Cuba’s Humane History
Jeannette Ryder was an American doctor’s wife who moved to Cuba and founded El Bando de Piedad de la Isla de Cuba (The Cuban Group for Compassion) in 1905. Originally she worked for alleviating the problems of humans and animals, but eventually she focused on the protection of animals, notably militating against bullfights and rescuing strays from the streets. El Bando de Piedad worked tirelessly for animal welfare until Jeannette’s death in 1931. She is remembered today in Cuba as the mother of Cuba’s humane movement. A Cuban airmail stamp was issued in her honor in 1957.
Today, Ryder’s gravesite is a must-see point of interest in Havana’s huge Colón Cemetery, where it is known as La Tumba de la Lealdad (the tomb of loyalty). The grave is covered with a beautiful sculpture of Jeannette lying peacefully, while curled at her feet, lies Rinti, her faithful dog, who, at her passing, found her grave and lied there refusing food and water until he also died. Fernando Boarda did the sculpture in 1944, thus immortalizing Ryder’s lifetime of work for the animals.
Aniplant (Asociación Cubana para la Protección de Animales y Plantas) is the modern day successor to El Bando de Piedad , having organized in 1986 under the then new Cuban law #54. Aniplant is the only organization doing animal protection work permitted in Cuba. Originators of Aniplant included Alicia Alonso, world famous ballerina, and María Alvarez Ríos, nationally famous singer and author. (María is Nora García’s adoptive mother.)
Nora García began her work in Aniplant as Secretary of the organization, after having pursued her interest in animals since childhood. In 1992 she was named President of Aniplant, and there began a notable expansion of the organization’s work. Today, Aniplant, under Nora’s leadership, spays or neuters more than 2000 animals per year, disseminates humane education through two weekly radio shows and a television show., aids dog and cat refuges, and promotes adoption of dogs and cats. Nora is known throughout Havana, and she is constantly stopped on the street to answer questions about people’s pets.
Aniplant is embarking on an expansion program, and in the last few months has absorbed an informal local group in Varadero, Cuba’s beach playground to the east of Havana. Look for other such mergers as time goes on.
When I started researching the humane movement in Cuba, I was struck by the parallels between Jeannette Ryder and Nora García and between El Bando and Aniplant. Both leaders—indeed both organizations—were driven by a need to help the animals who suffered through ignorance, neglect, or fate. Today’s Aniplant is the modern image of El Bando de la Piedad, and Nora is surely the reincarnation of Jeannette Ryder.
The animals of Cuba owe much to these two remarkable women whose work inspires us.
Les Inglis
Friday, July 30, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising is so common here in the US that we filter out most of it from our consciousness, and so for us it’s difficult to sense the absence of something we filter out. Thus, my first couple of days in Cuba were accompanied by a faint feeling something was missing. Of course it was advertising, one of the essential tools of capitalism.
In Cuba billboards are non-existent except when the government wants to tell you something. Pull open the glass door of a tourist shop, and there are no Visa or MasterCard decals on it. If you listen to a Cuban radio station, it has no commercials. Life in Cuba, for all its serious problems, is free of voices, signs, billboards trying to get your attention, and it generates sort of a vague, empty feeling at first, until you realize what’s going on.
In the communist “utopia” central planning decides on one source for whatever is needed. Thus: no competition and no need for advertising. Stores don’t hang out signs touting their wares, and even the iconic Cuban cigar makers don’t spend money touting their products. Somehow everyone finds out where to get what he or she must have, but it isn’t through advertising. Signs promoting products somehow seem anti-communist and are clearly frowned upon. One source for each product, a communist ideal, kills Madison Avenue’s Tower of Babel.
Well, there is an exception, and that is the government. It can and does place billboards with political messages wherever it chooses. The scarcity of billboards makes the political messages all the more powerful. Driving south from my hotel, we climb a hill and wind through a park. “Venceremos,” (we shall win) shouts a billboard we pass by. A park in front of the US Interests Section (the equivalent of our embassy) sports several billboards with partisan slogans and even an unflattering caricature of George Bush. Allusions to nazism in America are common.
We aren’t above playing this same game; an electrically lit signboard with a moving message was installed high on the US Interests Section building, and it showed political messages from the US point of view. It caused lots of attention as it could be seen for many blocks along the Malecón, Havana’s seaside expressway. Not to be outdone in his own capital, Fidel planted a field of 50 flagpoles with large black flags which effectively hid the moving message board from drivers on the Malecón. El Comandante won this battle and the US signboard came off the building.
While grown men, leaders of their countries, played tit for tat or one-up-manship, Nora Garcia, President of Aniplant took advantage of the prohibition of advertising to promote the protection of animals. One of her volunteers is a top-flight photographer who blew up pictures of some of Cuba’s dogs and cats and put them on signboards that other volunteers could carry in public places. (A la the old “Eat at Joe’s” type signs you used to see men carrying to promote restaurants in the US,) The volunteers with their signboards provoke many questions, and they promote Aniplant spay-neuter clinics, solicit membership, and dispense general humane information.
Even Fidel doesn’t silence voices in support of animals.
Les Inglis
Advertising is so common here in the US that we filter out most of it from our consciousness, and so for us it’s difficult to sense the absence of something we filter out. Thus, my first couple of days in Cuba were accompanied by a faint feeling something was missing. Of course it was advertising, one of the essential tools of capitalism.
In Cuba billboards are non-existent except when the government wants to tell you something. Pull open the glass door of a tourist shop, and there are no Visa or MasterCard decals on it. If you listen to a Cuban radio station, it has no commercials. Life in Cuba, for all its serious problems, is free of voices, signs, billboards trying to get your attention, and it generates sort of a vague, empty feeling at first, until you realize what’s going on.
In the communist “utopia” central planning decides on one source for whatever is needed. Thus: no competition and no need for advertising. Stores don’t hang out signs touting their wares, and even the iconic Cuban cigar makers don’t spend money touting their products. Somehow everyone finds out where to get what he or she must have, but it isn’t through advertising. Signs promoting products somehow seem anti-communist and are clearly frowned upon. One source for each product, a communist ideal, kills Madison Avenue’s Tower of Babel.
Well, there is an exception, and that is the government. It can and does place billboards with political messages wherever it chooses. The scarcity of billboards makes the political messages all the more powerful. Driving south from my hotel, we climb a hill and wind through a park. “Venceremos,” (we shall win) shouts a billboard we pass by. A park in front of the US Interests Section (the equivalent of our embassy) sports several billboards with partisan slogans and even an unflattering caricature of George Bush. Allusions to nazism in America are common.
We aren’t above playing this same game; an electrically lit signboard with a moving message was installed high on the US Interests Section building, and it showed political messages from the US point of view. It caused lots of attention as it could be seen for many blocks along the Malecón, Havana’s seaside expressway. Not to be outdone in his own capital, Fidel planted a field of 50 flagpoles with large black flags which effectively hid the moving message board from drivers on the Malecón. El Comandante won this battle and the US signboard came off the building.
While grown men, leaders of their countries, played tit for tat or one-up-manship, Nora Garcia, President of Aniplant took advantage of the prohibition of advertising to promote the protection of animals. One of her volunteers is a top-flight photographer who blew up pictures of some of Cuba’s dogs and cats and put them on signboards that other volunteers could carry in public places. (A la the old “Eat at Joe’s” type signs you used to see men carrying to promote restaurants in the US,) The volunteers with their signboards provoke many questions, and they promote Aniplant spay-neuter clinics, solicit membership, and dispense general humane information.
Even Fidel doesn’t silence voices in support of animals.
Les Inglis
Friday, July 16, 2010
Getting Around Town
Getting Around Town
Less than 300 miles from where I sit is a city of 2,000,000 people with a poor excuse for a transportation system. Havana has no subway, no ell, no streetcars, an antiquated and inefficient bus system, and the average citizen can’t afford to use the taxis. Fortunately the city is tightly compacted so most people walk to where they want to go.
When I first visited there, the busses were camellos hardly more than semi trucks where the passengers rode in the trailers. I was amazed at the rush-hour crowds waiting at main intersections—often more than two hundred people. Amazed, that is, until I saw a camello pull up, more than 100 people get out of the double doors in the middle of the trailer. Then more than 100 got on the trailer, and the tired old tractor truck ground through its gears to get up a little speed between stops. Of course there was no air conditioning, and every window was wide open.
The camello name (means camel) came from the twin humps of the trailer as the mid section with the doors was built closer to the street to make entrance and exit a step rather than a climb. Fidel and company replaced the last camellos only very recently with new busses from China, but there still aren’t enough of them.
Taxis prowl the city—usually clean new Peugeots or Hyundais. But they cost too much, and they only accept CUC’s, the Cuban convertible currency which average people don’t use. Thus taxis are only for tourists.
Using the old 50’s style US cars that local mechanics have kept running for 50 years or more is a possibility for a Cuban with a long way to go. They all know a hand signal code to ask for rides from the jitney driver. Nora Garcia showed us how that works as she stepped into the street to flag down a 53 Buick for a ride out to the suburbs. Nora quickly negotiated a price for our ride out to and back from the National Zoo in the suburbs.
Some people think of these iconic relics as collector cars, but most are beyond restoration and in bad condition that would not interest collectors. This one growled with a broken muffler and had two wires sticking out of a hole in the dashboard where the radio used to be. To start the engine the driver touched the two wires together and the engine started. I saw a floor shift and asked the driver about it as Buick got rid of those more than a dozen years before this one was new. The driver told me the car had a Toyota truck chasis, engine, and transmission. The only part of the old Buick left was the shell of the car. Some of these old cars have been rebuilt with Toyota engines repeatedly.
There is a train in Cuba, and it can take you from Old Havana east to Cardenas and Matanzas. A few use the trains to commute, but two legs and shoe leather are the most common transportation.
Everywhere you go you see dogs in the streets. All are loose, and many are pets with homes, but a good number are strays with a bleak future. Old, sick, and dying dogs out in public are bad for the tourist business, and the government rounds them up using teams of prisoners and trucks. The strays are kept for a few days and then dispatched with strychnine—a very unpleasant way to die.
But, more about Cuba’s treatment of man’s best friend in a later chapter.
Les Inglis
Less than 300 miles from where I sit is a city of 2,000,000 people with a poor excuse for a transportation system. Havana has no subway, no ell, no streetcars, an antiquated and inefficient bus system, and the average citizen can’t afford to use the taxis. Fortunately the city is tightly compacted so most people walk to where they want to go.
When I first visited there, the busses were camellos hardly more than semi trucks where the passengers rode in the trailers. I was amazed at the rush-hour crowds waiting at main intersections—often more than two hundred people. Amazed, that is, until I saw a camello pull up, more than 100 people get out of the double doors in the middle of the trailer. Then more than 100 got on the trailer, and the tired old tractor truck ground through its gears to get up a little speed between stops. Of course there was no air conditioning, and every window was wide open.
The camello name (means camel) came from the twin humps of the trailer as the mid section with the doors was built closer to the street to make entrance and exit a step rather than a climb. Fidel and company replaced the last camellos only very recently with new busses from China, but there still aren’t enough of them.
Taxis prowl the city—usually clean new Peugeots or Hyundais. But they cost too much, and they only accept CUC’s, the Cuban convertible currency which average people don’t use. Thus taxis are only for tourists.
Using the old 50’s style US cars that local mechanics have kept running for 50 years or more is a possibility for a Cuban with a long way to go. They all know a hand signal code to ask for rides from the jitney driver. Nora Garcia showed us how that works as she stepped into the street to flag down a 53 Buick for a ride out to the suburbs. Nora quickly negotiated a price for our ride out to and back from the National Zoo in the suburbs.
Some people think of these iconic relics as collector cars, but most are beyond restoration and in bad condition that would not interest collectors. This one growled with a broken muffler and had two wires sticking out of a hole in the dashboard where the radio used to be. To start the engine the driver touched the two wires together and the engine started. I saw a floor shift and asked the driver about it as Buick got rid of those more than a dozen years before this one was new. The driver told me the car had a Toyota truck chasis, engine, and transmission. The only part of the old Buick left was the shell of the car. Some of these old cars have been rebuilt with Toyota engines repeatedly.
There is a train in Cuba, and it can take you from Old Havana east to Cardenas and Matanzas. A few use the trains to commute, but two legs and shoe leather are the most common transportation.
Everywhere you go you see dogs in the streets. All are loose, and many are pets with homes, but a good number are strays with a bleak future. Old, sick, and dying dogs out in public are bad for the tourist business, and the government rounds them up using teams of prisoners and trucks. The strays are kept for a few days and then dispatched with strychnine—a very unpleasant way to die.
But, more about Cuba’s treatment of man’s best friend in a later chapter.
Les Inglis
Friday, July 9, 2010
Evolution
Evolution
In 2007 we began to plan a system of support for Aniplant’s regular weekend spay-neuter clinics. One of the first assumptions I needed to make was the average size of the animals to be neutered. I figured a good sized US cat might weigh over 10 pounds, and dogs at home surely average between 20 and 30 pounds. But I had already noticed that the average Cuban dog is nowhere near 20 pounds. More like 15 pounds, I thought, and we used that weight to estimate the amount of Ketamine we would need per animal for anesthesia.
In succeeding years it has become clear the average dog is even less than 15 pounds as each order of Ketamine seems to go farther than we planned. Why are Cuba’s dogs so much smaller than those in the US?
Well, my engineering training has given me a healthy respect for science, yet I’m ill-disposed to engage in the war of words between religion and science about how everything came to be. Still, I must say Cuba’s small dogs are the result of an evolutionary process. Now before any of you write to take issue with that idea, please hear me out.
Cuba was part of the abundant western world until January 1959, when Castro’s revolution took over. In 1959 with 71% of Cuban businesses owned by the US, Cuba then mirrored our own 20th century success. But very shortly after the
Castro takeover, a schism developed between the US and Cuban governments. These differences rapidly led to the nationalization of US-owned businesses in Cuba and soon also to Cuba’s gravitating into the communist sphere (the only other option).
From the beginning, Cuban people fell onto hard times. Getting enough to eat was a daily problem, not always suitably solved. Pet dogs and cats, used to eating scraps from the family table, began to know the pangs of hunger on a regular basis. You might say, well OK, but 50 years is a short time to see an evolutionary change. And I’d agree with you if we were talking about people, but among dogs and cats, 50 years can easily be 50 generations. For a human comparison, 50 generations is about 1000 years, and surely we’ve seen many evolutionary changes in people in the last 1000 years. For example, the average person’s height and weight have increased as food became more abundant. The lifespan has increased due to modern sanitation and, to a lesser extent, due to modern medicine.
So 50 generations of too little food to eat shows up first in dogs and cats as it has done in Cuba. No doubt John Scopes and Charles Darwin would embrace my evolutionary canine weight theory while William Jennings Bryan would castigate me roundly.
Another side to this discussion is the tameness and near-symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs. That too came from evolutionary selection, as the wolves who had less fear of humans came to live nearer them, ate their leftovers, and gradually took up joint endeavors like sheep herding, protecting homes, etc.
And when Peachy, my beautiful rescued Golden Doodle barks at strangers, I can sense traces of ancient wolves standing guard in my home, and I can thank the process of natural selection.
Les Inglis
In 2007 we began to plan a system of support for Aniplant’s regular weekend spay-neuter clinics. One of the first assumptions I needed to make was the average size of the animals to be neutered. I figured a good sized US cat might weigh over 10 pounds, and dogs at home surely average between 20 and 30 pounds. But I had already noticed that the average Cuban dog is nowhere near 20 pounds. More like 15 pounds, I thought, and we used that weight to estimate the amount of Ketamine we would need per animal for anesthesia.
In succeeding years it has become clear the average dog is even less than 15 pounds as each order of Ketamine seems to go farther than we planned. Why are Cuba’s dogs so much smaller than those in the US?
Well, my engineering training has given me a healthy respect for science, yet I’m ill-disposed to engage in the war of words between religion and science about how everything came to be. Still, I must say Cuba’s small dogs are the result of an evolutionary process. Now before any of you write to take issue with that idea, please hear me out.
Cuba was part of the abundant western world until January 1959, when Castro’s revolution took over. In 1959 with 71% of Cuban businesses owned by the US, Cuba then mirrored our own 20th century success. But very shortly after the
Castro takeover, a schism developed between the US and Cuban governments. These differences rapidly led to the nationalization of US-owned businesses in Cuba and soon also to Cuba’s gravitating into the communist sphere (the only other option).
From the beginning, Cuban people fell onto hard times. Getting enough to eat was a daily problem, not always suitably solved. Pet dogs and cats, used to eating scraps from the family table, began to know the pangs of hunger on a regular basis. You might say, well OK, but 50 years is a short time to see an evolutionary change. And I’d agree with you if we were talking about people, but among dogs and cats, 50 years can easily be 50 generations. For a human comparison, 50 generations is about 1000 years, and surely we’ve seen many evolutionary changes in people in the last 1000 years. For example, the average person’s height and weight have increased as food became more abundant. The lifespan has increased due to modern sanitation and, to a lesser extent, due to modern medicine.
So 50 generations of too little food to eat shows up first in dogs and cats as it has done in Cuba. No doubt John Scopes and Charles Darwin would embrace my evolutionary canine weight theory while William Jennings Bryan would castigate me roundly.
Another side to this discussion is the tameness and near-symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs. That too came from evolutionary selection, as the wolves who had less fear of humans came to live nearer them, ate their leftovers, and gradually took up joint endeavors like sheep herding, protecting homes, etc.
And when Peachy, my beautiful rescued Golden Doodle barks at strangers, I can sense traces of ancient wolves standing guard in my home, and I can thank the process of natural selection.
Les Inglis
Friday, July 2, 2010
Papa in Cuba
Papa in Cuba
For all the animosity that flows back and forth across the Florida Straits between the Cuban and US governments, the two nations celebrate one literary hero in common. That man was Ernest Hemingway. Papa Hemingway made his name in the US literary world, but, after a stint in Key West, he decided to make his home in Cuba, and landed there to stay in 1939 with Martha Gellhorn, his third wife. Martha, wanting roots in the area, soon began a search for a home to replace the hotel rooms they were using.
Finca Vegia is the home she found and talked Ernest into buying. It is situated on a high hill south of Havana, and from its front porch one can see the entire city of Havana and the sea beyond. Every tall building is identifiable in the hazy distance. Papa and Martha bought it, fixed it up, and lived there for the rest of his life. Ernest loved cats and dogs (some say cats more than dogs) and even established a little pet cemetery on the grounds. A half hour away is the village of Cojimar, where he kept his fishing yacht, Pilar.
Life at Finca Vegia was idyllic for them. They traveled; he fished; they received famous visitors; and they played in the Havana of the 40’s and 50’s, scene of tropical revelries and the city at their feet. Papa built a four story tower for an even better view of the city, and he fashioned a writing studio on the top floor. The first floor became a cattery for his many feline companions.
Today Finca Vegia (roughly “farm with a view”) is a Cuban national treasure and a first class museum. You can’t walk in the house, but you can walk all around it and peer into every window, all open for your photographic convenience. Fresh off a full restoration, the place is perfect and kept spotless with Ernest’s personal effects, like reading glasses and pens precisely placed on desks and tables, just as he left them. 9000 books strain shelves built in nearly every room. Ada Rosa Alfonso Rosales is the museum director, and, with her friendly staff are prepared to answer nearly every question about the Hemingway years at the Finca. The museum offices are in the old garage where Papa’s 1947 Lincoln Continental convertible and his 1956 Chrysler New Yorker convertible used to sleep. (Ada Rosa told me last November that the museum had found and acquired the Chrysler, and had plans to restore it.) Today’s descendents of Papa’s animals range through the area.
On my first visit to the finca, Nora Garcia and I were walking up its long driveway. I had just given her a donation, and she said, “That’s great, now Aniplant can become guardian of the animals who live at the museum.” In later years she has kept that promise, and I’ve seen her bring flea treatments and inoculations to the dogs and cats on our return visits. Aniplant has even conducted a spay-neuter clinic in the nearby town of San Francisco de Paula.
Thinking about those little dogs and cats, I can’t help feeling a connection with Papa, his characters, and his life.
Les Inglis
For all the animosity that flows back and forth across the Florida Straits between the Cuban and US governments, the two nations celebrate one literary hero in common. That man was Ernest Hemingway. Papa Hemingway made his name in the US literary world, but, after a stint in Key West, he decided to make his home in Cuba, and landed there to stay in 1939 with Martha Gellhorn, his third wife. Martha, wanting roots in the area, soon began a search for a home to replace the hotel rooms they were using.
Finca Vegia is the home she found and talked Ernest into buying. It is situated on a high hill south of Havana, and from its front porch one can see the entire city of Havana and the sea beyond. Every tall building is identifiable in the hazy distance. Papa and Martha bought it, fixed it up, and lived there for the rest of his life. Ernest loved cats and dogs (some say cats more than dogs) and even established a little pet cemetery on the grounds. A half hour away is the village of Cojimar, where he kept his fishing yacht, Pilar.
Life at Finca Vegia was idyllic for them. They traveled; he fished; they received famous visitors; and they played in the Havana of the 40’s and 50’s, scene of tropical revelries and the city at their feet. Papa built a four story tower for an even better view of the city, and he fashioned a writing studio on the top floor. The first floor became a cattery for his many feline companions.
Today Finca Vegia (roughly “farm with a view”) is a Cuban national treasure and a first class museum. You can’t walk in the house, but you can walk all around it and peer into every window, all open for your photographic convenience. Fresh off a full restoration, the place is perfect and kept spotless with Ernest’s personal effects, like reading glasses and pens precisely placed on desks and tables, just as he left them. 9000 books strain shelves built in nearly every room. Ada Rosa Alfonso Rosales is the museum director, and, with her friendly staff are prepared to answer nearly every question about the Hemingway years at the Finca. The museum offices are in the old garage where Papa’s 1947 Lincoln Continental convertible and his 1956 Chrysler New Yorker convertible used to sleep. (Ada Rosa told me last November that the museum had found and acquired the Chrysler, and had plans to restore it.) Today’s descendents of Papa’s animals range through the area.
On my first visit to the finca, Nora Garcia and I were walking up its long driveway. I had just given her a donation, and she said, “That’s great, now Aniplant can become guardian of the animals who live at the museum.” In later years she has kept that promise, and I’ve seen her bring flea treatments and inoculations to the dogs and cats on our return visits. Aniplant has even conducted a spay-neuter clinic in the nearby town of San Francisco de Paula.
Thinking about those little dogs and cats, I can’t help feeling a connection with Papa, his characters, and his life.
Les Inglis
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