be at the door?).

Cooling off on Havana's Malecon seawall. Photo: Serge Dias de Sousa

When he came back I asked him if there was any answer from organizers. He never responded. I repeated the question every time we opened the door for people who were leaving the discussion. I even found out from one of them that the place wasn’t so full. She had chosen to leave because her Spanish wasn’t good enough to follow what was happening inside.

Then it occurred to us to tell the man that if some of the people inside had left, then there must be some space for others to come in. Still there was no answer. I then asked him what his argument was now for not letting us to enter. When he finally had no other alternative than to respond to me, he looked at me and said, “I don’t know what the argument is.”

Even when we no longer had hope of entering, we remained there. For me, what was happening there outside of the debate on the Special Period was suddenly more interesting. We continued pleading, of course, though I think that it was by the force of inertia. It was past five in the afternoon when the guard again came to the door – and incredibly he opened it. I had been among the first in this group to arrive, so I found it logical that I would go first – naive as I am. The only reason I was lucky enough to get into the discussion on the Special Period was that I was woman. I knew it when I entered. The guard allowed us to enter because we were women and we had been standing there for a long time.

A concession to the women

It was great that it only took him one hour and ten minutes to realize that we were women. There were men there who had showed up before some of the females, but they were males; therefore they didn’t have a chance of either seeing or participating in the debate.

Powerful Shadow. Photo by Liset Cruz

In any case, they stayed until the end, and I even heard the guard communicating on his walkie-talkie about a rapid response brigade that was ready to intervene in case those people who were trying to get into the forum created any type of problem. I would like to believe that they misunderstood what they heard; given the circumstances. It’s possible that their adrenaline and paranoia levels shot way up, but what need could there have been for a rapid response brigade when all of us were students and workers (with jobs at the moment), and when we had not physically attacked or threatened to attack anyone?

Whenever a situation like this finally ends, it’s like when you’re leaving a cinema. People don’t head home all at once; it’s necessary to exchange greetings, to discuss (some more) about what was saw inside. Plus, those of us who were kept outside had to share our experiences. My male friends called me a traitor —jokingly, of course— for having taken advantage of my feminine privileges and entered at the last moment. Cubans have the virtue of making jokes about everything. The guard passed by us on the side and then disappeared. His share of power for the day had been spent. We wouldn’t see each other again until the next “Last Thursday”; that’s what we were thinking at least.

But the man made a sudden half turn and started coming directly toward one of us who had been standing outside the whole time. To be exact, it was the brother of one of people who had been on the panel of specialists that participated in the debate; though at no time did he use that argument to get in. “What’s your problem?” the guard yelled, “I’m done working now; so if you want, we can take it to the corner, let’s go.” That’s what he said as he shoved the shoulder of our comrade, who didn’t respond aggressively. Another young guy questioned the man about his aggressive behavior, and they argued only inches from me. I didn’t know if I should leave, ask them to calm down, or wait. Fortunately, there were no blows exchanged.

The guard finally went away, and along with my relief I also felt a bit of sadness for that man – so convinced that he was doing his duty. What came to my mind were those movies where there are always a good cop and a bad cop. This man’s last name is Pavon (according to him), the same as the other Pavon (Luis Pavon) who led the repression of so many people in Cuba in the 1970s. He too acted in the belief that he was doing his duty, serving in accordance with official government policy in those years. That earlier Pavon, publically reviled in 2007, was the visible face of “parametration” and the repression of homosexuals, and he paid the price. That’s the job of a bad cop. This other Pavon is also a bad cop (it seems that the last name Pavon has bad karma).

as i have maintained , many a time and oft, you are a moron.. any ten year old child realises that there are three sides to every story. two opposing viewpoints, and the truth, which lies somewhere inbetween. only an untrained mind, such as yours, takes an article written by someone WHOM HE DOES NOT EVEN KNOW, and tries to assert it as being doxology. that leaves no room for critical analysis, and a search for truth. then again, you are, firstly, too lazy to search, which is why EVERYTHING you post is a copy and paste article. nothing original, nothing creative, nothing insightful. always someone elses thoughts. the reason is simple. you are a lightweight. no intellectual firepower. no power of analysis. no textbooks. no background. just a copy and paste robot, following your ideological pied pipers from Fox News. I eat guys like you for breakfast, without breaking into a sweat.

Priceless!


Now go drink some strong coffee you old Goat.

With Less Money, but More Happiness
October 11, 2010 | Print This Post Print This Post Email to a Friend Email to a Friend

By Yusimi Rodriguez

Daily life scene in Havana.

HAVANA TIMES, Oct. 11 — A couple of months ago I met “Marielys” (who like other people I’ve interviewed won’t give her real name, but I had to call her something). As I walked with her to the bus stop, she told me something that almost knocked me on my butt. She said, “I quit a job where I earned 475 pesos a month plus a bag of toiletries (with soap, deodorant, detergent, sanitary napkins, razors, etc.) for another job where I earn only 355 pesos and don’t get a toiletry bag”

“Generally what people do is try to move up instead of going backwards. I went backwards economically, that’s obvious, but I didn’t take a step back professionally or spiritually, because now I’m doing what I really like, something that I see as making more sense and as being a place where I’ve found myself,” she insisted.

The job that Marielys left which paid 475 pesos and that also included a bag of toiletries was that of a social worker.

The following is the conversation I had with her:

Could you explain to the readers what the Social Workers Program consists of? I have a vague idea. I think it began in 2000 or 2001.

I’m not sure about the exact date, but it must have been in 2000 because I was in last my year of high school when the whole boom in social workers began. In theory it’s a very beautiful profession. Like Fidel said, we were “the doctors of the soul.” Here we don’t have an entity that supports us economically with material things to give to people, meaning that our work was out of pure effort and was very spiritual, listening to people’s problems. We couldn’t do anything else because we had nothing else to give. We could only serve as mediators between people and the State.

What type of people did you assist?

Basically people with some type of social disadvantage, for example older adults living alone, people with disabilities, single mothers, or people who lived in dysfunctional families… That’s why they were having difficulties with social development. And prisoners, we also worked in prisons.

So how is it possible that you didn’t see the sense in all that?

When we were in the school everything was painted very pretty, but like the saying goes: “There’s a tremendous gap between theory and practice.” When we hit the ground, so to speak, there was a lot of bureaucracy. If you place me in a situation for me to serve as the mediator between a person in need and the State, you have to give me the tools for solving that problem. For example, if I’m going to process the ration book of a person who needs it, you can’t delay that process for a month or more, which is what often happened.

Daily life scene in Havana.

I was a social worker for seven or eight years, and there were cases that I had from when I first started that still hadn’t been resolved by the time I left, or the client simply never received an answer. The paperwork would get lost, or someone would misfile it and I would have to send it to them again. There was no one really responsibility over what we were doing. I’m not blaming everything on the State, because there were many factors; for example the bureaucracy, which prevented the work from being done like it should have been.

I believe that we had an idea of how the things should have worked, but reality always surpassed any study that was done. That’s why a lot of people were disappointed, just like what happened to me. I saw that we were just one group that was created to address what was necessary at the moment. We took part in the Energy Revolution, Operation Miracle, the annual Havana Book Fair…

Did you feel useful in carrying out that work?

Yes, I felt very useful working around the Energy Revolution and the Book Fair book; these were more concrete activities with objectives that were more specific, more real. Often what we did on other projects was paperwork, say making lists of children from zero to fifteen years of age. But then they would tell you on Tuesday afternoon that you had to turn in the list on Wednesday morning; things like that, just plain absurd. They would tell you, “Make a list of children who are in dysfunctional families,” everything in such a rush. This means that if research was being conducted, it wasn’t being done in any depth; instead, it was being done to merely to fill out paperwork and forms. This was repeated over and over again. We spent a year making lists and more lists. And we didn’t understand why we had to keep doing the same thing.

During the time you were a social worker, what problems were you able to detect? What were the problems that had the most impact on you?

There were people who struggled for the revolution, gave the best of their lives working, and right now they don’t have anything, or they didn’t enjoy the same benefits as other people who struggled and are now recognized. There were people who really needed what they were asking for, but because of all the bureaucracy their problems were never addressed. I found people living in places where their roofs were falling in, but the only thing that was done was to send a social worker to listen to their problems. I’m telling you, it’s true that you’re a doctor of the soul in this job, you can listen to the problems of some person once or twice, but you’re not going to lift their spirits going there five times… What for? To tell them what?

I’m telling you this from my point of view. I don’t know, maybe it’s that I didn’t understand what we were supposed to do. But people have material needs that determine their conditions and their social behavior. Everything depends on the economy. You’re going to think like you live. If you don’t have a roof over your head, you can’t think about studying or anything else. It’s real, though they want to see it in another light and try to divert the thinking of that person, but it’s real. If you’re experiencing need and living in misery, you can’t think about “Homeland or death.” You think about your need because it’s what’s paramount. They often wanted us to go there and sit down with people… like for example what my boss told me to do one time; she said: “If the girl’s book-bag is dirty, you have to wash it for her. And if the mother wants you to take the child to the doctor, you have to pick the kid up and take her.” I wasn’t there for that, because it doesn’t help psychologically. You help a person by making them aware of their problem, and then you can help them look for roads to solving these.

Did you see anything positive in the work?

Well, positive, yes. Underweight or undernourished children were given a special diet, and it was completely free. It was a diet that didn’t help them gain weight, but nor did it allow them to lose more weight or worsen their situation. The food was given to them every month and it consisted of pasta, rice, beans and oil. This was something that I recognized as positive. Plus they organized different activities for those children; for example, during the week of school vacation, on Children’s Day, on April 4 or whatever day that was set aside for children. We would also take them to the Book Fair.

What was behind the problem of these low-weight or undernourished children?

It could have been something genetic or pathological, or it could have been due to some social situation in the family. Either of these two situations were requirements for getting into the program. This could mean that parents in a perfect economic situation could have a child who was undernourished or had low weight; however, they wouldn’t be given the special diet because the parents had the means to obtain it to solve the problem. The children who were prioritized were those with low weight or undernourished who were social work cases, critical cases, or those in dysfunctional families; in short, those who really needed it.

Community art project.

Other positive things? Well, there was the Book Fair, which as I already mentioned was something I felt quite useful when I participated in it, and the Energy Revolution Program at one time…

Why at one time?

There were things that weren’t very well thought out, like in all experiments. In the end the home appliances that were delivered were not what were needed by Cuban homemakers because they didn’t find them useful, and that could be seen. The Energy Revolution had two moments: a first moment when we were working in CUPET gas stations, every place where gasoline was being wasted, and later when we were giving away energy efficient cooking appliances. Later a lot of people took whatever they had access to and the program ended up in mass graft and pilfering.

Who was involved in the graft?

The social workers themselves. They also stole gasoline and sold electric appliances. A lot of things happened.

Were you also involved in that graft? Remembers I’m not here to judge you, and your name won’t appear in the interview.

I wasn’t involved, but it was something that was all around me.

So what happened with those people who were involved?

Nothing. Nobody saw anything since everybody was doing the same thing… the workers in the warehouses, everybody. Everybody was after pesos… everybody who was there. And the ones who didn’t benefit from the Energy Revolution didn’t benefit from anything.

That means it must have been pretty difficult to resist temptation…

Very difficult. The problem was that the first social work cases were the social workers… The program began with the objective of giving jobs to many youth who were neither working or studying. The purpose of the program was so they could do something with their future, so they could study, and have more opportunities. They were given an “fast-track” social worker’s course that lasted six months. For this, they were paid a stipend of 50 pesos and came out of the program with a job that paid 340 pesos a month.

From the very moment you began the course, they gave you the 50 pesos, plus a bag of toiletries. You had the opportunity to take that course when you finished your final year of high school or if you were disconnected from work or study. You had an open schedule, as well as ability to get into a community college to study for a career without having to take an admissions exam. It couldn’t have been any easier for a person who was not in school or working, someone who previously had been sitting on the corner doing nothing? In the beginning, there were thousands of people who entered the field like that. However, they were both the cream of the crop and the dregs, and a lot of them were just marginal… What I’m trying to say is that the first social work cases were the new social workers themselves. It was something almost Machiavellian: you would go to a house to find out about the situation of a person whose roof had holes in it just like your own home, or possibly theirs had completely collapsed.


Well in Cuba we have an excess of problems with housing, right?

Exactly. So imagine who the people were in this program. They were the same ones who hadn’t been enrolled in school, which was my situation… However I entered from the heart, because that was what I wanted to do. I knew that I wasn’t going to pass the math admissions exam because I’m not good in that subject, but they said they were going to drop the exams for me to get into the social work program. I was super excited with that.

Havana building crying for help.

There was a moment, before I got in, though, when they said they weren’t going to take any more students. I was devastated since I couldn’t imagine doing anything that wasn’t social work, because that’s what I liked – helping people.

But suddenly you changed, and it wasn’t precisely due to any economic reason…

It’s what I told you, when you meet reality head on, reality trumps everything. I saw that there was no relation between what we had studied, what was so beautiful in school with such good professors, and what we found in the street.

But weren’t you tempted by the toiletries bags and the wage of almost five hundred pesos?

No, absolutely not. I might die with bread and water, but I’ll have bread and water working in what I like.

It seems that at this point the readers will want to know what job you have that’s so phenomenal that it’s worth going hungry and giving up a toiletry bag and 475 pesos for a flat wage of a little more than 300 pesos.

I earn 355 pesos as a cultural promoter. It’s not a “phenomenal” job for many people, but for me it’s something I wanted to do and where I’ve been able to find myself.

So do you feel that in your present job you’re really being useful?

Yes…yes. You have to understand that a cultural promoter is a social worker in the cultural sphere. In the end, everybody who works in relation to society is a social worker. That’s something inside a person… I also love cultural development, but as a social worker they didn’t allow you to venture further on. Everything was very limited to roles, to steps, to bureaucracy. But here I see that I’m useful because I work with children, with grandparents, with people who are disabled, with children with psycho-social problems. And you see the concrete results because when you organize an activity for a group of people, you can see their happiness as the activity unfolds, and then they thank you. They’ll see you in the street and they’ll ask you when the next activity will be held. You can see their gratitude, though it’s not necessary for them to thank you at that exact moment.

What activities do you organize for those people?

In the summer we set up children’s activities, ones that are both recreational and educational, ones appropriate for the development of their childhood. We also have activities for the elderly. You know that with the elderly in this country (I say this because I’m not familiar with elderly development in other countries) what families do is send them to pick up bread, to pick up newspapers and to run other errands. We assist in the community dining rooms, the grandparents’ centers, the geriatrics centers, and we organize activities that range from art exhibitions to participation in sports and table games. We involve them in singing and reciting.

But what about the resources to carry out those activities?

Well, I’ve already told you that this work is that of a social worker. You have to arrange things here and set up things over there. Because right now, with the situation that the country is in —which is the same situation our country has always been— you don’t have the luxury of having a warehouse where you can go and get the things you need. Fortunately I see that the Ministry of Culture has a bit more resources: audio equipment, local talent from the neighborhood cultural centers, and we can rely a great deal on the natural promoters from the Popular Council. So from all of that comes our work.

Havana street scene.

Also, since you’re connected to cultural institutions, you also have to have some spark, some self-motivation. You might not have audio equipment one day, but there may be a good moderator and a good singer; so you go with that to organize your activity for the grandparents. If there’s a clown that has a performance every Saturday morning, then you have to lasso the kids and take them there. It’s a beautiful job from my point of view because I like to do things for people. I have an immense need to share, to always give and do things. In other words, I’ve found that I can do more for society as a cultural promoter than as a social worker.

But for less money

Yes, for less money, but with more happiness.