i have put the photos on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/33129041@N00/ it faster to see them

 

gerry

 

ENJOY!!!!

 

 

I’m going to start the trip at Gatwick although I got Easyjet down from Edinburgh after work, so here goes.

 

The hotel in Gatwick was miles away and their shuttle bus left without me so it was a taxi, then the bus was full going back to the airport, another taxi, but the booking in online for the flight was a great idea, sailed through check-in and got a good window seat. hassle over, just sit back and relax - the couple beside me, I thought were from eastern Europe but weren’t speaking English so I went to sleep for a couple of hours. When I woke found out they were welsh!!! and turned out to be a really nice couple. The man was an ex-miner who was expelled from the labour party during the strike. The cabin crew came round with little beach bags with horrible bright yellow socks and toothpaste in them so the guy went round and collected loads of them for school bags for the Cuban kids. Watched the film ¨the queen¨, a pointless film full of sentimental Diana rubbish but Helen Mirren does look like her tho.

Arrived in Cuba to massive queues at passport control, 45 mins later got to the front to be told that I had not got a tourist visa so I would have to get a form from the back of the room - meanwhile 3 more flights had arrived - did something unlike me - filled out the form and pushed in at the front of the queue - no-one dared said anything !!

Got through customs and went to change some money to discover that I only had Scottish notes- they wouldn’t change them so went to the ¨hole in the wall¨ with my credit card - wouldn’t accept it- absolute panic but tried my debit card which don’t usually work in Cuba but it did this time! phew.

no shuttle bus so another taxi - not as expensive as UK taxi’s tho - to my 4 star hotel - yes you guessed it - minus 4 star hotel but at least they had my booking so I had a bed and a toilet that worked and a shower with cold or very cold water but what the hell I’m in Cuba !!


Went down to the bar for something to eat and a small Buccanero – Cuban equivalent of becks - and something to eat - had a good craic with the barman and a couple of Cubans at the bar, really starting to enjoy being here when a Cuban guy comes in and introduces himself and the left - 10 mins later he comes back with a very attractive Cuban Lady - the barman is obviously embarrassed and walks away - I explained the I wasn’t interested in salsa, clubbing , an evening stroll down the malecon etc etc  but he would not take no for an answer so I told him to F off and went to the hotel staff who just shrugged their shoulders. So went to bed - by myself!!!!

FRIDAY 24^TH NOV

So today I phoned ICAP to make arrangements to go to the camp CIJAM (campiemento internationale Julio Antonio Mella) tomorrow - sat- to be told that the camp doesn’t start till Monday, I can go on Sunday , so an extra day in Havana. Should I stay in my minus 4 star hotel or change to some luxury .... Decisions decisions

but I did go to the Havana club distillery museum which was ok but theY made you drink neat rum .... Terrible people these Cubans ......he he

Took a wander around Havana. This is the best way to discover the city and the central bit (vedado, centro and old Havana) is not that big. Walked from the Lincoln hotel(MY – 4 STAR HOTEL) up to the memorial for Julio Antonio Mella which sTands outside the entrance to the University of Havana.

 

Didn’t have a map but had a general idea of the lay out of the city, so took a wander towards the hotel national to change some money. Looking for the street called La Rampa and then walk towards the sea. Didn’t find the street but lots of Cubans trying to get me to go to a salsa festival at a house that Hemingway stayed in. I think it’s a bit like Mary queen of Scots – if they had stayed in every house that claimed they did they would have had to stay in 4 houses each day!!! Anyway, resisted the temptation of salsa, but headed towards the seafront (the malecon). I’ve gone too far to the west, nearly into Miramar, where all the big all-inclusive hotels are, it’s about a 3 mile walk back along the malecon to old Havana but its really nice stroll with lots of interesting buildings. Passing the “American interest building” home of the CIA in Cuba. A while back the Americans put up a screen with anti Cuban propaganda. The Cuban government came up with an unusual and very visual solution, 73 flagpoles with a black flag with a white star on each, to represent each of the people killed on the airliner blown up by anti-cuban terrorists backed by the US. 

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_Flight_455 )

 

Back at the hotel Lincoln, thought I’d try out the rooftop restaurant, the food was nice – pork steaks followed by homemade ice cream – however the temp dropped down quite a bit and the wind was cold.

SATURDAY 25^TH

 

Decided not to stay in Havana for one more night but got a taxi to the camp (no busses). I was the first to arrive but only 15 mins before the Mexican delegation - I thought it was only Europeans. Next came people from Panama, Germany, USA and finally the Irish (Dermot) with 8 British people. We were partaking of small refreshment when the Colombian delegation arrived and then the Greeks. Lost count at that time (around 1am) lost consciousness around 3am and still the music to wake you bellowed out at 6am - it was still dark.

SUNDAY 26^TH

Got the programme for the Whole trip today. Two surprises. First there is NO WORK!!!!! The trip is going to be made up of visits, parties, political talks and parties. Did I mention the parties?? And second - feel this needs a drum roll but don’t know how to spell it!!! - we are going to see Fidel make a speech in revolution square next Saturday and the other speakers will be Chavez , Ortega and one other unconfirmed speaker. Ok I won’t understand a word of it but SO.

Back in Havana today with Dermot. Dermot had to drop off a laptop to a Cuban family so took a taxi to the address we were given but when we got into the house Dermot realised that he had left his mobile in the taxi – although we tried to get it back he never saw it again so we went to the hotel Inglaterra it has cheaper internet and really good deep fried chicken for cuc$6 but it takes about an hour to come. After we took a walk down to the market at the Malecon when we got there Dermot’s jacket was missing, we think he may have left it in the hotel. He couldn’t be bothered going back to see if it was there. I got two unusual Christmas presents at the market they were bangles made out of silver forks with the prongs reshaped to make the design. Cubans recycle everything and do it so well. Got a coco cab to the friendship house to get the bus back to the camp.

 

The British group is in the two dorms next door and Ted transferred to our room to get a bottom bunk (he’s 89 years old) the rest of our room is made up of me, Dermot , Ted, two Canadians and 3 other British people but so far only one other Canadian has arrived, James who is nice but very quiet.

 

Monday 27^th

 

Usual wakeup call at 6am – electronic cock crowing followed by revolutionary tunes blaring out until you give in and get up. Toilet facilities are very basic. Cold showers, you have to brave it and once you get over the shock it’s ok. Toilets are cubicles which the wall go up to chest height, you soon get used to the bizarre situation of having a conversation while …… well you get the picture!!

 

The other Canadian, martin, arrived this morning around 5.30am with two huge cases, one of which contains a fold up bike. He promptly told us that he was allergic to perfumes which meant that we couldn’t use anything with perfumes in it.

 

Breakfast was similar but better than last time, boiled egg, roll with a slab of processed cheese and the choice of hot milk or a yoghurt drink. As I don’t like hot milk I took the yoghurt drink , it was a bit sharp but Dermot noticed that the Cubans all put two spoons of sugar in it, seemed like a good move so took the plunge and it was really nice.  

 

First official activity at 9.30 this morning. A wreath laying ceremony at the memorial to Julio Antonio Mella (the Cuban revolutionary that the camp is named after) and the camp staff gave us all a welcome flower and a small postcard to welcome each of the brigadistas.

 

 

The second activity is an official welcome from the director of the camp and an official from ICAP ( Cuban institute of friendship with the peoples) gave us some stats about the brigadistas – 233 brigadistas from 26 countries from around the world including groups from Iran, Italy and Guinea( Alexa was the only African brigadista). The speeches were all simultaneously translated which made a big difference. There was supposed to be a meeting of the leaders of all the brigades but it was cancelled so everyone headed for the bar. Two other Irish people arrived at the camp Jullian and his dad, Richard. Richard had been involved in the Irish struggle and had some unpublished works by Bobby Sands and others involved in the struggle. He was tying to get the Granma newspaper to publish some of them.   Before lunch I went to put my camera away in the dorm, the Canadian, Martin, was sleeping, so I put my camera in my bag and the Irish guys were going to stay in our dorm as the rest of the English brigadistas hadn’t arrive yet. Later One of the guys had aftershave on, Martin promptly screamed and ran out of the room!!! Apparently he’s very allergic!!

 

After lunch we met with some of the original rebels that came over on the Granma yacht in 1956. 84 rebels on a small boat for days which started the Cuban revolution and ended 3 years later with the rebel forces marching into Havana and the batista government fleeing to Miami. After the talk Richard got up and gave a great speech linking the Cuban struggle and the Irish struggle. Although, I’m sure most of the people in the room may not have got the full historical meaning of his speech, I found it quite touching. 

 

The dinner tonight was a welcome Cuban fiesta with lots of different Cuban music and dancing. It quite a spectacle, including Dermot doing the conga with loads of Cuban kids!!!

 

 

TUESDAY 28^TH

 

A few sore heads this morning but up for breakfast at 6am. There is a film at 9am about the Miami five. It will probably be in Spanish so may be able to get an hours’ sleep before the meeting with the families of the Miami 5. After 30 minutes of martin whinging about people and their deodorants, had enough so went to catch the final part of the film – which had English subtitles- discovered that I can plug my video camera into the simultaneous translation and get it directly on to the video. The speaker for the families of the 5 was Roberto Gonzales, a Cuban lawyer and brother of Rene Gonzales. I’ve video taped the talk and, if I can work out the technology, I will put up a link for it ASAP. After the talk, I caught up with Roberto and gave him a copy of the latest Scottish Socialist voice ( http://www.scottishsocialistvoice.net/back%20issues%2006/issue%20287.htm ) with an article on the Miami 5. I think he was quite impressed that there was so much information still being given out in Europe and in America.

 

After lunch there is a lecture on the history of the disagreement between Cuba and the USA. We had seen this one the last time – it is very interesting but I had a numb bum by this time so skipped it and got chatting to other brigadistas and the inevitable buccanero. So far myself and Dermot have made friends with Jerry, from England and emilianna and her mum Lisa, from the US but living in Venezuela. Emmilianna (hope I have the right spelling) was great, a real mixture of a typical (as I imagine) American teenager but with a healthy streak of communist cynicism mixed in. And then there were the Greek lads!.

 

After dinner it was a bus ride into Havana for the first of the celebrations to mark Fidel’s 80^th birthday. First problem is that myself and most of the English brigade thought it would be a work camp so didn’t take very much in the way of posh clothes. Still we all managed to put something together (Dermot is really quite a rubbish jeffe he he!!) we were all given a presentation bag with invitation cards to all the events and also an identity tag to get into all the appropriate areas my id had Herald Corbett on it !!!

 

One of the Greek guys was fairly uncomfortable with the police escort and I had to agree. Everywhere we went in Cuba, as a group, we were given 4 police motorbike escorts. The bus took us to the Carl Marx theatre (Carlos Marx Teatro), a superb modern theatre. The trouble was we had no interpreter to tell us what is going on (the work camps are usually very good at this and your interpreter becomes part of your group) so we were there for about an hour before anything happened. Any annoyance soon disappeared. There was a statement read out from Fidel – unfortunately in was in Spanish but we got translation a couple of days later – followed by an excellent show that covered all the Cuban cultural experience from cha cha to folk singers, salsa to children’s choirs but the highlight was the afro-Cuban dancers who did a traditional piece that was so full of energy and was just magnificent. Julian and Richard had bluffed their way in – they weren’t part of the brigade so didn’t have invites – full marks for brass neck !!

Back at the camp, the bar was shut! They seen to be a bit more sensitive to families his trip and so limit the noise after midnight.

 

 

WED 29^TH

 

Early start today – leaving the camp at 7.30 to take part in the colloquium. I think I might be excited about this if knew what it was!! Again no-one to explain where we were going or what we had to do when we get there. On arrival at the palace de convenniones our passes were checked – after I heard that Julian and his dad didn’t get in this time – and then show to a room where we had to deposit our cameras. later we discovered that the room was for putting you cameras if you didn’t want to carry them around, however, we were told that we weren’t allowed cameras. Then up to the first floor for coffee before the “colloquium” started – discovered that it was a convention with a variety of subject discussed in various rooms. The rooms were all fitted out with simultaneous translation and fancy consoles that you could use to indicate that you wanted to speak. We chose the one on the Cuban NHS (health service). I found it really interesting but after a couple of hours it became concentrated on very technical stuff and the accreditation of Fidel’s work towards building the service, although probably deserved, became a bit tiresome. A couple of things caught my attention – a talk by a nurse about her daily routine and how it had changed over the last few years and an article on interferon production. No sign of Fidel at this, however while we were sitting in the foyer after the morning session, the president of the Cuban parliament came and sat down beside us and gave an interview to the American press. There were no bodyguards or minders hanging about that we could see. Myself and Dermot had a brief, hushed chat about whether it would be appropriate to ask him for a photo but we thought it wouldn’t be fair to him while he was with the press, however we did take a sneaky photo – very discreetly. Chose to be “bad Boys” and got a taxi into old Havana for the afternoon, a visit to the hotel Inglaterra, to use the internet and have lunch. Dinner and show in the friendship house tonight. So went for a wander round old Havana, while in a square with booksellers I bought a pamphlet written by Che and translated into English. The old guy who sold it to me took me to one side and said “this is all for the tourists. You have to look deeper into the Cuban society” I asked him what he meant and he replied with a knowing nod “you wont find it in books”. Dermot gave me a shout and as I walked over to him, I noticed that Boris – one of the translators in 2004 was talking to him. It was great to see him. He told us he was married to a Belgian girl and was starting up a travel company with a guy in the UK. We went for a drink in another hotel that Hemingway used to drink in! we promised to meet up with him again before the end of the trip but, although we tried to get in touch we didn’t manage to see him.

 

At dinner, we were seated in the courtyard of the friendship house, a huge old town house, we had a great meal and super ice cream and best of all, a bottle of rum on each table. Met up with Luis Marron, who was in charge of our camp in 2004 and I’ve kept in touch with him. He tells me that he is coming to London, along with his wife and youngest son, in august 2007 for 3 years. He’s going to be the political attaché to the Cuban embassy in London. I know he doesn’t like the cold and every time he has been in Scotland he always gets a stinker of a cold. But he’s in good form and amazed at the magician – who was dong some excellent card tricks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THURSDAY 30^TH

 

 

Another early start, left the camp after breakfast 7.30am – far too early in my opinion. It is the second day of the colloquium. Costa Rican girls and one of the Colombian boys wanted to go into Havana so me, Dermot and Jerry agreed to join them and went into old Havana – we wanted to go to hotel inglaterra but the girls sat down in a café in a square and ordered some food – no atmosphere and very expensive. We got back to the convention centre for lunch and a very nice lunch it was too – very posh!! After lunch we go through to the hotel part of the convention centre to use the internet and while we are waiting we have a little mojito to pass the time and the next thing we know its time to leave for the evening concert.

 

The concert is a collection of music from south America and Africa. It starts at 9pm on the malecon (right outside the American interest building) and is quite a spectacle. It’s really great to see young Cubans dancing to cha cha bands. British kids would hate it. Highlights for me were an African band which seemed to be made up of a large extended family, and some Cuban folk music. There was a Colombian boy band singer who the Cuban kids loved – maybe kids across the world aren’t that different!! The concert was to be for 4 hours but 1am came and went and 2am, and 3am, and 4am and still it was going strong. We left around 4.45 and there was still another 3 bands to go. Obviously Cuban concerts are like Cuban speeches – go on for ever!! However it was a great event. It was estimated that there was around 70,000 people at the free event and the name of the event was very appropriate “all voices together” when everyone sang along with their favourite songs. I even belted out a few verses of “commandante che Guevara” and the “internationale”.

 

FRIDAY 1^ST DECEMBER

 

Slightly later start this morning, 8am so only had about 2 hours sleep. This morning’s activity is the opening of an art exhibition at the museum of fine art. The exhibition is titled “a hug from guayasamin to Fidel” . The word “Guayasamin” has cropped up a lot on this trip, most of the events were organised by the Guayasamin Foundation. I’m not big on “posh arts” so not sure if I’ll be in to this event. It starts with the obligatory speeches – notice some military generals, or the like, they look like they are Korean or Chinese. A really nice surprise inside, the exhibition is really good and very varied. I’m maybe not such a philistine after all!!.

 

One of my fellow “dignitaries” is Gerard Depardieu. Didn’t realise he was a lefty but nice to see him here. Discovered what “Guayasamin” is, it’s the name of one of Fidel’s favourite Cuban artists and has set up a foundation ( http://www.guayasamin.com/pages_ing/index.html ). The centre piece of the exhibition was a painting of Fidel. Barbara thought it made him look vaguely like Jesus!!!

 

After a nice lunch at the friendship house myself, jerry and Dermot got some flowers and went down to the Irish hunger strikers memorial to place the flowers there. It was kind of nice as there were people

from Ireland, Scotland and England there. However by the time we got back to friendship house all the buses had left for the closing ceremony of the colloquium. We had to jump in a taxi to the Carlos Marx theatre but the taxi had to drop us off a bit away because of the security. But we arrived just after the buses so we met up with fellow brigadistas before going in. again we were around an hour early for the ceremony and again no one explained what was to happen so we were kind of in the dark. While we were waiting we noticed that the other brigadistas were getting a blue invitation card. Nobody seemed to be coming near us so I asked mikael, the interpreter for the German group what it was for. He told us it was the invitation for main parade tomorrow and without it we wouldn’t get in. no one seemed to know who had our tickets and as the parade was the main event celebrating the landing of the rebels in 1956 we were a bit annoyed (should use a stronger word here but will be polite) eventually got hold of Renaldo, one of the other translators, who got some tickets for me and Dermot. If we hadn’t made a fuss we could have been missed out for one of the main events.

 

The closing ceremony was a who’s who of south American presidents. It started with the prime minister of ST Vincent and grenadine. He was the only one to give his speech in English and if you closed your eyes you would imagine he was from Jamaica – except white and he spoke very slowly, possibly for the translation, but made him sound as if he was stoned!!. Later on we discovered that on of the British brigade is a cousin of his!!  Next came Evo Morales, president of Bolivia who got a 2 minute standing ovation before he started and a 5 minute one at the end. He was followed by the foreign minister of Venezuela, who gave a speech on behalf of Chavez, who had an election the next day. Then came the president of Haiti and then Daniel Ortaga the new president of Nicaragua. The speeches were mostly about how Fidel was an inspiration to all the new emerging leftwing governments and thanking the peoples of Cuba for the help and support they had given over the last 40 odd years.    

 

The last speech was by the president of the communist party of Cuba but by this time I had lost concentration on all the speeches. I was disappointed that Raul Castro didn’t make a speech but he warmly greeted all the speakers after they had spoken.

 

We were supposed to have dinner at the friendship house that night but it was cancelled and we joined all the others at a five star buffet at a hotel on the outskirts of the city. The buses took us there but we were still annoyed about the incident with the ticket so when we arrived Dermot grabbed one of the officials from the camp and “had a word” with him. While he was doing this there was a guy giving away posters of Morales so I got a few for us. By the time we got a plate of food and walked out to the band that was playing by the pool (the bar was there as well) two of the interpreters had come across to ask if we were ok and were we enjoying the trip. They didn’t get a very good answer. I think we were supposed to have an early night but the party was great so we didn’t leave until midnight. We had a great, if not very tuneful, singsong on the way back with the Mexicans, they sung various Spanish songs and we sang “back home in Derry”, I sang a Gaelic song and Dermot sang “Irish ways” all very drunken and “male bonding”!!!