Moving Around Cuba
Transportation in Cuba is unique and very strange to Americans or to others in the western world. We have mental pictures of the 1950's cars kept running by Cuba's street mechanics for all these years, but because they once plied our streets, they aren't really so foreign to us. If we think of them as strange, we may be too young to remember when they were common here. For the 50's cars, strangeness is more of a time warp effect.
But the first time I saw a camello, an old fashioned Cuban bus, I thought, "that's really weird." I've mentioned camellos before in these blogs. They are basically tractor trailers where the trailer is fitted out as a bus. The center part of the trailer is lowered to make the step up from or the step down to the street surface easy. The front and back of the trailer are raised to give head room to the passengers riding above the wheels. This gives a two-humped (camel-like) look, and thus the Spanish name, camello, or camel in English.
When I first visited Cuba, camellos were common. They could hold a prodigious number of passengers, and you might guess one was coming when a busy corner on a main artery would be packed with a couple hundred commuters. The old tractor would limp to a stop and pandemonium would ensue as one hundred who wanted to leave the bus had to get by another hundred trying to get on the bus—all through the same set of doors. When finally everyone was on or off as he wished, the tractor would accelerate, grinding up through its gears to repeat the drama at the next bus stop.
Thankfully camellos made their last runs a few years ago, and today a fleet of sleek Chinese buses get people where they are going.
Cuba's intercity buses and trains have some of that weird flavor too. You can ride them and pay in the old Cuban Pesos or pay for a higher class of service in CUC's, Cuba's convertible currency, mostly used by tourists. If you use the old Peso buses, you have a much lower class of service. If you pay in CUC's, you ride in a different train or bus, generally with well-to-do people. This was being discussed recently in our email, and I quote Nora's words to describe the low class service:
Dear Les,
Of course it is much cheaper, but for this very reason it is a very difficult way to travel. Normally they are problematic—as much for the schedules, which are not respected, but for the people who operate them and the people who use them. I would not recommend this option—much less for a vacation in the eastern part of Cuba. As a Cuban, I would never use those trains or regular buses (paid in Pesos).
Nora
Of course many third world countries have trains and buses most of us would avoid, but Cuba may be the only one with two classes of service paid for with two different Cuban currencies. Adding to the transportation weirdness are Co-co taxis, basically a motor scooter for three, Asian style human powered pedicabs, and bicitaxis, a strange cross between a bike and a pedicab.
It's all part of the fun of being in a strange place.
Les Inglis
Friday, December 23, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Rebecca's Cat House
Rebecca's Cat House
After a few trips to Cuba, I had seen a few dog refuges, so I asked Nora to arrange for us to visit a cat refuge. Aniplant does not operate an animal refuge, but they help several with rations of food and some veterinary care.
Nora chose Rebecca's cat refuge, and after not finding her at home the first time, we found her the second time. Rebecca is an older woman, perhaps 80, and she lives in what was once a very luxurious house not far from our hotel and a stone's throw from the Florida Straits, which border Havana to the north.
Rebecca's house is a fairly large one floor home with a front porch all across the front face. The ceilings are high and the windows are huge. All stand open as there is no air conditioning, and the cats move from the inside to the porch by jumping through the windows. The porch roof is supported by Corinthian columns. All around the house is a tall wrought iron fence, and the lower eight feet of the fence is covered by sheet iron wired to the fence. That sheet iron is what keeps Rebecca's 30 or more cats inside her yard.
Rebecca's family was once wealthy as you might expect from the large house and the proximity to the water. She told us that when she was a little girl there was no Malecon (Havana's waterside Esplanade, and the sandy beach (now nonexistent) used to extend the two blocks up to her house. Rebecca received us on her large front porch, so I never got to see the inside of the house, although I could peek in the windows and through the screened front door. Years of deferred maintenance, chipped paint, and rusty iron sheets on the fence told me that her situation was more pressed now than when she was young.
And the cats? You ask. Well, they were everywhere you looked--front yard, inside, outside, porch. Frankly, they didn't look too healthy with their fur ruffled and dirty and many with ticks and fleas. At least Rebecca feeds them and water bowls were visible in several places.
Nora tells me Rebecca is very headstrong and doesn't easily accept suggestions about caring for the cats. After many decades of keeping such a collection of cats, she believes she has most of the answers. Nora knows differently, of course. Not every cat is neutered, which means the population will never decline. Once in a while Nora can get her to neuter her females or use a flea treatment on them. Nora knows she has to bring up suggestions for better care slowly and in a spirit of helpfulness. If Rebecca took offence, then the whole refuge would become worse off, so Nora displays her considerable patience and tries for gradual improvements.
Rebecca may have no money at all, but she can't be moved from her house. Until last month, all Cuban real estate was owned by the state, but now this is changing, and Cubans can buy and sell real estate. Rebecca inherited the right to live in her house from her parents, and she will undoubtedly stay there with her cats until she dies.
Then will come the hard choices of what to do with the cats. Not many people are ready to accept a cat or a few cats into their home. They may be killed by the crews of prisoners who patrol the city picking up stray, sick or ownerless animals. Who knows?
All I can say for sure is her cats are one notch better off than homeless. At least they have food and a safe place to sleep.
Les Inglis
After a few trips to Cuba, I had seen a few dog refuges, so I asked Nora to arrange for us to visit a cat refuge. Aniplant does not operate an animal refuge, but they help several with rations of food and some veterinary care.
Nora chose Rebecca's cat refuge, and after not finding her at home the first time, we found her the second time. Rebecca is an older woman, perhaps 80, and she lives in what was once a very luxurious house not far from our hotel and a stone's throw from the Florida Straits, which border Havana to the north.
Rebecca's house is a fairly large one floor home with a front porch all across the front face. The ceilings are high and the windows are huge. All stand open as there is no air conditioning, and the cats move from the inside to the porch by jumping through the windows. The porch roof is supported by Corinthian columns. All around the house is a tall wrought iron fence, and the lower eight feet of the fence is covered by sheet iron wired to the fence. That sheet iron is what keeps Rebecca's 30 or more cats inside her yard.
Rebecca's family was once wealthy as you might expect from the large house and the proximity to the water. She told us that when she was a little girl there was no Malecon (Havana's waterside Esplanade, and the sandy beach (now nonexistent) used to extend the two blocks up to her house. Rebecca received us on her large front porch, so I never got to see the inside of the house, although I could peek in the windows and through the screened front door. Years of deferred maintenance, chipped paint, and rusty iron sheets on the fence told me that her situation was more pressed now than when she was young.
And the cats? You ask. Well, they were everywhere you looked--front yard, inside, outside, porch. Frankly, they didn't look too healthy with their fur ruffled and dirty and many with ticks and fleas. At least Rebecca feeds them and water bowls were visible in several places.
Nora tells me Rebecca is very headstrong and doesn't easily accept suggestions about caring for the cats. After many decades of keeping such a collection of cats, she believes she has most of the answers. Nora knows differently, of course. Not every cat is neutered, which means the population will never decline. Once in a while Nora can get her to neuter her females or use a flea treatment on them. Nora knows she has to bring up suggestions for better care slowly and in a spirit of helpfulness. If Rebecca took offence, then the whole refuge would become worse off, so Nora displays her considerable patience and tries for gradual improvements.
Rebecca may have no money at all, but she can't be moved from her house. Until last month, all Cuban real estate was owned by the state, but now this is changing, and Cubans can buy and sell real estate. Rebecca inherited the right to live in her house from her parents, and she will undoubtedly stay there with her cats until she dies.
Then will come the hard choices of what to do with the cats. Not many people are ready to accept a cat or a few cats into their home. They may be killed by the crews of prisoners who patrol the city picking up stray, sick or ownerless animals. Who knows?
All I can say for sure is her cats are one notch better off than homeless. At least they have food and a safe place to sleep.
Les Inglis
Friday, November 25, 2011
Drop by Drop
In Spanish, "el cuentagotas" means medicine dropper. It is one of a weird collection of Spanish words with a plural feminine ending that is, indeed, masculine and singular. The word literally means count ("cuenta") drops (gotas"). We've all used these little droppers to dispense drops of medicine into eyes or ears or wherever.
I'm reminded of what's going on between Cuba and America as both governments take tiny, tentative, and measured steps toward a more normal relationship. Pride seems to prevent either side's launching an all-out peace initiative, but economic necessity presses both sides to relax its long time sanctions against the other. Neither country seems ready to wage peace, but both keep throwing little teasers out to see what will happen.
Consider these relaxations on the part of Cuba in recent years:
1. Cubans can now have and use cell phones.
2. Cubans can stay in tourist hotels now.
3. Cubans can now buy and sell their houses and cars.
And, not to be outdone, the US has made these changes:
1. Many Bush era restrictions on travel to Cuba have been dropped.
2. Educational and people to people tours have been restored
3. Many US airports are now allowed to offer direct, non-stop flights to Cuba.
Personally, I rejoice at each liberalizing change. At the present time we are planning a trip to Havana next March. When I called Alex, my travel agent in Miami, to get some information for the trip, I was worried when his office told me he was no longer with that firm. They were nice enough to tell me he had moved to Tampa and to give me his new phone number.
Why did Alex move? Well, Tampa is one of the new group of several cities authorized to have direct flights to Cuba. And,a s Alex is a smart businessman; he knows Tampa has a very large Cuban population--probably due to the old cigar industry in Tampa and to the large shipping trade between Tampa and Havana before the embargo.
It seems obvious that more traffic between Cuba and America means more jobs here, and maybe more there as well. Also, instead of being a mystery to Americans, Cuba will be better understood and perhaps both countries will treat each other better.
Not all people see these changes as good for America. Some stick by the policies of the last 50 years, insisting that any interchange between the two countries is appeasement to Cuba's leaders and should be avoided. With such a sharp division in beliefs regarding better relations, we should not expect rapid change from our ossified Congress of recent years.
But I'm celebrating that I'll be flying out of Tampa instead of Miami, and in the process, I'll avoid 300 miles of driving, renting a motel room for an additional night, and having to get up at 4:00 am to catch a flight.
Les Inglis
In Spanish, "el cuentagotas" means medicine dropper. It is one of a weird collection of Spanish words with a plural feminine ending that is, indeed, masculine and singular. The word literally means count ("cuenta") drops (gotas"). We've all used these little droppers to dispense drops of medicine into eyes or ears or wherever.
I'm reminded of what's going on between Cuba and America as both governments take tiny, tentative, and measured steps toward a more normal relationship. Pride seems to prevent either side's launching an all-out peace initiative, but economic necessity presses both sides to relax its long time sanctions against the other. Neither country seems ready to wage peace, but both keep throwing little teasers out to see what will happen.
Consider these relaxations on the part of Cuba in recent years:
1. Cubans can now have and use cell phones.
2. Cubans can stay in tourist hotels now.
3. Cubans can now buy and sell their houses and cars.
And, not to be outdone, the US has made these changes:
1. Many Bush era restrictions on travel to Cuba have been dropped.
2. Educational and people to people tours have been restored
3. Many US airports are now allowed to offer direct, non-stop flights to Cuba.
Personally, I rejoice at each liberalizing change. At the present time we are planning a trip to Havana next March. When I called Alex, my travel agent in Miami, to get some information for the trip, I was worried when his office told me he was no longer with that firm. They were nice enough to tell me he had moved to Tampa and to give me his new phone number.
Why did Alex move? Well, Tampa is one of the new group of several cities authorized to have direct flights to Cuba. And,a s Alex is a smart businessman; he knows Tampa has a very large Cuban population--probably due to the old cigar industry in Tampa and to the large shipping trade between Tampa and Havana before the embargo.
It seems obvious that more traffic between Cuba and America means more jobs here, and maybe more there as well. Also, instead of being a mystery to Americans, Cuba will be better understood and perhaps both countries will treat each other better.
Not all people see these changes as good for America. Some stick by the policies of the last 50 years, insisting that any interchange between the two countries is appeasement to Cuba's leaders and should be avoided. With such a sharp division in beliefs regarding better relations, we should not expect rapid change from our ossified Congress of recent years.
But I'm celebrating that I'll be flying out of Tampa instead of Miami, and in the process, I'll avoid 300 miles of driving, renting a motel room for an additional night, and having to get up at 4:00 am to catch a flight.
Les Inglis
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Veterinary Politics
Veterinary Politics
Lots of things don't get done in Cuba because of the generally stressful state of the economy. This is certainly true of veterinary care for the people's dogs and cats. It isn't that Cuba doesn't have enough vets--they do. But the free vet education comes with a price; you have to work for the government. Thus after graduation, vets take jobs as meat inspectors, airport inspectors, teachers, public health officials, and the like. Domestic pets don't get much priority from the government, so there are precious few positions available in animal hospitals.
What makes vet care available for domestic pets is that vet salaries working for the government are very low--about $20 a month. So in a country of pet lovers, many vets turn to moonlighting. Many neighborhoods have a vet who has turned a garage or spare room into a vet office or surgery.
More than ten years ago Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President realized she could improve the availability of vet care for Havana's dogs and cats. She began establishing vet offices around the town and charging the clients whatever they could afford for the vet treatments. As a tribute to her energy and motivation, Aniplant soon operated ten branch vet office locations and was planning to open more. And Aniplant now had a source of income for its other programs.
Unfortunately some of the moonlighting vets with their own part time offices began to regard the chain of Aniplant vet offices as competition, a dirty word in a Communist country. The vets filed a complaint. A difference of this kind is settled between the different ministries involved after considering the position of the organizations within their oversight. All Cuban private organizations are overseen by one of the government ministries. In Aniplant's case, the overseer is the Ministry of Agriculture, and the veterinarians have a different ministry.
The way it worked out, Aniplant was obligated to close their vet offices, but they were allowed to operate one only. In 2005 when I first knew Aniplant, they were not even operating the one branch they were permitted, as their headquarters was hard to find and up eight flights of stairs.
Today, with Aniplant's new easy to find Central Havana street level headquarters, Aniplant is building a new vet office with special assistance from Dr. Richard White, a world traveling veterinarian from the UK. His generous support is helping the new clinic to come into being.
We keep finding new friends for the animals of Cuba.
Les Inglis
Lots of things don't get done in Cuba because of the generally stressful state of the economy. This is certainly true of veterinary care for the people's dogs and cats. It isn't that Cuba doesn't have enough vets--they do. But the free vet education comes with a price; you have to work for the government. Thus after graduation, vets take jobs as meat inspectors, airport inspectors, teachers, public health officials, and the like. Domestic pets don't get much priority from the government, so there are precious few positions available in animal hospitals.
What makes vet care available for domestic pets is that vet salaries working for the government are very low--about $20 a month. So in a country of pet lovers, many vets turn to moonlighting. Many neighborhoods have a vet who has turned a garage or spare room into a vet office or surgery.
More than ten years ago Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President realized she could improve the availability of vet care for Havana's dogs and cats. She began establishing vet offices around the town and charging the clients whatever they could afford for the vet treatments. As a tribute to her energy and motivation, Aniplant soon operated ten branch vet office locations and was planning to open more. And Aniplant now had a source of income for its other programs.
Unfortunately some of the moonlighting vets with their own part time offices began to regard the chain of Aniplant vet offices as competition, a dirty word in a Communist country. The vets filed a complaint. A difference of this kind is settled between the different ministries involved after considering the position of the organizations within their oversight. All Cuban private organizations are overseen by one of the government ministries. In Aniplant's case, the overseer is the Ministry of Agriculture, and the veterinarians have a different ministry.
The way it worked out, Aniplant was obligated to close their vet offices, but they were allowed to operate one only. In 2005 when I first knew Aniplant, they were not even operating the one branch they were permitted, as their headquarters was hard to find and up eight flights of stairs.
Today, with Aniplant's new easy to find Central Havana street level headquarters, Aniplant is building a new vet office with special assistance from Dr. Richard White, a world traveling veterinarian from the UK. His generous support is helping the new clinic to come into being.
We keep finding new friends for the animals of Cuba.
Les Inglis
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Cojimar
Cojimar
A few miles east of Havana lies the coastal fishing town of Cojimar, sitting on a lovely bay opening to the Florida Straits. It's a short drive from Ernest Hemingway's estate, Finca Vegia, which sits generally south of Havana. Connecting the finca and Cojimar are good roads and about 20 minutes are required to drive between the finca and the town.
For Hemingway, fishing seemed more important than living, and thus he bought his fishing boat, Pilar, a few years before he bought his Cuba home, the finca. Originally he rented dock space for the new boat at the Havana waterfront near his hotel, the Hotel Ambos Mundos, where he stayed and where he wrote some of his best known books. But soon he found a home for the boat in Cojimar. Thereafter, this little town was the base of his maritime operations.
He sometimes made the trip to Cojimar several times a week, and he soon found a favorite restaurant and bar in the little town. That restaurant, La Terraza is there today as is the rest of the town, seemingly unchanged from Hemingway's era. Like most tourist spots it is owned by the Cuban government, and it is kept in perfect condition.
The first thing you notice on entering La Terraza is the immaculate polished wooden floors. You enter directly into the bar room, and you see the back bar with nearly a hundred bottles of liquor, lined up precisely. A bar man awaits the requests of any tourists. Few locals drink or dine here as the prices (about what they would be here at home) are well beyond what fishermen can afford. But if the food and drink now are what they were like in Hemingway's time, it's no wonder this was one of his favorite haunts.
The Pilar had two first mates at different times. The first was Carlos Gutierrez, and the last was Gregorio Fuentes. Gutierrez might have been the inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea (although some academics think that Papa saw himself as the model for the old man). But Fuentes way outlasted Gutierrez, living right there until he was 104 years old in 2002 and picking up money from tourists by posing for photos.
Cojimar is a sleepy little place today, as it was way back when. If there is any action at all it's out beyond sight--beyond the reef--where the epic fights for huge fish are engaged. The locals bring in their catch, and some of it ends up in the hands of the head chef at La Terraza. Nora and I have had lunch there a couple of times, but, being vegetarians, we bypassed the fish on the menu. The chef is happy to fix anything you want, and for us the last time he made us a fine vegan dish of rice, vegetables and spices, which he declined to enumerate.
We sat at the table we'd used once before--in the corner, partly surrounded by windows on two sides looking out and down to the bay and off to the deep blue water of the Gulf Stream. Far below us a lone fisherman fired up his outboard and chugged out to sea. I watched him and thought how what I was watching could have been the same scene played out in the late 1930's when I was a toddler, when Papa was in his prime, and since when the town and its people remain unchanged.
Les Inglis
A few miles east of Havana lies the coastal fishing town of Cojimar, sitting on a lovely bay opening to the Florida Straits. It's a short drive from Ernest Hemingway's estate, Finca Vegia, which sits generally south of Havana. Connecting the finca and Cojimar are good roads and about 20 minutes are required to drive between the finca and the town.
For Hemingway, fishing seemed more important than living, and thus he bought his fishing boat, Pilar, a few years before he bought his Cuba home, the finca. Originally he rented dock space for the new boat at the Havana waterfront near his hotel, the Hotel Ambos Mundos, where he stayed and where he wrote some of his best known books. But soon he found a home for the boat in Cojimar. Thereafter, this little town was the base of his maritime operations.
He sometimes made the trip to Cojimar several times a week, and he soon found a favorite restaurant and bar in the little town. That restaurant, La Terraza is there today as is the rest of the town, seemingly unchanged from Hemingway's era. Like most tourist spots it is owned by the Cuban government, and it is kept in perfect condition.
The first thing you notice on entering La Terraza is the immaculate polished wooden floors. You enter directly into the bar room, and you see the back bar with nearly a hundred bottles of liquor, lined up precisely. A bar man awaits the requests of any tourists. Few locals drink or dine here as the prices (about what they would be here at home) are well beyond what fishermen can afford. But if the food and drink now are what they were like in Hemingway's time, it's no wonder this was one of his favorite haunts.
The Pilar had two first mates at different times. The first was Carlos Gutierrez, and the last was Gregorio Fuentes. Gutierrez might have been the inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea (although some academics think that Papa saw himself as the model for the old man). But Fuentes way outlasted Gutierrez, living right there until he was 104 years old in 2002 and picking up money from tourists by posing for photos.
Cojimar is a sleepy little place today, as it was way back when. If there is any action at all it's out beyond sight--beyond the reef--where the epic fights for huge fish are engaged. The locals bring in their catch, and some of it ends up in the hands of the head chef at La Terraza. Nora and I have had lunch there a couple of times, but, being vegetarians, we bypassed the fish on the menu. The chef is happy to fix anything you want, and for us the last time he made us a fine vegan dish of rice, vegetables and spices, which he declined to enumerate.
We sat at the table we'd used once before--in the corner, partly surrounded by windows on two sides looking out and down to the bay and off to the deep blue water of the Gulf Stream. Far below us a lone fisherman fired up his outboard and chugged out to sea. I watched him and thought how what I was watching could have been the same scene played out in the late 1930's when I was a toddler, when Papa was in his prime, and since when the town and its people remain unchanged.
Les Inglis
Saturday, November 5, 2011
A Step in the RIght Direction
A Step in the Right Direction
I know these blogs are supposed to be about animals (mostly dogs and cats) in Cuba, but the quality of those animal lives is closely tied to that of their people. And Cuban people have many crosses to bear. So when a major change in the fortunes of the Cuban people takes place, it's good news for the animals as well. Such a change took place this week when the Cuban government allowed its citizens to buy and sell real estate.
Previously you couldn't buy or sell your home; you only had the right to trade properties with other Cubans. In a difficult maneuver with a lawyer officiating, you could swap homes with another Cuban. We became involved in this "permutta" system when a number of years ago Nora, Aniplant's president, found someone in central Havana who wanted to trade places with Aniplant's old headquarters. Finding such a willing fellow swapper wasn't easy as the old Aniplant headquarters was on the 8th floor of a building with a dead elevator hopelessly beyond repair. The other guy's place (to be Aniplant's new headquarters) was on the street level of a well-known street, and it served as that man's family home.
We found out about the arranged swap in 2006 when Nora told us of it and told us the average wait to formalize a swap was 4 years. She had already waited two years. "Can't it be expedited?" we asked. "Yes for a bribe of $150," we were told.
Think of it; a lack of $150 caused a four year wait for two parties who both wanted the swap. Someone in our group reached into his pocket, dug out $150, and gave it to Nora to get the project moving. Two days later, the lawyer moved Nora's file to the top of the pile, and the swap was done.
It wasn't all roses, however. The "new" headquarters is a 200 year old one story building needing roof work, a new roof top water tank, and every light switch, ceiling fixture, and wall plug had been removed and left with the old owner. Much additional time and donated money was needed to make the new headquarters into the showplace it is today.
But this week all those machinations became history as people gained the right to buy and sell their residences without prior government approval. Already some are predicting a new wave of prosperity as people take pride in their possessions and fix them up. Others predict an exodus as people with some cash from selling their homes leave for other countries. No one knows for sure what will happen, but it's a pretty good bet people will be better off.
What's good for the Cuban citizen is usually also good for his dog or cat. If nothing else, it will be a little easier to feed that animal if his master has more money in his pocket. And a rising tide floats all boats. More money in a man's hands means more work, more pay, better homes, etc. etc.
The first time I saw Havana, I was struck by the blotchy walls on large buildings made so by decades of no paint. I imagined a huge tanker floating into the harbor filled with white paint. It was a day dream, of course, but this city with many gorgeous buildings, some dating back to the 1700's could, in my mind's eye, be one of the most beautiful in the world. Paint and maintenance seemed all that stood between dishevelment and splendor.
Maybe now our Cuban neighbors (and their companion animals) will find a way toward a greater society with a higher standard of living.
When you work on the problems of animals, you dare not be a pessimist.
Les Inglis
I know these blogs are supposed to be about animals (mostly dogs and cats) in Cuba, but the quality of those animal lives is closely tied to that of their people. And Cuban people have many crosses to bear. So when a major change in the fortunes of the Cuban people takes place, it's good news for the animals as well. Such a change took place this week when the Cuban government allowed its citizens to buy and sell real estate.
Previously you couldn't buy or sell your home; you only had the right to trade properties with other Cubans. In a difficult maneuver with a lawyer officiating, you could swap homes with another Cuban. We became involved in this "permutta" system when a number of years ago Nora, Aniplant's president, found someone in central Havana who wanted to trade places with Aniplant's old headquarters. Finding such a willing fellow swapper wasn't easy as the old Aniplant headquarters was on the 8th floor of a building with a dead elevator hopelessly beyond repair. The other guy's place (to be Aniplant's new headquarters) was on the street level of a well-known street, and it served as that man's family home.
We found out about the arranged swap in 2006 when Nora told us of it and told us the average wait to formalize a swap was 4 years. She had already waited two years. "Can't it be expedited?" we asked. "Yes for a bribe of $150," we were told.
Think of it; a lack of $150 caused a four year wait for two parties who both wanted the swap. Someone in our group reached into his pocket, dug out $150, and gave it to Nora to get the project moving. Two days later, the lawyer moved Nora's file to the top of the pile, and the swap was done.
It wasn't all roses, however. The "new" headquarters is a 200 year old one story building needing roof work, a new roof top water tank, and every light switch, ceiling fixture, and wall plug had been removed and left with the old owner. Much additional time and donated money was needed to make the new headquarters into the showplace it is today.
But this week all those machinations became history as people gained the right to buy and sell their residences without prior government approval. Already some are predicting a new wave of prosperity as people take pride in their possessions and fix them up. Others predict an exodus as people with some cash from selling their homes leave for other countries. No one knows for sure what will happen, but it's a pretty good bet people will be better off.
What's good for the Cuban citizen is usually also good for his dog or cat. If nothing else, it will be a little easier to feed that animal if his master has more money in his pocket. And a rising tide floats all boats. More money in a man's hands means more work, more pay, better homes, etc. etc.
The first time I saw Havana, I was struck by the blotchy walls on large buildings made so by decades of no paint. I imagined a huge tanker floating into the harbor filled with white paint. It was a day dream, of course, but this city with many gorgeous buildings, some dating back to the 1700's could, in my mind's eye, be one of the most beautiful in the world. Paint and maintenance seemed all that stood between dishevelment and splendor.
Maybe now our Cuban neighbors (and their companion animals) will find a way toward a greater society with a higher standard of living.
When you work on the problems of animals, you dare not be a pessimist.
Les Inglis
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Pissing Contests
Pissing Contests
A guy I used to work with told a story about Junior Finchley, one of his boyhood friends. His crowd would hold what they somewhat indelicately called pissing contests where the kids would line up along the curb and see how far each could urinate out into the street. Junior Kelly was their all time champion as he could urinate completely across Kipling Avenue, then a two lane road.
Junior had a slight malformation that constricted his urethral duct and acted like putting your thumb over the end of a running garden hose to water plants further away. For Junior his malady allowed him to propel his urine to almost incredible distances. Well, any doctor will tell you that such a condition can be dangerous, and most would advise a surgical correction. Thus Mr. and Mrs. Finchley had Junior fixed, and he lost his notoriety. After the surgery, Junior couldn't piss beyond the toes of his shoes.
Why do I tell you this? Well, I guess I'm trying to show that pissing contests expend time and energy, but prove nothing worth knowing. Cuba and the US have been in such a contest for more than 50 years, gaining neither side anything worth having and losing both sides much that is valuable. I'm not here to judge which side has won, is winning, or will win this useless waste of time and treasure.
To discuss this conflict, we might begin by examining the words each side uses to describe it. In Cuba, it isn't an "embargo," it's a "bloqueo" or a blockade. Webster says a blockade is a shutting of ports of a belligerent by its enemy--clearly an act of war. In the US, we call it an embargo which is defined as shutting your own ports to commerce with an opponent, certainly an act a little less belligerent than a blockade.
As my work in Cuba involves the plight of domestic companion animals, let's consider how Cuba's economic problems affect those animals. First most dogs and cats don't have collars or ID tags, and few are ever walked on leashes. Many city dwellers have no yards so dogs are let outside to relieve themselves. On the street, how do you tell which animals have homes and which are stray? My way to tell is the only way I've come up with, and it isn't very accurate--I look to see if his ribs are showing, telling me how well fed an animal is. When public dog catchers come through your neighborhood, they pretty well take the dogs they can catch because they have the same problems I have in telling family dogs from strays. Thus large numbers of family dogs disappear each year into a killing machine designed to avoid shocking tourists with sick, dying, or dead animals on the streets.
I say this tragedy is caused by the embargo or blockade or whatever you want to call it. Surely Cubans love their dogs, but their standard of living, beaten down by privations imposed on Cuba, leaves no room for the cost of collars and tags. And consider this: Nowhere in Cuba can you get your dog microchipped. This, the best way of identifying domestic animals, is completely unavailable in an economy that has a hard enough time feeding its humans, much less its pets.
And speaking of feeding your animals, how does Fido get enough to eat in Cuba? For the most part he gets scraps and leftovers from his master's table. The average Cuban, paid in old Cuban Pesos (or Moneda Nacional) cannot buy the small amount of pet food Cuba imports which is sold only in CUC's (pronounced "kooks"), a money system pretty well restricted to tourist use. Thus you may find a few places which sell pet food, but it's priced in money the average Cuban citizens don't have and can't earn.
And what about vet care? Cuba, with its good educational system, educates many veterinarians each year, but remember, this is a Communist economy, and these vets are schooled to become public employees like meat inspectors, agricultural managers, and airport officials. If a vet offers his or her services to treat domestic pets, it's usually as a part-time sideline run out of his garage for his neighbors. His day job has nothing to do with companion animals.
The point of all this is that Cuba could be a better home for family animals if it weren't so stressed by the embargo. How could there be a more innocent group of beings hurt by a failed political policy? And if we see signs of suffering among the animals of Cuba, think of how the man in the street must be suffering too.
These family critters are in our world to make life better for people. Both sides in this pissing contest between neighboring nations should admit it is a failure hurting the wrong victims and go about creating a better world for people and their animals.
Les Inglis
A guy I used to work with told a story about Junior Finchley, one of his boyhood friends. His crowd would hold what they somewhat indelicately called pissing contests where the kids would line up along the curb and see how far each could urinate out into the street. Junior Kelly was their all time champion as he could urinate completely across Kipling Avenue, then a two lane road.
Junior had a slight malformation that constricted his urethral duct and acted like putting your thumb over the end of a running garden hose to water plants further away. For Junior his malady allowed him to propel his urine to almost incredible distances. Well, any doctor will tell you that such a condition can be dangerous, and most would advise a surgical correction. Thus Mr. and Mrs. Finchley had Junior fixed, and he lost his notoriety. After the surgery, Junior couldn't piss beyond the toes of his shoes.
Why do I tell you this? Well, I guess I'm trying to show that pissing contests expend time and energy, but prove nothing worth knowing. Cuba and the US have been in such a contest for more than 50 years, gaining neither side anything worth having and losing both sides much that is valuable. I'm not here to judge which side has won, is winning, or will win this useless waste of time and treasure.
To discuss this conflict, we might begin by examining the words each side uses to describe it. In Cuba, it isn't an "embargo," it's a "bloqueo" or a blockade. Webster says a blockade is a shutting of ports of a belligerent by its enemy--clearly an act of war. In the US, we call it an embargo which is defined as shutting your own ports to commerce with an opponent, certainly an act a little less belligerent than a blockade.
As my work in Cuba involves the plight of domestic companion animals, let's consider how Cuba's economic problems affect those animals. First most dogs and cats don't have collars or ID tags, and few are ever walked on leashes. Many city dwellers have no yards so dogs are let outside to relieve themselves. On the street, how do you tell which animals have homes and which are stray? My way to tell is the only way I've come up with, and it isn't very accurate--I look to see if his ribs are showing, telling me how well fed an animal is. When public dog catchers come through your neighborhood, they pretty well take the dogs they can catch because they have the same problems I have in telling family dogs from strays. Thus large numbers of family dogs disappear each year into a killing machine designed to avoid shocking tourists with sick, dying, or dead animals on the streets.
I say this tragedy is caused by the embargo or blockade or whatever you want to call it. Surely Cubans love their dogs, but their standard of living, beaten down by privations imposed on Cuba, leaves no room for the cost of collars and tags. And consider this: Nowhere in Cuba can you get your dog microchipped. This, the best way of identifying domestic animals, is completely unavailable in an economy that has a hard enough time feeding its humans, much less its pets.
And speaking of feeding your animals, how does Fido get enough to eat in Cuba? For the most part he gets scraps and leftovers from his master's table. The average Cuban, paid in old Cuban Pesos (or Moneda Nacional) cannot buy the small amount of pet food Cuba imports which is sold only in CUC's (pronounced "kooks"), a money system pretty well restricted to tourist use. Thus you may find a few places which sell pet food, but it's priced in money the average Cuban citizens don't have and can't earn.
And what about vet care? Cuba, with its good educational system, educates many veterinarians each year, but remember, this is a Communist economy, and these vets are schooled to become public employees like meat inspectors, agricultural managers, and airport officials. If a vet offers his or her services to treat domestic pets, it's usually as a part-time sideline run out of his garage for his neighbors. His day job has nothing to do with companion animals.
The point of all this is that Cuba could be a better home for family animals if it weren't so stressed by the embargo. How could there be a more innocent group of beings hurt by a failed political policy? And if we see signs of suffering among the animals of Cuba, think of how the man in the street must be suffering too.
These family critters are in our world to make life better for people. Both sides in this pissing contest between neighboring nations should admit it is a failure hurting the wrong victims and go about creating a better world for people and their animals.
Les Inglis
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Malecon
The Malecon
From the entrance to Havana's harbor west to the Almendares River, Havana is bordered on the north by the Florida Straits. In the early 1900's when US influence in Cuba was at an all time high, a six-lane curving artery was constructed with American engineering help along the sea, and it eventually became known as El Malecón. Today it is the best known and most traveled street in Havana.
Both sides of the Malecon have wide sidewalks, and the north side also has a wide, four- foot high barrier to keep cars from the sea and the sea from the road. I doubt if any cars fell into the sea, but on windy, wavy days, the sea splashes high in the air and the wind blows the water onto the roadway. When wind direction and wave action are just right, the road receives so much splashed water that traffic is stopped and moved onto other streets.
On the sea side of the barrier is a drop of perhaps 20 feet to the water level, where large rocks are placed to take most of the constant beating the sea tries to inflict on the land. On normal calm days, the waves are small and the kids and some adults climb down onto the rocks to swim and fish. At night, young couples stroll along the sidewalk or sit on the barrier and talk about whatever young couples talk about.
Havana is a very old city, and traveling its narrow streets is and slow for the most part. If you want to go from one section (say Vedado on the west) to Old Havana on the east, most taxi drivers will first run downhill to the Malecon and then run along the water on the Malecon between city sections. It's a little further, but faster to use the Malecon.
When the sun sets, lights come on in the multi-story buildings along the Malecon. As darkness overtakes the city, you lose sight of the deterioration and lack of paint of many buildings and see only their shapes because of their lighted windows. It's really a beautiful picture, done in pointillism, and Havana takes on a nocturnal charm as you gaze along the curving Malecon.
Havana probably has as many dog lovers proportionally as any other large city. You see them walking their dogs in the parks, on the parkways in the middle of boulevards, and, to some extent, on the Malecon. I worry when I see them there as the cars go really fast. One false move and a dog wouldn't stand a chance. Fortunately Havana's dogs cultivate a respect for cars at an early age. Years ago we adopted a stray beagle who came, hungry and lonely, to our farm. We named her Annie, and we knew she had walked the country roads near our house for a long time. Every time she heard the sound of an approaching car, she immediately made a 90 degree turn and walked at right angles to the road, returning only after the car had passed. I didn't teach her this, she learned it herself before she found us. I think the city dogs of Havana, both those human guardians and those without homes, develop that "street smart" ability, and it's a good thing they do.
I often walk from my hotel to the Malecon when I'm in Havana--it's only a couple of blocks. One Saturday morning, my walk coincided with the Havana Marathon, held yearly on the Malecon.
I made it to the sea side of the street and boosted myself up to sit on the barrier and watch the runners. As hundreds passed by--most of them trotting, some running, and some walking-- I was happy to see a number of the marathoners had their dogs with them. With the street closed to vehicles, for the runners and their dogs it was a rare opportunity to experience the Malecon right out there in the middle where man and beast would otherwise be dodging cars and trying to get back to the sidewalk.
Another note on crossing streets: In Havana drivers have a different idea of their right of way. They scan the road ahead, and if any pedestrians seem to be threatened, they tap their horn, in effect commanding the right of way for themselves. Some even honk and then step on the gas. People, like dogs, learn to respect those little horn taps. To fail to do so might make a short toot on a car horn one of the last sounds you'll ever hear.
Les Inglis
From the entrance to Havana's harbor west to the Almendares River, Havana is bordered on the north by the Florida Straits. In the early 1900's when US influence in Cuba was at an all time high, a six-lane curving artery was constructed with American engineering help along the sea, and it eventually became known as El Malecón. Today it is the best known and most traveled street in Havana.
Both sides of the Malecon have wide sidewalks, and the north side also has a wide, four- foot high barrier to keep cars from the sea and the sea from the road. I doubt if any cars fell into the sea, but on windy, wavy days, the sea splashes high in the air and the wind blows the water onto the roadway. When wind direction and wave action are just right, the road receives so much splashed water that traffic is stopped and moved onto other streets.
On the sea side of the barrier is a drop of perhaps 20 feet to the water level, where large rocks are placed to take most of the constant beating the sea tries to inflict on the land. On normal calm days, the waves are small and the kids and some adults climb down onto the rocks to swim and fish. At night, young couples stroll along the sidewalk or sit on the barrier and talk about whatever young couples talk about.
Havana is a very old city, and traveling its narrow streets is and slow for the most part. If you want to go from one section (say Vedado on the west) to Old Havana on the east, most taxi drivers will first run downhill to the Malecon and then run along the water on the Malecon between city sections. It's a little further, but faster to use the Malecon.
When the sun sets, lights come on in the multi-story buildings along the Malecon. As darkness overtakes the city, you lose sight of the deterioration and lack of paint of many buildings and see only their shapes because of their lighted windows. It's really a beautiful picture, done in pointillism, and Havana takes on a nocturnal charm as you gaze along the curving Malecon.
Havana probably has as many dog lovers proportionally as any other large city. You see them walking their dogs in the parks, on the parkways in the middle of boulevards, and, to some extent, on the Malecon. I worry when I see them there as the cars go really fast. One false move and a dog wouldn't stand a chance. Fortunately Havana's dogs cultivate a respect for cars at an early age. Years ago we adopted a stray beagle who came, hungry and lonely, to our farm. We named her Annie, and we knew she had walked the country roads near our house for a long time. Every time she heard the sound of an approaching car, she immediately made a 90 degree turn and walked at right angles to the road, returning only after the car had passed. I didn't teach her this, she learned it herself before she found us. I think the city dogs of Havana, both those human guardians and those without homes, develop that "street smart" ability, and it's a good thing they do.
I often walk from my hotel to the Malecon when I'm in Havana--it's only a couple of blocks. One Saturday morning, my walk coincided with the Havana Marathon, held yearly on the Malecon.
I made it to the sea side of the street and boosted myself up to sit on the barrier and watch the runners. As hundreds passed by--most of them trotting, some running, and some walking-- I was happy to see a number of the marathoners had their dogs with them. With the street closed to vehicles, for the runners and their dogs it was a rare opportunity to experience the Malecon right out there in the middle where man and beast would otherwise be dodging cars and trying to get back to the sidewalk.
Another note on crossing streets: In Havana drivers have a different idea of their right of way. They scan the road ahead, and if any pedestrians seem to be threatened, they tap their horn, in effect commanding the right of way for themselves. Some even honk and then step on the gas. People, like dogs, learn to respect those little horn taps. To fail to do so might make a short toot on a car horn one of the last sounds you'll ever hear.
Les Inglis
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Hotel Nacional
Hotel Nacional
In 1929 Cuba completed its own Capitol building, which looks like the US Capitol. A tall dome, a huge, wide stairway cascading from the main floor to the street level, and legislative chambers at each end of a wide colonnaded Greek Revival monument were all features familiar to Americans visiting Havana.
Yet, even though its similarities to our Capitol are somehow flattering to Americans, my own favorite American style building is another iconic Havana landmark, the Hotel Nacional. Built two years later than the Capitolio, the Hotel Nacional is the end of the line for Henry Flagler's East Coast Railroad.
This hotel gets my nomination as the most iconic American structure in Havana. One big reason is the hotel lives on today as it was originally intended--a luxury hotel for tourists and business people. The Capitolio fails this test as Cuba has no need for a bicameral, democratic legislature. The place has become an fine art gallery, the sight of important meetings, and a target for thousands of digital cameras in the hands of Cuba's endless stream of visitors.
But the hotel wins my top iconic structure award for other reasons too. Flagler was a pioneer trying to connect up many populations along the Atlantic. But that connection didn't stop at Miami, the last big mainland city. Starting in 1905, Flagler pushed on another 160 miles to Key West, building railroad bridges from key to key, so the final American station was Key West. Still not satisfied, he offered a ferry service from Key West to Havana. You could step off your train in Key West, walk across a wide platform, and board a ferry to Havana.
Henry seemed to accept no limitations for the enterprise he was building. He established hotels at each city he served. In 1921, the Casa Marina Hotel in Key West opened, and ten years later the Hotel Nacional in Havana opened for Cuba-bound tourists. So this hotel, a twin sister to Flagler's Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, is representative of American free enterprise, a conglomerate, and a crowning symbol of a robber baron's dreams brought to fruition. Also, as all three hotels I have mentioned are still operating as hotels, it is a testament to Flagler's savvy as a business person. We have many such examples in the US (Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Libraries, and Ford Museums to name a few) while Cuba has relatively few.
In 2006 on my second trip to Cuba, I was talked into staying a week at the Hotel Nacional. A friend, part of our traveling party, who had been to Cuba many times also insisted we stay on the 6th (executive) floor where you "get VIP treatment." I had been perfectly happy at the Hotel Presidente, a much less ritzy place, but very comfortable and convenient on my previous and subsequent trips. But now I'm glad that at least I had a taste of the Nacional.
You arrive at the Nacional through a long drive lined with new black cars waiting to whisk you all over Havana. None of these cars for hire are the old 50's era American cars. Those were nowhere to be found near the Nacional.
Inside, the main reception hall runs the entire width of the building, and crowds gather around the several clerks waiting to serve them, but when an attendant learned we had reservations on the sixth floor, we were steered around the crowds to an elevator and up to a concierge style desk where any hotel service could be had. One signature on a form already filled out for me was all I needed to be led to my very comfortable room.
The rest of my stay there was filled with people anxious to make my stay a pleasure--get tickets for a show, directions to wherever you're going, and where to buy this and that. First thing in the morning, a huge table in the sitting area near our private reception area strained under the weight of platter after elaborate platter of delicious breakfast choices--tropical fruits, beans and rice, hash browns, eggs, fish, cereals--you name it, it was on the buffet.
One floor below the huge main reception hall are meeting rooms, shops, and a couple of restaurants, one a cafeteria affair with silver service prices. If you cross the main reception hall from the front door, you pass through doors and outside to a wonderful covered cocktail lounge area with easy chairs, sofas, strolling musicians, or stationary musical groups playing the old Cuban standards of the pre-revolution days so familiar to the tourists. Songs like Siboney, Green Eyes, Bésame Mucho, and Guantamera. If you don't do anything else in Cuba, you have to sit in that outdoor area in the cool of the evening, drink a mojito, and listen to the great music. All this with a view of the Florida Straits and Miami's lights a faint glow on the horizon.
Just as you don't see any of the old 50's cars near the hotel, you don't see any stray dogs nearby either. I suppose the hotel area gets extra scrutiny from the city's dog catchers who capture luckless dogs and cats and hold them away from tourists' eyes for a rabies quarantine period before killing them. It's hard to think of those poor little souls when you don't see them and you're being pampered to within an inch of your life. But once in a while I had to think of them--after all, they were the reason we went to Cuba.
I won't stay at the Nacional again. My regular hotel, the Presidente, is cheaper (about half the price), sufficient to my needs, and a little better located for me. But, I'll always have pleasant memories of my stay at the Nacional, especially after it's having won my Iconic American Structure Award,.
Les Inglis
In 1929 Cuba completed its own Capitol building, which looks like the US Capitol. A tall dome, a huge, wide stairway cascading from the main floor to the street level, and legislative chambers at each end of a wide colonnaded Greek Revival monument were all features familiar to Americans visiting Havana.
Yet, even though its similarities to our Capitol are somehow flattering to Americans, my own favorite American style building is another iconic Havana landmark, the Hotel Nacional. Built two years later than the Capitolio, the Hotel Nacional is the end of the line for Henry Flagler's East Coast Railroad.
This hotel gets my nomination as the most iconic American structure in Havana. One big reason is the hotel lives on today as it was originally intended--a luxury hotel for tourists and business people. The Capitolio fails this test as Cuba has no need for a bicameral, democratic legislature. The place has become an fine art gallery, the sight of important meetings, and a target for thousands of digital cameras in the hands of Cuba's endless stream of visitors.
But the hotel wins my top iconic structure award for other reasons too. Flagler was a pioneer trying to connect up many populations along the Atlantic. But that connection didn't stop at Miami, the last big mainland city. Starting in 1905, Flagler pushed on another 160 miles to Key West, building railroad bridges from key to key, so the final American station was Key West. Still not satisfied, he offered a ferry service from Key West to Havana. You could step off your train in Key West, walk across a wide platform, and board a ferry to Havana.
Henry seemed to accept no limitations for the enterprise he was building. He established hotels at each city he served. In 1921, the Casa Marina Hotel in Key West opened, and ten years later the Hotel Nacional in Havana opened for Cuba-bound tourists. So this hotel, a twin sister to Flagler's Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, is representative of American free enterprise, a conglomerate, and a crowning symbol of a robber baron's dreams brought to fruition. Also, as all three hotels I have mentioned are still operating as hotels, it is a testament to Flagler's savvy as a business person. We have many such examples in the US (Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Libraries, and Ford Museums to name a few) while Cuba has relatively few.
In 2006 on my second trip to Cuba, I was talked into staying a week at the Hotel Nacional. A friend, part of our traveling party, who had been to Cuba many times also insisted we stay on the 6th (executive) floor where you "get VIP treatment." I had been perfectly happy at the Hotel Presidente, a much less ritzy place, but very comfortable and convenient on my previous and subsequent trips. But now I'm glad that at least I had a taste of the Nacional.
You arrive at the Nacional through a long drive lined with new black cars waiting to whisk you all over Havana. None of these cars for hire are the old 50's era American cars. Those were nowhere to be found near the Nacional.
Inside, the main reception hall runs the entire width of the building, and crowds gather around the several clerks waiting to serve them, but when an attendant learned we had reservations on the sixth floor, we were steered around the crowds to an elevator and up to a concierge style desk where any hotel service could be had. One signature on a form already filled out for me was all I needed to be led to my very comfortable room.
The rest of my stay there was filled with people anxious to make my stay a pleasure--get tickets for a show, directions to wherever you're going, and where to buy this and that. First thing in the morning, a huge table in the sitting area near our private reception area strained under the weight of platter after elaborate platter of delicious breakfast choices--tropical fruits, beans and rice, hash browns, eggs, fish, cereals--you name it, it was on the buffet.
One floor below the huge main reception hall are meeting rooms, shops, and a couple of restaurants, one a cafeteria affair with silver service prices. If you cross the main reception hall from the front door, you pass through doors and outside to a wonderful covered cocktail lounge area with easy chairs, sofas, strolling musicians, or stationary musical groups playing the old Cuban standards of the pre-revolution days so familiar to the tourists. Songs like Siboney, Green Eyes, Bésame Mucho, and Guantamera. If you don't do anything else in Cuba, you have to sit in that outdoor area in the cool of the evening, drink a mojito, and listen to the great music. All this with a view of the Florida Straits and Miami's lights a faint glow on the horizon.
Just as you don't see any of the old 50's cars near the hotel, you don't see any stray dogs nearby either. I suppose the hotel area gets extra scrutiny from the city's dog catchers who capture luckless dogs and cats and hold them away from tourists' eyes for a rabies quarantine period before killing them. It's hard to think of those poor little souls when you don't see them and you're being pampered to within an inch of your life. But once in a while I had to think of them--after all, they were the reason we went to Cuba.
I won't stay at the Nacional again. My regular hotel, the Presidente, is cheaper (about half the price), sufficient to my needs, and a little better located for me. But, I'll always have pleasant memories of my stay at the Nacional, especially after it's having won my Iconic American Structure Award,.
Les Inglis
Friday, October 7, 2011
Symbiosis
Symbiosis
It's been a few thousand years since the first wolves lost their fear of humans and began to hang around human campsites and evolve into dogs. Humans and dogs are two highly intelligent species who quickly realized they had something to offer each other, and they began to develop a symbiotic relationship. The dogs helped with hunting and security, and the humans made finding food much easier for the dogs. And they became so very devoted to each other.
Much as I try to discourage tourists from trying to adopt strays from Cuba (it just isn't very practical), there is almost an uncontrollable demand for finding, vetting, and shipping Cuban homeless dogs to other countries. I guess that demand is fueled by the interdependence of the two species and a resulting mutual love. Getting a dog through a visit to a local shelter is easier, cheaper, less risky, and offers more choice. But people come back home from Cuba with a sympathetic ache in their hearts for that little ownerless dog who hung around the tropical resort where they spent their vacation.
Any dog owner has to know that love, that devotion, and that mutual attachment. As I sit here writing in my study, I face on the opposite wall 9 pictures hanging of my dogs. And that gallery doesn't include two pictures of recent family dogs yet to be framed. The first was Annie, a Beagle who took my heart in no time flat. She would climb into my lap as I settled in to watch some TV, and if I didn't move all evening, she wouldn't either. We couldn't talk with each other but we surely communicated those wonderful evenings. Boy, a handsome German Shepherd, is up there too. He lived in a fenced 2 acre yard at our farm, and he had a heated dog house. But if we were outside the house, he was always with us. I often sat on the top porch stair with him sitting next to me--my arm around his big strong body. We were communicating too.
I know what those tourists feel when they see the sweet little resort hangers-on. It's like love at first sight, and it can change your life in an instant. It's like a mother's love for her child or a musician's involvement with his music, or an artist's connection with his work.
One of the drawbacks to having dogs and cats as pets is they don't last forever. Sooner or later you have to say goodbye to them. We've done that many times, and it's never easy. But even those goodbyes don't sever the connection. Annie, Boy, Yo-yo, recipients and givers of so much love are here with me today, even years after our last goodbyes.
All in all, it's an experience worth having. I know that if I always have at least one such companion in my life, I cannot feel lonely or unloved.
Les Inglis
It's been a few thousand years since the first wolves lost their fear of humans and began to hang around human campsites and evolve into dogs. Humans and dogs are two highly intelligent species who quickly realized they had something to offer each other, and they began to develop a symbiotic relationship. The dogs helped with hunting and security, and the humans made finding food much easier for the dogs. And they became so very devoted to each other.
Much as I try to discourage tourists from trying to adopt strays from Cuba (it just isn't very practical), there is almost an uncontrollable demand for finding, vetting, and shipping Cuban homeless dogs to other countries. I guess that demand is fueled by the interdependence of the two species and a resulting mutual love. Getting a dog through a visit to a local shelter is easier, cheaper, less risky, and offers more choice. But people come back home from Cuba with a sympathetic ache in their hearts for that little ownerless dog who hung around the tropical resort where they spent their vacation.
Any dog owner has to know that love, that devotion, and that mutual attachment. As I sit here writing in my study, I face on the opposite wall 9 pictures hanging of my dogs. And that gallery doesn't include two pictures of recent family dogs yet to be framed. The first was Annie, a Beagle who took my heart in no time flat. She would climb into my lap as I settled in to watch some TV, and if I didn't move all evening, she wouldn't either. We couldn't talk with each other but we surely communicated those wonderful evenings. Boy, a handsome German Shepherd, is up there too. He lived in a fenced 2 acre yard at our farm, and he had a heated dog house. But if we were outside the house, he was always with us. I often sat on the top porch stair with him sitting next to me--my arm around his big strong body. We were communicating too.
I know what those tourists feel when they see the sweet little resort hangers-on. It's like love at first sight, and it can change your life in an instant. It's like a mother's love for her child or a musician's involvement with his music, or an artist's connection with his work.
One of the drawbacks to having dogs and cats as pets is they don't last forever. Sooner or later you have to say goodbye to them. We've done that many times, and it's never easy. But even those goodbyes don't sever the connection. Annie, Boy, Yo-yo, recipients and givers of so much love are here with me today, even years after our last goodbyes.
All in all, it's an experience worth having. I know that if I always have at least one such companion in my life, I cannot feel lonely or unloved.
Les Inglis
Friday, September 30, 2011
Lázara's Dog
Lázara's Dog
Sander, a man from Holland, took his vacation in Cuba and came to know Lázara, an older Cuban lady who lived in a makeshift home built on the rooftop of an 8 story building in Old Havana. To address housing shortages, many Cubans have built homes like this. They call them "azoteas." Lázara has a dog who reminds me lots of Aló Presidente, my favorite among the dozen animals who make Aniplant's headquarters their home. (See my blog, Aló Presidente, from 8/22/10.)
Sander felt the dog was being abused and needed help, and through our mutual friend, Nikki (see my blog, You Have to Love Nicole, from 9/17/10), we were asked to help this dog, and I translated a request to Nora Garcia to see what we could do. Sander was willing to bring the dog to Holland and keep him as his pet if that was best.
Nora, knowing there is no Cuban law against mistreating animals, decided to call on Lázara and make friends with her. Luckily, Lázara was already a fan of Nora's radio shows and recognized her when she came to her place. Nora was offering help with the dog in the form of parasite treatments, help with food supplies, etc. Sander's offer of adopting the dog was refused by Lázara, but Sander's assuming a Godfather's role to the dog was readily accepted. With a little discussion and a few emails back and forth, Lázara was happy to accept most of Sander's requests for a better life for the dog, which included:
--Nora will visit occasionally to check on him
--Nora can assist with supplies of dog food
--He will get parasite and vet medical attention as needed
--His sleeping area will be cleared of junk
--He'll get a nice pillow to sleep on
--He'll get occasional walks and a leash
As Sander said, "This dog is a sweetheart and deserves the best he can get."
All of these agreements were made except the one about walks. It is difficult for Lázara to use the 8 flights of stairs. No elevator is usual in Cuba where they work only occasionally or not at all. Dogs are less safe on the streets than in their homes. Nora agrees with eliminating the regular walks. With a little negotiation and a friendly, helpful approach, Nora accomplished lots of beneficial changes for the dog and a chance to check up on him. I think Sander is pleased with how it has worked out so far.
The dog needed help, and Sander knew it. We later learned that importing animals to the European Union is almost impossible because of chipping requirements and tough inoculation requirements. Microchips are unknown in Cuba.
There are 2 million people in Havana, and so many of them know Nora because of her radio shows teaching of humane treatment of animals. Lázara's dog is one more beneficiary of all that education work.
Les Inglis
Sander, a man from Holland, took his vacation in Cuba and came to know Lázara, an older Cuban lady who lived in a makeshift home built on the rooftop of an 8 story building in Old Havana. To address housing shortages, many Cubans have built homes like this. They call them "azoteas." Lázara has a dog who reminds me lots of Aló Presidente, my favorite among the dozen animals who make Aniplant's headquarters their home. (See my blog, Aló Presidente, from 8/22/10.)
Sander felt the dog was being abused and needed help, and through our mutual friend, Nikki (see my blog, You Have to Love Nicole, from 9/17/10), we were asked to help this dog, and I translated a request to Nora Garcia to see what we could do. Sander was willing to bring the dog to Holland and keep him as his pet if that was best.
Nora, knowing there is no Cuban law against mistreating animals, decided to call on Lázara and make friends with her. Luckily, Lázara was already a fan of Nora's radio shows and recognized her when she came to her place. Nora was offering help with the dog in the form of parasite treatments, help with food supplies, etc. Sander's offer of adopting the dog was refused by Lázara, but Sander's assuming a Godfather's role to the dog was readily accepted. With a little discussion and a few emails back and forth, Lázara was happy to accept most of Sander's requests for a better life for the dog, which included:
--Nora will visit occasionally to check on him
--Nora can assist with supplies of dog food
--He will get parasite and vet medical attention as needed
--His sleeping area will be cleared of junk
--He'll get a nice pillow to sleep on
--He'll get occasional walks and a leash
As Sander said, "This dog is a sweetheart and deserves the best he can get."
All of these agreements were made except the one about walks. It is difficult for Lázara to use the 8 flights of stairs. No elevator is usual in Cuba where they work only occasionally or not at all. Dogs are less safe on the streets than in their homes. Nora agrees with eliminating the regular walks. With a little negotiation and a friendly, helpful approach, Nora accomplished lots of beneficial changes for the dog and a chance to check up on him. I think Sander is pleased with how it has worked out so far.
The dog needed help, and Sander knew it. We later learned that importing animals to the European Union is almost impossible because of chipping requirements and tough inoculation requirements. Microchips are unknown in Cuba.
There are 2 million people in Havana, and so many of them know Nora because of her radio shows teaching of humane treatment of animals. Lázara's dog is one more beneficiary of all that education work.
Les Inglis
Friday, September 23, 2011
Power Politics
Power Politics
I'm not big on political arguments, although I'm never without an opinion. On Cuba vs. US matters, I try to stay silent, but a good friend of ours, Sasha, who has a thought provoking public radio talk show called "Sound off With Sasha" in Naples, FL, told us she was going to have a show on US Cuban policy, and I was asked to phone in my comments or questions. The primary guest on the show was a former US State Department official, who did his best to describe and justify US policy towards Cuba.
Now I do want to say that despite little tweaks to travel rules for US citizens, US policy towards Cuba was set in the early 1960's and has changed little since then. Mainly it consists of an embargo (Cubans call it a blockade) on US products going to Cuba, severe restrictions on travel to Cuba, and other rules, all designed to deny the Cuban government's access to US currency and US products.
Is it successful? Well that depends upon whom you ask. Actually the Cuban government blames the embargo (el bloqueo) for nearly every problem Cuba has, so I judge they would tell you it is successful. The US government clearly thinks it is working or it would have been scrapped a long time ago. Ask the Cuban people, and they believe our embargo is the reason they must lead a life without many amenities like electronics, appliances, special foods, etc. The US man in the street probably doesn't know if it works or not as he has never been there and doesn't know anyone who has. So no wonder there isn't a popular push to end the embargo, everyone either thinks it's working or doesn't know.
What's my opinion? Well, I think it really only hurts the Cuban people by providing an excuse for not fixing anything that adversely affects them, while hardly influencing the Cuban government. Cuba can get hard currencies in other ways. For example, it has developed a thriving, profitable tourist business with most countries except the US, which has outpaced their former best exported product, sugar--as that industry has declined.
So I listened to this Washington insider on Sasha's program go on for the better part of an hour on the benefits of our Cuban policy, really feeling he was justifying the unjustifiable treatment of the Cuban people. Finally it came to be time for listener participation, and I was the second caller holding on the phone.
When my turn came, Sasha asked for my comment, and I asked, "Exactly what benefit does current US policy toward Cuba have for the American people?" I figured that ought to pin him down pretty well. But he was far slipperier than I had imagined. He said, "Well that's a rhetorical question (which it wasn't) and went on to talk about something else. In my mind, my bright question designed to put right 60 years of bad policy lingered ignored until its echoes in my head finally faded away. Mostly it was my ego that was bruised, but I got over it, and I'm still a big fan of "Sound Off With Sasha."
I learned that day that you can't easily get a politician to defend a bad policy. They're too skilled in ducking tough questions and changing the subject. I've decided, therefore, to stick to helping Cuban animals who actually suffer a little less than the Cuban people from the embargo. Maybe there's a little good in the fact that most politicians don't think much about animals.
Les Inglis
I'm not big on political arguments, although I'm never without an opinion. On Cuba vs. US matters, I try to stay silent, but a good friend of ours, Sasha, who has a thought provoking public radio talk show called "Sound off With Sasha" in Naples, FL, told us she was going to have a show on US Cuban policy, and I was asked to phone in my comments or questions. The primary guest on the show was a former US State Department official, who did his best to describe and justify US policy towards Cuba.
Now I do want to say that despite little tweaks to travel rules for US citizens, US policy towards Cuba was set in the early 1960's and has changed little since then. Mainly it consists of an embargo (Cubans call it a blockade) on US products going to Cuba, severe restrictions on travel to Cuba, and other rules, all designed to deny the Cuban government's access to US currency and US products.
Is it successful? Well that depends upon whom you ask. Actually the Cuban government blames the embargo (el bloqueo) for nearly every problem Cuba has, so I judge they would tell you it is successful. The US government clearly thinks it is working or it would have been scrapped a long time ago. Ask the Cuban people, and they believe our embargo is the reason they must lead a life without many amenities like electronics, appliances, special foods, etc. The US man in the street probably doesn't know if it works or not as he has never been there and doesn't know anyone who has. So no wonder there isn't a popular push to end the embargo, everyone either thinks it's working or doesn't know.
What's my opinion? Well, I think it really only hurts the Cuban people by providing an excuse for not fixing anything that adversely affects them, while hardly influencing the Cuban government. Cuba can get hard currencies in other ways. For example, it has developed a thriving, profitable tourist business with most countries except the US, which has outpaced their former best exported product, sugar--as that industry has declined.
So I listened to this Washington insider on Sasha's program go on for the better part of an hour on the benefits of our Cuban policy, really feeling he was justifying the unjustifiable treatment of the Cuban people. Finally it came to be time for listener participation, and I was the second caller holding on the phone.
When my turn came, Sasha asked for my comment, and I asked, "Exactly what benefit does current US policy toward Cuba have for the American people?" I figured that ought to pin him down pretty well. But he was far slipperier than I had imagined. He said, "Well that's a rhetorical question (which it wasn't) and went on to talk about something else. In my mind, my bright question designed to put right 60 years of bad policy lingered ignored until its echoes in my head finally faded away. Mostly it was my ego that was bruised, but I got over it, and I'm still a big fan of "Sound Off With Sasha."
I learned that day that you can't easily get a politician to defend a bad policy. They're too skilled in ducking tough questions and changing the subject. I've decided, therefore, to stick to helping Cuban animals who actually suffer a little less than the Cuban people from the embargo. Maybe there's a little good in the fact that most politicians don't think much about animals.
Les Inglis
Friday, September 16, 2011
Humane and Humanitarian
Humane and Humanitarian
Ask any English speaker what is a "humane" society, and you'll be told it is a group that protects animals. And so it is, but in the 1800's, humane societies focused more on orphaned children than on animals. Jeannette Ryder, the American woman who founded Cuba's Banda de Piedad in the early 1900's originally focused on both children and animals, but she came to concentrate on animals.
Today humane societies work only on animal issues as modern governments have taken over the protection of children, orphans, and families. I wondered how the dictionary reflects this evolution of meaning, and I was disappointed to learn that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), nearly everyone's authority, doesn't even mention animals in its definition of "humane." Even dictionaries can get to be way behind the times.
The US government uses the term "humanitarian" to define an exception to the tough rules restricting travel to Cuba. They fall in nicely with the OED which says "humanitarian" means "concerned with human welfare." Well, then, how have I been able to travel five times to Cuba under a "humanitarian" exception to the rules?
Surely my work is directed at animal, not human welfare. Well, not so fast, I say. The primary effort of Cuba's Aniplant organization is massive spay-neuter campaigns. Through them we now fund the sterilization of a few thousand cats and dogs every year. This work is reducing the number of strays on the streets as unrestricted breeding diminishes. Sterilization is the only humane (in the animal welfare sense) way to reduce the number of stray animals on the streets. Well, how does sterilization further "humanitarian" goals (in the human welfare sense)?
Rabies is the answer. While it is a rare disease in advanced societies, it is carried by wild animals and can never be fully controlled. Outbreaks can occur anywhere at any time. In recent years some African and Asian cities without good rabies control programs have been shocked at how rapidly rabies can take hold and threaten many people.
The number of strays (homeless animals) on the streets outside of homes who can be bitten by a sick raccoon, fox or bat is the driving factor in the risk of a rabies outbreak. Sterilization reduces this number and therefore reduces the incidence of rabies in humans. For this reason, animal sterilization is a humanitarian endeavor. That is how I qualify to travel to Cuba.
Well, didactic discourses on words like humane and humanitarian are boring, but here's a statistic that will shock you. Every year rabies kills 50,000 people worldwide. Yes, they're in Asia and Africa for the most part, but rabies control is the concern of most governments in the world, even in some of the smallest island nations.
Unfortunately some stray animal control programs are inhumane and Cuba operates one of them. Stray animals are caught by a cadre of dogcatchers, quarantined without food for a few days, and finally poisoned with strychnine. But studies have shown that when you reduce the number of stray animals by killing them, nature soon produces more animals to take their place. But if a stray is neutered, he still occupies his niche, nature doesn't (indeed it can't) replace him, and the population declines slowly. This is the basis of all TNR (trap, neuter, release) programs.
We think massive spay-neuter programs of the type Aniplant conducts in Cuba are so superior to killing strays that it almost goes without saying. Certainly dog and cat lovers among us would prefer to see that country with a diminishing number of homeless animals as opposed to too many animals with a high incidence of sick and injured ones. As tensions ease between Cuba and the US, soon Americans will once again visit Cuba at will. We are working so that Cuba can show its visitors a country that has responsibly acted to assure animal and human health.
Les Inglis
Ask any English speaker what is a "humane" society, and you'll be told it is a group that protects animals. And so it is, but in the 1800's, humane societies focused more on orphaned children than on animals. Jeannette Ryder, the American woman who founded Cuba's Banda de Piedad in the early 1900's originally focused on both children and animals, but she came to concentrate on animals.
Today humane societies work only on animal issues as modern governments have taken over the protection of children, orphans, and families. I wondered how the dictionary reflects this evolution of meaning, and I was disappointed to learn that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), nearly everyone's authority, doesn't even mention animals in its definition of "humane." Even dictionaries can get to be way behind the times.
The US government uses the term "humanitarian" to define an exception to the tough rules restricting travel to Cuba. They fall in nicely with the OED which says "humanitarian" means "concerned with human welfare." Well, then, how have I been able to travel five times to Cuba under a "humanitarian" exception to the rules?
Surely my work is directed at animal, not human welfare. Well, not so fast, I say. The primary effort of Cuba's Aniplant organization is massive spay-neuter campaigns. Through them we now fund the sterilization of a few thousand cats and dogs every year. This work is reducing the number of strays on the streets as unrestricted breeding diminishes. Sterilization is the only humane (in the animal welfare sense) way to reduce the number of stray animals on the streets. Well, how does sterilization further "humanitarian" goals (in the human welfare sense)?
Rabies is the answer. While it is a rare disease in advanced societies, it is carried by wild animals and can never be fully controlled. Outbreaks can occur anywhere at any time. In recent years some African and Asian cities without good rabies control programs have been shocked at how rapidly rabies can take hold and threaten many people.
The number of strays (homeless animals) on the streets outside of homes who can be bitten by a sick raccoon, fox or bat is the driving factor in the risk of a rabies outbreak. Sterilization reduces this number and therefore reduces the incidence of rabies in humans. For this reason, animal sterilization is a humanitarian endeavor. That is how I qualify to travel to Cuba.
Well, didactic discourses on words like humane and humanitarian are boring, but here's a statistic that will shock you. Every year rabies kills 50,000 people worldwide. Yes, they're in Asia and Africa for the most part, but rabies control is the concern of most governments in the world, even in some of the smallest island nations.
Unfortunately some stray animal control programs are inhumane and Cuba operates one of them. Stray animals are caught by a cadre of dogcatchers, quarantined without food for a few days, and finally poisoned with strychnine. But studies have shown that when you reduce the number of stray animals by killing them, nature soon produces more animals to take their place. But if a stray is neutered, he still occupies his niche, nature doesn't (indeed it can't) replace him, and the population declines slowly. This is the basis of all TNR (trap, neuter, release) programs.
We think massive spay-neuter programs of the type Aniplant conducts in Cuba are so superior to killing strays that it almost goes without saying. Certainly dog and cat lovers among us would prefer to see that country with a diminishing number of homeless animals as opposed to too many animals with a high incidence of sick and injured ones. As tensions ease between Cuba and the US, soon Americans will once again visit Cuba at will. We are working so that Cuba can show its visitors a country that has responsibly acted to assure animal and human health.
Les Inglis
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Bucket of Bolts
Bucket of Bolts
I got married and left my childhood home at the end of 1955. It was six months before my graduation from college, and I had saved some money to live on so I didn't have to work during that six months. My mom and dad had given me a great childhood, a fine education, and a loving send off. They couldn't have been nicer to me, and I couldn't have been more grateful to them than I was (and still am).
After Dad's long career in sales and later management, my mom and dad were comfortable and nearing retirement and my departure lifted one more financial burden from their shoulders. Now they could begin a life dedicated to their own enjoyment rather than to rearing and educating two kids.
Dad had always been interested in cars, and I caught that fever from him. He was a Chrysler fan, and the first car I can remember was a 1935 DeSoto Airflow coupe. That car was rare even in its early years, and in my adulthood after many years of old car mania and trudging through old car shows I have only seen one other example of that exact car. Because in his earlier years he had been a traveling salesman, Dad went through lots of cars, and I loved riding in every one of them. The car he had when I got married was a 1951 Chrysler. That model was the original muscle car as its 180 horsepower was much bigger than any other brand, and a horsepower race was unleashed on the American car buying public. He had had the '51 for a few years when I left home as his traveling salesman's years were behind him, so he didn't wear out cars as fast as he used to.
A few months after I moved out of my parents' home, Mom and Dad came by our house to take us out to dinner, and he was driving a brand new 1956 Chrysler sedan. I was very surprised when I saw it, and it was a far cry from the old '51 Chrysler I had expected to see. The new one was low and sort of angular looking compared with the inverted bathtub look of the old one. And it was the first in a series of Chryslers with tailfins--something that seems silly now, but as modern as tomorrow then. With a two tone blue and ivory paint job and pushbuttons in place of a gearshift lever, it was the epitome of automobiles as far as I was concerned.
Today I know the rakish lines and tailfins are just design tricks that really offered nothing to the motorist. In fact, it would be hard to find a better example of design excess than a '56 Chrysler. Still, I look twice when I see one, and memories of Dad and his cars come flooding back.
Those memories came again in 2009 in Cuba when we went out to visit Finca Vegia, Ernest Hemmingway's wonderful estate south of Havana. We were talking with Ada Rosa Alphonso Gonzales, the Hemingway Museum Director, and our conversation turned to the separate building where Ada Rosa keeps her office. It was a wooden building built as a garage and big enough for at least four cars. I recalled Hemingway had a 1947 Lincoln Continental Convertible in his earlier years in Cuba--truly a collectors' item if you're lucky enough to have one.
"But that's not all," she told me. "We just bought back from its former owners Hemingway's 1956 Chrysler Convertible." I was stunned they had found it after all the intervening years. "It needs a complete restoration, but now we have it." She told me the family that had it knew its history, and before they sold it they held out for a house and some money, which they eventually got. (Cuba's government owns the museum.)
It's a bucket of bolts now, but Ad Rosa told me I could see it. It looked like a very large pile of auto parts under a canvas tarpaulin--the work of a lifetime for a restorer. I was permitted to turn the canvas back and get a better look. There the old convertible top was down, the upholstery was in junkyard condition, but even the pushbuttons were there tickling my memory. I have pictures of this car when it was new in books about Papa Hemingway' years in Cuba. It was a dream machine then, and now it's a mechanic's pesadilla (nightmare). But I felt a connection to the old machine, and I hope I'll be back there to see it when volunteers have brought it to show condition.
We keep going back to Finca Vegia because Nora, Aniplant's President, is like a Godmother to the dogs who live there. She always brings them meds and flea treatments, and Aniplant has conducted spay-neuter clinics in the nearby neighborhoods. The dogs are our link to the Finca, but the old Chrysler stirs me up a little too.
Les Inglis
I got married and left my childhood home at the end of 1955. It was six months before my graduation from college, and I had saved some money to live on so I didn't have to work during that six months. My mom and dad had given me a great childhood, a fine education, and a loving send off. They couldn't have been nicer to me, and I couldn't have been more grateful to them than I was (and still am).
After Dad's long career in sales and later management, my mom and dad were comfortable and nearing retirement and my departure lifted one more financial burden from their shoulders. Now they could begin a life dedicated to their own enjoyment rather than to rearing and educating two kids.
Dad had always been interested in cars, and I caught that fever from him. He was a Chrysler fan, and the first car I can remember was a 1935 DeSoto Airflow coupe. That car was rare even in its early years, and in my adulthood after many years of old car mania and trudging through old car shows I have only seen one other example of that exact car. Because in his earlier years he had been a traveling salesman, Dad went through lots of cars, and I loved riding in every one of them. The car he had when I got married was a 1951 Chrysler. That model was the original muscle car as its 180 horsepower was much bigger than any other brand, and a horsepower race was unleashed on the American car buying public. He had had the '51 for a few years when I left home as his traveling salesman's years were behind him, so he didn't wear out cars as fast as he used to.
A few months after I moved out of my parents' home, Mom and Dad came by our house to take us out to dinner, and he was driving a brand new 1956 Chrysler sedan. I was very surprised when I saw it, and it was a far cry from the old '51 Chrysler I had expected to see. The new one was low and sort of angular looking compared with the inverted bathtub look of the old one. And it was the first in a series of Chryslers with tailfins--something that seems silly now, but as modern as tomorrow then. With a two tone blue and ivory paint job and pushbuttons in place of a gearshift lever, it was the epitome of automobiles as far as I was concerned.
Today I know the rakish lines and tailfins are just design tricks that really offered nothing to the motorist. In fact, it would be hard to find a better example of design excess than a '56 Chrysler. Still, I look twice when I see one, and memories of Dad and his cars come flooding back.
Those memories came again in 2009 in Cuba when we went out to visit Finca Vegia, Ernest Hemmingway's wonderful estate south of Havana. We were talking with Ada Rosa Alphonso Gonzales, the Hemingway Museum Director, and our conversation turned to the separate building where Ada Rosa keeps her office. It was a wooden building built as a garage and big enough for at least four cars. I recalled Hemingway had a 1947 Lincoln Continental Convertible in his earlier years in Cuba--truly a collectors' item if you're lucky enough to have one.
"But that's not all," she told me. "We just bought back from its former owners Hemingway's 1956 Chrysler Convertible." I was stunned they had found it after all the intervening years. "It needs a complete restoration, but now we have it." She told me the family that had it knew its history, and before they sold it they held out for a house and some money, which they eventually got. (Cuba's government owns the museum.)
It's a bucket of bolts now, but Ad Rosa told me I could see it. It looked like a very large pile of auto parts under a canvas tarpaulin--the work of a lifetime for a restorer. I was permitted to turn the canvas back and get a better look. There the old convertible top was down, the upholstery was in junkyard condition, but even the pushbuttons were there tickling my memory. I have pictures of this car when it was new in books about Papa Hemingway' years in Cuba. It was a dream machine then, and now it's a mechanic's pesadilla (nightmare). But I felt a connection to the old machine, and I hope I'll be back there to see it when volunteers have brought it to show condition.
We keep going back to Finca Vegia because Nora, Aniplant's President, is like a Godmother to the dogs who live there. She always brings them meds and flea treatments, and Aniplant has conducted spay-neuter clinics in the nearby neighborhoods. The dogs are our link to the Finca, but the old Chrysler stirs me up a little too.
Les Inglis
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Diet for a Better World
Diet for a Better World
If you're a visitor to Cuba, there seems to be plenty of food around--in good quantity with a nice variety. But you spend your tourist days in a cocoon sealed off, food-wise, from the Cubans themselves. The food we visitors eat in Cuba, served up in hotels, resorts, larger restaurants, etc, comes from a supply system set up only to support the tourists. There's plenty of meat, dairy products, and eggs for the tourist to eat, but the man on the street eats different fare.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Cuba entered a "special period" where the food supply system went through its own "revolution". Today, driving through Havana, you'll see what amount to farmers' markets set up in front yards in residential neighborhoods. Fruits and vegetables compatible with Cuba's tropical weather seem to abound, and so do the people crowded around the booths. What you won't see often in these markets is meat of any kind or dairy products. In fact, unlike our grocery stores, these stores have no refrigeration.
For an old vegetarian like me, I ask myself, "What's so bad about that?" Nutritionally speaking, I'd answer, "Not much." But Cubans, like Americans, like their meat, dairy, and eggs and would like to have more of them in their diets.
And yet, what sort of food should a country with strained resources produce for its people? It turns out the best diet is plant-based foods, as study after study has made clear for many decades. Really there are many good reasons why plant-based foods are better for you than animal-based foods.
First, consider that it's just plain more efficient. If you grow 10 calories worth of grain, you have two choices--eat it yourself or feed it to a steer. The steer will give you back one calorie of beef, and that ratio applies roughly to pigs, chickens, goats, etc. So if you have a country full of hungry people looking for enough food to put on the table, you'll reduce hunger ten times as fast growing plant foods for humans to eat.
Second, these days, much of the temperate and some of the tropical regions are drying out, probably due to global warming. Texas is so dry, many can't remember the last time they had a good rain. Yet it takes about 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef--hardly a bargain in a drought. So a diet of less beef and more grain makes a better environment for people--or at least one that uses its available water better.
Third, eating plants instead of animals is much healthier. During WWII, Norway and Denmark still produced food, but much of it was diverted to the Nazi war machine. Facing shortages, the people in those conquered countries made do with more plant-based foods and practically no meat and little dairy and eggs. With a few years of these restrictions, the incidence of heart disease, cancer and stroke began to decline. Today, doctors generally counsel restrictions on saturated fats (a primary harmful component of meat) in the diet. As I write this former President Bill Clinton has just announced he has become a vegan.
So, little meat, dairy and eggs in your diet isn't a bad thing, although modern societies tend to move in the opposite direction. Today Japan is losing its long-held health advantage, coming from little red meat in the diet as they strive toward copying our "Standard American Diet"
Where will Cuba end up as it solves its own food production problems? A word to the wise among Cuba's central planners: There are some good reasons for not trying to duplicate the Standard American Diet.
Les Inglis
If you're a visitor to Cuba, there seems to be plenty of food around--in good quantity with a nice variety. But you spend your tourist days in a cocoon sealed off, food-wise, from the Cubans themselves. The food we visitors eat in Cuba, served up in hotels, resorts, larger restaurants, etc, comes from a supply system set up only to support the tourists. There's plenty of meat, dairy products, and eggs for the tourist to eat, but the man on the street eats different fare.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Cuba entered a "special period" where the food supply system went through its own "revolution". Today, driving through Havana, you'll see what amount to farmers' markets set up in front yards in residential neighborhoods. Fruits and vegetables compatible with Cuba's tropical weather seem to abound, and so do the people crowded around the booths. What you won't see often in these markets is meat of any kind or dairy products. In fact, unlike our grocery stores, these stores have no refrigeration.
For an old vegetarian like me, I ask myself, "What's so bad about that?" Nutritionally speaking, I'd answer, "Not much." But Cubans, like Americans, like their meat, dairy, and eggs and would like to have more of them in their diets.
And yet, what sort of food should a country with strained resources produce for its people? It turns out the best diet is plant-based foods, as study after study has made clear for many decades. Really there are many good reasons why plant-based foods are better for you than animal-based foods.
First, consider that it's just plain more efficient. If you grow 10 calories worth of grain, you have two choices--eat it yourself or feed it to a steer. The steer will give you back one calorie of beef, and that ratio applies roughly to pigs, chickens, goats, etc. So if you have a country full of hungry people looking for enough food to put on the table, you'll reduce hunger ten times as fast growing plant foods for humans to eat.
Second, these days, much of the temperate and some of the tropical regions are drying out, probably due to global warming. Texas is so dry, many can't remember the last time they had a good rain. Yet it takes about 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef--hardly a bargain in a drought. So a diet of less beef and more grain makes a better environment for people--or at least one that uses its available water better.
Third, eating plants instead of animals is much healthier. During WWII, Norway and Denmark still produced food, but much of it was diverted to the Nazi war machine. Facing shortages, the people in those conquered countries made do with more plant-based foods and practically no meat and little dairy and eggs. With a few years of these restrictions, the incidence of heart disease, cancer and stroke began to decline. Today, doctors generally counsel restrictions on saturated fats (a primary harmful component of meat) in the diet. As I write this former President Bill Clinton has just announced he has become a vegan.
So, little meat, dairy and eggs in your diet isn't a bad thing, although modern societies tend to move in the opposite direction. Today Japan is losing its long-held health advantage, coming from little red meat in the diet as they strive toward copying our "Standard American Diet"
Where will Cuba end up as it solves its own food production problems? A word to the wise among Cuba's central planners: There are some good reasons for not trying to duplicate the Standard American Diet.
Les Inglis
Friday, August 19, 2011
Talking Politics
Talking Politics
While I'm still registered as a republican, I haven't voted for one since 1988. I mention this, not because I want to talk politics, but as an introduction to this blog chapter on politics in the US and Cuba. Basically, I'm not a strong party member, no matter which party thinks it can claim me. We have a friend who is a staunch republican, and I do what I can to avoid any political discussions with him. I know I can't change his mind with my liberal views (and vice versa, I'm sure), and so I certainly wouldn't want to lose his friendship because of a conversation that can't go anywhere.
But if I were more of a political animal, I would feel free to go further than showing a bumper sticker or two on my car. I might send a letter to the editor or speak at a public meeting. Those who don't agree with me would just ignore me anyway.
But my visits to Cuba provoke questions from my friends: "What does he think of the US Embargo?" or "How does she feel about the communist government there?" I'm really happy to say I don't know the answers to questions like that. The reason is that I studiously avoid talking politics in Cuba. It's not because I'm worried I might be picked up and jailed. Hardly! It's more because I'm there as a guest in someone else's country with different political and economic systems, and our two countries' governments more often criticize each other than not. Now many Cubans have lived their entire lives under the present government, and they know nothing else. It's unfair to criticize any facet of their country when I go there as a guest. It's also unfair to compare any facet of US life with what obtains in Cuba.
People in each nation have been denied a close relationship with the other, and there is far less interchange between the two countries than there should be. For those who have traveled there or those who are about to, I counsel them to adopt my apolitical attitude, not only while there, but also here at home.
The Cuban-American community in Miami was once more homogeneous in their opposition to the Cuban government. They had nearly all risked their lives to escape, making an arduous boat trip here, and their antipathy to their former government was palpable. Today, many Cuban Americans can't remember living there, and we find an almost 50/50 split in opinion on many political questions. One way to gauge this is to take the daily little poll on the front page of El Nuevo Herald, Miami's Spanish newspaper.
Today, even the two governments are changing their tunes a little. Raul Castro has eased the rules on the use of cell phones and privately operated small businesses. Barack Obama has eased on some travel restrictions on US citizens wanting to go to Cuba.
Many Cubans get permission from Cuba and a visa from the US to visit. It takes time and a reason, but it certainly is not an island prison keeping everyone home. Some Cubans are quite well-traveled. And the current impression is that US citizens can't go to Cuba. Also wrong. You need a reason, but hundreds of thousands have made the trip legally. I've now done it six times.
For me, animal protection is the reason I go, and we try to help a really fine organization that does good work for Cuba's animals. Many other Americans go for research, education, history, or to visit relatives.
There are plenty of reasons to visit here or there, and avoiding political discussions seems to me to be a small price to pay for travelers on either side of the Florida Straits.
Les Inglis
While I'm still registered as a republican, I haven't voted for one since 1988. I mention this, not because I want to talk politics, but as an introduction to this blog chapter on politics in the US and Cuba. Basically, I'm not a strong party member, no matter which party thinks it can claim me. We have a friend who is a staunch republican, and I do what I can to avoid any political discussions with him. I know I can't change his mind with my liberal views (and vice versa, I'm sure), and so I certainly wouldn't want to lose his friendship because of a conversation that can't go anywhere.
But if I were more of a political animal, I would feel free to go further than showing a bumper sticker or two on my car. I might send a letter to the editor or speak at a public meeting. Those who don't agree with me would just ignore me anyway.
But my visits to Cuba provoke questions from my friends: "What does he think of the US Embargo?" or "How does she feel about the communist government there?" I'm really happy to say I don't know the answers to questions like that. The reason is that I studiously avoid talking politics in Cuba. It's not because I'm worried I might be picked up and jailed. Hardly! It's more because I'm there as a guest in someone else's country with different political and economic systems, and our two countries' governments more often criticize each other than not. Now many Cubans have lived their entire lives under the present government, and they know nothing else. It's unfair to criticize any facet of their country when I go there as a guest. It's also unfair to compare any facet of US life with what obtains in Cuba.
People in each nation have been denied a close relationship with the other, and there is far less interchange between the two countries than there should be. For those who have traveled there or those who are about to, I counsel them to adopt my apolitical attitude, not only while there, but also here at home.
The Cuban-American community in Miami was once more homogeneous in their opposition to the Cuban government. They had nearly all risked their lives to escape, making an arduous boat trip here, and their antipathy to their former government was palpable. Today, many Cuban Americans can't remember living there, and we find an almost 50/50 split in opinion on many political questions. One way to gauge this is to take the daily little poll on the front page of El Nuevo Herald, Miami's Spanish newspaper.
Today, even the two governments are changing their tunes a little. Raul Castro has eased the rules on the use of cell phones and privately operated small businesses. Barack Obama has eased on some travel restrictions on US citizens wanting to go to Cuba.
Many Cubans get permission from Cuba and a visa from the US to visit. It takes time and a reason, but it certainly is not an island prison keeping everyone home. Some Cubans are quite well-traveled. And the current impression is that US citizens can't go to Cuba. Also wrong. You need a reason, but hundreds of thousands have made the trip legally. I've now done it six times.
For me, animal protection is the reason I go, and we try to help a really fine organization that does good work for Cuba's animals. Many other Americans go for research, education, history, or to visit relatives.
There are plenty of reasons to visit here or there, and avoiding political discussions seems to me to be a small price to pay for travelers on either side of the Florida Straits.
Les Inglis
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Support Your Local Shelter
Support Your Local Shelter
34 million people live above our northern border, and none of them needs to worry about laws restricting their travel to Cuba. This fact, plus Canada's chilly northern locale, make for a healthy tourist business in Cuba. Sure, lot of Europeans jam busses dieseling all over Cuba, but a surprising number come from Canada.
Cuba's homeless street dogs are happy about this swarm of tourists, as they quickly learn there are handouts and wasted food to find near where tourists congregate. Hotels, restaurants (almost exclusively for tourist use), beaches, bars, tour bus rest stops, and shopping areas--all seem to have their share of canine hangers-on. The Cuban nationals are extremely careful not to waste food, after decades of struggle to have enough to eat.
It's no surprise we hear from lots of Canadians who've just come home from Cuba and have decided they'd like to save that cute little dog they saw begging near a bar at the beach. This presents a huge ethical dilemma. To get a stray dog out of Cuba is just as expensive--or more so-- as sending your purebred Portuguese Water Dog out of the country. And your purebred animal probably has a health certificate while the stray must undergo many tests and a thorough veterinary exam before flying out of the country.
But the first hurdle is to find the animal, and hopefully the traveler has some photos and a good description. To pick up the stray, you need to be sure it belongs to no one, because many Cuban family dogs still run loose.
For the medical matters the vets first need to clear up stray dog problems like fleas, ticks, worms, and mange. The vaccinations for rabies and other diseases need to be run. By law, some of these inoculations need to be done weeks before air travel. Also time passes as some tests are sent away to laboratories by the vets who draw the samples. All this can add up to a month or more in a foster home as vet work is sorted out.
Once a health certificate is obtained, you're still not home free. Some airlines quite correctly refuse to transport animals in the hot summer. A delay until cooler months could cost lots for foster care. And it pays to know what you're doing. Canadian airport authorities recently refused to accept a health certificate rendered in Spanish (not arranged by Aniplant). Without much frantic intervention, the next step would have been euthanasia by the airport vet.
Well, you get the picture; this is a time-intensive, expensive project to save one animal and, hopefully, to give it a better life in a loving family. Most travelers start out thinking it's really simple: Run it by a vet for a check-up, get a ticket and a travel cage, coordinate flight times and you're home free. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
When you think about the ethics of the situation, it really isn't a great thing to do. Yes, you save an animal and give him or her a better home, but you can do that at your local animal shelter as well. You have no choice of type if a stray dog touches the soft spot in your heart, but the local animal shelter could easily have up to 50% purebred animals looking for homes. Also at the shelter you can choose age, gender, color, disposition, etc. And the cost might be $50 instead of $300 or more for a Cuban intervention.
And the biggest ethical question of all is, have you done any more for the universe of homeless dogs by adopting from Cuba than by adopting from your local shelter? The answer, obviously, is "no."
But you have purchased the right to tell your friends the story of how you found and saved the dog.
Of course you can tell them the same story about a shelter dog for a lot less time, worry, and expense.
Les Inglis
34 million people live above our northern border, and none of them needs to worry about laws restricting their travel to Cuba. This fact, plus Canada's chilly northern locale, make for a healthy tourist business in Cuba. Sure, lot of Europeans jam busses dieseling all over Cuba, but a surprising number come from Canada.
Cuba's homeless street dogs are happy about this swarm of tourists, as they quickly learn there are handouts and wasted food to find near where tourists congregate. Hotels, restaurants (almost exclusively for tourist use), beaches, bars, tour bus rest stops, and shopping areas--all seem to have their share of canine hangers-on. The Cuban nationals are extremely careful not to waste food, after decades of struggle to have enough to eat.
It's no surprise we hear from lots of Canadians who've just come home from Cuba and have decided they'd like to save that cute little dog they saw begging near a bar at the beach. This presents a huge ethical dilemma. To get a stray dog out of Cuba is just as expensive--or more so-- as sending your purebred Portuguese Water Dog out of the country. And your purebred animal probably has a health certificate while the stray must undergo many tests and a thorough veterinary exam before flying out of the country.
But the first hurdle is to find the animal, and hopefully the traveler has some photos and a good description. To pick up the stray, you need to be sure it belongs to no one, because many Cuban family dogs still run loose.
For the medical matters the vets first need to clear up stray dog problems like fleas, ticks, worms, and mange. The vaccinations for rabies and other diseases need to be run. By law, some of these inoculations need to be done weeks before air travel. Also time passes as some tests are sent away to laboratories by the vets who draw the samples. All this can add up to a month or more in a foster home as vet work is sorted out.
Once a health certificate is obtained, you're still not home free. Some airlines quite correctly refuse to transport animals in the hot summer. A delay until cooler months could cost lots for foster care. And it pays to know what you're doing. Canadian airport authorities recently refused to accept a health certificate rendered in Spanish (not arranged by Aniplant). Without much frantic intervention, the next step would have been euthanasia by the airport vet.
Well, you get the picture; this is a time-intensive, expensive project to save one animal and, hopefully, to give it a better life in a loving family. Most travelers start out thinking it's really simple: Run it by a vet for a check-up, get a ticket and a travel cage, coordinate flight times and you're home free. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
When you think about the ethics of the situation, it really isn't a great thing to do. Yes, you save an animal and give him or her a better home, but you can do that at your local animal shelter as well. You have no choice of type if a stray dog touches the soft spot in your heart, but the local animal shelter could easily have up to 50% purebred animals looking for homes. Also at the shelter you can choose age, gender, color, disposition, etc. And the cost might be $50 instead of $300 or more for a Cuban intervention.
And the biggest ethical question of all is, have you done any more for the universe of homeless dogs by adopting from Cuba than by adopting from your local shelter? The answer, obviously, is "no."
But you have purchased the right to tell your friends the story of how you found and saved the dog.
Of course you can tell them the same story about a shelter dog for a lot less time, worry, and expense.
Les Inglis
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Humane Warriors in Another Era
Humane Warriors in Another Era
Last week in this blog, we toured the Colon Cemetery in Havana and reacquainted ourselves with Jeannette Ryder, founder in 1906 of the Banda de Piedad (group of mercy). It stirred me to try to look back into Cuban history to learn a little more about the humane movement in Cuba in the early part of the 20th century. Doing history today is easy compared to just a few decades ago. A Google search can turn up thousands of documents on some subjects. Still, some others only generate a few references. Cuba's early humane history only gave a few, but they were pretty interesting.
Jeannette Ryder didn't let any grass grow under her feet. She quickly became a force for humane action in Havana, frequently rescuing dogs injured in traffic or just sick dogs from the streets. The Banda de Piedad recruited many volunteers and fielded a fleet of ambulances to pick up unfortunate animals and bring them to her hospital where treatment and drugs were free. She sent recruiters across Cuba and began humane work in other cities. Eventually she could count 20,000 members across the nation.
In 1912 there were some cases of bubonic plague in Cuba. Cubans then, and to a lesser extent today, tend to believe human illnesses can be transmitted from animals. In 1912 a wave of fear of street animals grew among the people, and fear of the plague caused many to harm or kill their animals.
That year Nicolás Russo López, a member of the Banda de Piedad, discovered a man trying to kill dogs by pouring coal oil on them and lighting them on fire. He rushed to rescue the dogs and saved them. He then threatened the man with reporting him to the Banda, and the dog torturer became incensed, drew a pistol, and fired at Russo López. He was struck, nearly fatally, by a bullet in the left lung but eventually recuperated. Later, the Pennsylvania SPCA awarded him $50 from a fund to reward courage in the defense of animals.
A couple of years earlier, Senora Arredondo of Havana was not so lucky. She was also a member of the Banda de Piedad, and had called out a known animal abuser, a mule team driver who treated his mules cruelly. She berated his cruelties to his face as he sat in his wagon. Suddenly, he swerved his wagon and it struck Sra. Arredondo, crushing her between the wagon and a brick wall. She was terribly injured and died on her way to the hospital. Ironically, the force that killed her was provided unknowingly by the mules she was trying to save. Word of her killing stirred a popular reaction in Havana, and a fountain was built and dedicated in her memory.
These heroes of humane action for animals, Señor Russo López and Señora Arredondo, seem obscure today, a full century later, but their spirit lives on--not really in great historical fame--but in the lives and values and actions of millions who support the protection of animals.
Les Inglis
Last week in this blog, we toured the Colon Cemetery in Havana and reacquainted ourselves with Jeannette Ryder, founder in 1906 of the Banda de Piedad (group of mercy). It stirred me to try to look back into Cuban history to learn a little more about the humane movement in Cuba in the early part of the 20th century. Doing history today is easy compared to just a few decades ago. A Google search can turn up thousands of documents on some subjects. Still, some others only generate a few references. Cuba's early humane history only gave a few, but they were pretty interesting.
Jeannette Ryder didn't let any grass grow under her feet. She quickly became a force for humane action in Havana, frequently rescuing dogs injured in traffic or just sick dogs from the streets. The Banda de Piedad recruited many volunteers and fielded a fleet of ambulances to pick up unfortunate animals and bring them to her hospital where treatment and drugs were free. She sent recruiters across Cuba and began humane work in other cities. Eventually she could count 20,000 members across the nation.
In 1912 there were some cases of bubonic plague in Cuba. Cubans then, and to a lesser extent today, tend to believe human illnesses can be transmitted from animals. In 1912 a wave of fear of street animals grew among the people, and fear of the plague caused many to harm or kill their animals.
That year Nicolás Russo López, a member of the Banda de Piedad, discovered a man trying to kill dogs by pouring coal oil on them and lighting them on fire. He rushed to rescue the dogs and saved them. He then threatened the man with reporting him to the Banda, and the dog torturer became incensed, drew a pistol, and fired at Russo López. He was struck, nearly fatally, by a bullet in the left lung but eventually recuperated. Later, the Pennsylvania SPCA awarded him $50 from a fund to reward courage in the defense of animals.
A couple of years earlier, Senora Arredondo of Havana was not so lucky. She was also a member of the Banda de Piedad, and had called out a known animal abuser, a mule team driver who treated his mules cruelly. She berated his cruelties to his face as he sat in his wagon. Suddenly, he swerved his wagon and it struck Sra. Arredondo, crushing her between the wagon and a brick wall. She was terribly injured and died on her way to the hospital. Ironically, the force that killed her was provided unknowingly by the mules she was trying to save. Word of her killing stirred a popular reaction in Havana, and a fountain was built and dedicated in her memory.
These heroes of humane action for animals, Señor Russo López and Señora Arredondo, seem obscure today, a full century later, but their spirit lives on--not really in great historical fame--but in the lives and values and actions of millions who support the protection of animals.
Les Inglis
Friday, July 29, 2011
Cemetery Musings
Cemetery Musings
Twelve years ago on a trip to Argentina, I learned of the Argentine fascination with death. A visit to the Recoleta Cemetery near my hotel made that preoccupation clear. Recoleta has so many mausoleums, monuments and sculptures that walking through it is something like walking through a museum. When I started to travel to Cuba, I learned this interest in one's ancestors isn't limited to Argentina; it's a Latin American thing.
Havana's huge Cristóbal Colón Cemetery far surpasses Recoleta in size, beauty, history, etc. Its elaborate monuments may be unsurpassed in the world. This is a tale of two gravesites in the Colón Cemetery with a little of what they can teach us.
La Milagrosa
On a hot day in August in the first years of the 20th century, a young Cuban wife, Amelia Goyri, died in childbirth. Her little baby girl did not survive the birth either. Her distraught husband, José Adot buried them with the baby placed between her mother's legs, as was the Spanish custom at the time.
José began visiting the gravesite every day, a routine that lasted 40 years until his death. That's remarkable in itself, but it was hardly the most remarkable facet of this story of love and devotion.
A few years after the loss of Amelia and her baby, José's father died, and the grave was opened to accept his remains. A shocking surprise awaited those who attended the father's burial. They stood in stunned disbelief as they saw the baby was nestled in her mother's arms. To the devout Cuban Catholics, this was a true miracle! Today a beautiful monument of a mother holding her baby in one arm and a large cross in the other stands over the grave, and every day at all hours, young people kneel, pray, and light candles, petitioning God to make their babies healthy.
Jeannette Ryder
Jeannette Ryder was a contemporary of Amelia and José. In 1906 in Havana she founded the Banda de Piedad (the group of compassion) and dedicated herself to helping animals for the rest of her life. Devoting all of her time and treasure to helping animals, Jeannette militated against cruelty to animals and bullfights. (Even then bullfighting was illegal in Cuba.) She has appeared in these blogs before (see posting of 7/30/10).
When Jeanette died in 1931, she was buried in Havana's grand Colón Cemetery. Her faithful dog, Rinty, refused to leave her gravesite, and even returned when forcefully removed from the cemetery. He refused food from the cemetery staff and gradually wasted away and died at his mistress' grave. Today a gorgeous bronze covers the grave replicating Jeannette lying in repose. Curled at her feet is Rinty, whose dedication has caused the site to be called La Tumba de la Lealidad (the tomb of loyalty).
The Parallels
José and Rinty remained faithful to their loves for the rest of their lives. Each came to see his loved one honored with an artistic monument. Both graves, only a few blocks apart in the cemetery, have inspired well-known stories now part of the Cuban culture.
While Amelia's gravesite is known as La Milagrosa (The Miracle) and has become a well-known story to Havana's religious people, it is an icon of familial love. Rinti, inspired by his all-consuming love for Jeannette, did something we rather more expect of dogs than people. He refused to leave even to sustain his own life. Consumate loyalty.
Isn't it odd how we sometimes get more love from our animals than we do even from those closest to us?
Les Inglis
Twelve years ago on a trip to Argentina, I learned of the Argentine fascination with death. A visit to the Recoleta Cemetery near my hotel made that preoccupation clear. Recoleta has so many mausoleums, monuments and sculptures that walking through it is something like walking through a museum. When I started to travel to Cuba, I learned this interest in one's ancestors isn't limited to Argentina; it's a Latin American thing.
Havana's huge Cristóbal Colón Cemetery far surpasses Recoleta in size, beauty, history, etc. Its elaborate monuments may be unsurpassed in the world. This is a tale of two gravesites in the Colón Cemetery with a little of what they can teach us.
La Milagrosa
On a hot day in August in the first years of the 20th century, a young Cuban wife, Amelia Goyri, died in childbirth. Her little baby girl did not survive the birth either. Her distraught husband, José Adot buried them with the baby placed between her mother's legs, as was the Spanish custom at the time.
José began visiting the gravesite every day, a routine that lasted 40 years until his death. That's remarkable in itself, but it was hardly the most remarkable facet of this story of love and devotion.
A few years after the loss of Amelia and her baby, José's father died, and the grave was opened to accept his remains. A shocking surprise awaited those who attended the father's burial. They stood in stunned disbelief as they saw the baby was nestled in her mother's arms. To the devout Cuban Catholics, this was a true miracle! Today a beautiful monument of a mother holding her baby in one arm and a large cross in the other stands over the grave, and every day at all hours, young people kneel, pray, and light candles, petitioning God to make their babies healthy.
Jeannette Ryder
Jeannette Ryder was a contemporary of Amelia and José. In 1906 in Havana she founded the Banda de Piedad (the group of compassion) and dedicated herself to helping animals for the rest of her life. Devoting all of her time and treasure to helping animals, Jeannette militated against cruelty to animals and bullfights. (Even then bullfighting was illegal in Cuba.) She has appeared in these blogs before (see posting of 7/30/10).
When Jeanette died in 1931, she was buried in Havana's grand Colón Cemetery. Her faithful dog, Rinty, refused to leave her gravesite, and even returned when forcefully removed from the cemetery. He refused food from the cemetery staff and gradually wasted away and died at his mistress' grave. Today a gorgeous bronze covers the grave replicating Jeannette lying in repose. Curled at her feet is Rinty, whose dedication has caused the site to be called La Tumba de la Lealidad (the tomb of loyalty).
The Parallels
José and Rinty remained faithful to their loves for the rest of their lives. Each came to see his loved one honored with an artistic monument. Both graves, only a few blocks apart in the cemetery, have inspired well-known stories now part of the Cuban culture.
While Amelia's gravesite is known as La Milagrosa (The Miracle) and has become a well-known story to Havana's religious people, it is an icon of familial love. Rinti, inspired by his all-consuming love for Jeannette, did something we rather more expect of dogs than people. He refused to leave even to sustain his own life. Consumate loyalty.
Isn't it odd how we sometimes get more love from our animals than we do even from those closest to us?
Les Inglis
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Bigotes
Bigotes
I suppose one should know a cat's name before one starts to write about her. But I don't. The subject of this little story is a mottled grey female cat who lives at Havana's Presidente Hotel. Lacking her name, I'll call her Bigotes, which means Whiskers in Spanish. Bigotes is the hotel's cat, and she spends most of her time on the wide porches that border the south and east sides of the hotel. She can also be found from time to time in the beautiful pool area on the north side.
The Presidente is 1-1/2 blocks from the Malecon, Havana's coastal highway and alongside Vedado's Avenida de Los Presidentes, arguably the grandest boulevard in Havana. Bigotes lives in a high rent district.
Bigotes looks a lot like Marble, a favorite Calico we had who lived a long and happy life --half of it in one of the barns at our farm. Marble was more colorful than Bigotes (what good is it to be a Calico if she doesn't have lots of color?) But Bigotes is still quite pretty, and, like Marble was, she is well-oriented toward people. The hotel porch and pool areas are filled with tables and chairs, peopled with guests, served by waiters and bar attendants, and patrolled by Bigotes.
I met her on my first trip to Havana six years ago. Missing my own dogs and cats, I would stop to pet her and talk to her whenever I saw her. She liked the attention. On my second stay at the Presidente, I realized she is a long-term, stable resident of the hotel. She's well-fed (probably by some employee of one of the hotel's two very good restaurants), and I could see little bowls of water set around for her. Somebody besides me loves this cat, I thought.
Thus it went through the years, and each time I returned to the Presidente. Bigotes was there for me to enjoy. This year, in March, my traveling companions, Nikki and Mariane, got to know Bigotes as well. They wanted to know if she was spayed and how old she was.. "Yes," George, the younger bellman assured us, "She's 9 years old, spayed and gets good medical attention as needed."
And it couldn't be otherwise, I reasoned. She'd wander away if she didn't have a source of good food, and, if she had not been spayed, a constant procession of litters of kittens would have done her in long ago.
I like the Presidente. Not a slick modern hotel, it was built in 1928. It's economical (about $70 per night compared with $160 for Henry Flagler's masterpiece, Havana's Hotel Nacional.) The Nacional is the twin sister of Palm Beach's The Breakers.
Well, the Presidente isn't as slick as the Nacional, and you won't see many celebrities there, but then the Nacional doesn't have Bigotes for guests to pet.
Les Inglis
I suppose one should know a cat's name before one starts to write about her. But I don't. The subject of this little story is a mottled grey female cat who lives at Havana's Presidente Hotel. Lacking her name, I'll call her Bigotes, which means Whiskers in Spanish. Bigotes is the hotel's cat, and she spends most of her time on the wide porches that border the south and east sides of the hotel. She can also be found from time to time in the beautiful pool area on the north side.
The Presidente is 1-1/2 blocks from the Malecon, Havana's coastal highway and alongside Vedado's Avenida de Los Presidentes, arguably the grandest boulevard in Havana. Bigotes lives in a high rent district.
Bigotes looks a lot like Marble, a favorite Calico we had who lived a long and happy life --half of it in one of the barns at our farm. Marble was more colorful than Bigotes (what good is it to be a Calico if she doesn't have lots of color?) But Bigotes is still quite pretty, and, like Marble was, she is well-oriented toward people. The hotel porch and pool areas are filled with tables and chairs, peopled with guests, served by waiters and bar attendants, and patrolled by Bigotes.
I met her on my first trip to Havana six years ago. Missing my own dogs and cats, I would stop to pet her and talk to her whenever I saw her. She liked the attention. On my second stay at the Presidente, I realized she is a long-term, stable resident of the hotel. She's well-fed (probably by some employee of one of the hotel's two very good restaurants), and I could see little bowls of water set around for her. Somebody besides me loves this cat, I thought.
Thus it went through the years, and each time I returned to the Presidente. Bigotes was there for me to enjoy. This year, in March, my traveling companions, Nikki and Mariane, got to know Bigotes as well. They wanted to know if she was spayed and how old she was.. "Yes," George, the younger bellman assured us, "She's 9 years old, spayed and gets good medical attention as needed."
And it couldn't be otherwise, I reasoned. She'd wander away if she didn't have a source of good food, and, if she had not been spayed, a constant procession of litters of kittens would have done her in long ago.
I like the Presidente. Not a slick modern hotel, it was built in 1928. It's economical (about $70 per night compared with $160 for Henry Flagler's masterpiece, Havana's Hotel Nacional.) The Nacional is the twin sister of Palm Beach's The Breakers.
Well, the Presidente isn't as slick as the Nacional, and you won't see many celebrities there, but then the Nacional doesn't have Bigotes for guests to pet.
Les Inglis
Friday, July 15, 2011
Estafadores
Estafadores
In case the title of this post looks strange to you, it's just the Spanish word for "swindler." Anyone who has traveled outside the US knows you have to be constantly on your guard when you are obviously a tourist. Cuba is the same as most other countries--lots of locals are on the streets to try their cons on the visitors.
As an example of little cons, there's the guy who wants to show you where they make the cigars. He gets a little tip from the cigar factory, and if you buy any, you pay an inflated price. The guy who sat down next to me in the Central Park told me how his little brother is sick and needs milk to get well, but the store that sells milk only takes CUC's, convertible Cuban currency that the locals never have. A peanut vendor sells me a paper cone of nuts and tries to give me worthless old peso coins in change for a 1 CUC coin I gave him.
But recently I learned of bigger cons after bigger money and with far more sinister game plans. If you've read earlier blogs about Cuba the dog and Bella, you know we've devoted some time to rehoming street dogs to families in the north. An expensive and exacting activity, lots of time is needed to work out the details properly.
The usual situation is the tourist sees a street dog begging for food, and falls in love with him or her. That tourist goes home, finds our website, and we get emails asking if there is a way we can find that dog. Perhaps the dog is at a beach resort, a tourist area, or hanging around a hotel. If Aniplant gets involved, we can get veterinary help, a health certificate, and find a way to fly the animal to the US or Canada. Well that's a big job with Aniplant doing the work, but it can be done. We've taken on a number of such projects. Except for the emotional appeal of saving "that little hungry dog I found on vacation," it would be far more efficient to stop by your local shelter and have your choice of breeds, colors, sizes, and ages.
The big swindles can come if the tourist makes that commitment to the dog with only a few days left before he or she must leave and then is forced to rely on strangers to try to keep the dog temporarily, get it vet care, and get it to the airport when you can arrange a ticket to fly it to you. "No problem," the pressed tourist says, "I can pay for any expenses involved" to the helpful stranger near the hotel.
"No problem", says the casual thief, "I am a dog lover, I have a clean place for him to stay, and I know a great vet." The tourist thinks to himself, "someone is up there really looking out for me."
I have no doubt the park swindler with the sick little brother would also immediately offer to give a dog a good temporary home and get him to one of the best vets in town. Like the great retailer, Marshall Field, whose motto was, "give the lady what she wants."
And about how much for a couple of weeks' or a month's fostering, food, vet, etc.? Maybe 300 or 400 CUC's (about 1 CUC per $) will do for now, and the tourist is sure he or she can find a way to send more if there are delays before he is flown to north. The tourist and the thief write down their addresses, phones, even emails, but a week later if you go to that address, the little dog will be gone.
Sue, who didn't initially know about Aniplant, contacted us after returning home, and, at my suggestion, asked Nora to check on the Dachshund dog, Diva, and its "foster home" that she had arranged. The wife of the guy she found in the park gave up the dog to Nora (see picture of the Diva substitute), and Nora emailed its picture to Sue. Guess what? Wrong dog! When they knew a real animal protector was coming, they found a different dog to give to her.
Normally, Nora is very careful to be sure she is receiving the right dog, but the email Sue had sent with pictures went astray, and Nora was flying blind when she got to the house with no idea of what the first dog looked like. But still, the dog needed to be removed from this home--the place wasn't suitable for housing a dog.
Sue, a good soul who had placed many dogs in the past, wants to take both dogs if Diva, the first dog, can be found again. It's bad enough when a dog is abandoned in a strange place by the swindler for easy money, but it can be a death sentence for the dog. At least when street dogs are in familiar environs, they can eke out a living begging for food. Right now we don't know where the first dog is, but we're looking.
In another case, we heard of a traveler who came back to Cuba to get the dog for which she had made casual arrangements with a street person, and found the caretaker demanding a large additional payment--basically a ransom demand.
And even if you aren't swindled and inexperienced people don't handle the dog's paperwork carefully, the dog can be held at the flight destination and possibly even killed by Customs. This could happen even after a successful fostering by a well-meaning friend.
Dogs, cats, cigars, peanut vendors, milk for my little brother--all seem to attract swindlers to scam the tourists' money. Frankly, rehoming a street dog isn't a good idea even when you have qualified help, but how do you tell that to a recent traveler who fell in love with a dog a couple of weeks ago when she was in Cuba?
Les Inglis
In case the title of this post looks strange to you, it's just the Spanish word for "swindler." Anyone who has traveled outside the US knows you have to be constantly on your guard when you are obviously a tourist. Cuba is the same as most other countries--lots of locals are on the streets to try their cons on the visitors.
As an example of little cons, there's the guy who wants to show you where they make the cigars. He gets a little tip from the cigar factory, and if you buy any, you pay an inflated price. The guy who sat down next to me in the Central Park told me how his little brother is sick and needs milk to get well, but the store that sells milk only takes CUC's, convertible Cuban currency that the locals never have. A peanut vendor sells me a paper cone of nuts and tries to give me worthless old peso coins in change for a 1 CUC coin I gave him.
But recently I learned of bigger cons after bigger money and with far more sinister game plans. If you've read earlier blogs about Cuba the dog and Bella, you know we've devoted some time to rehoming street dogs to families in the north. An expensive and exacting activity, lots of time is needed to work out the details properly.
The usual situation is the tourist sees a street dog begging for food, and falls in love with him or her. That tourist goes home, finds our website, and we get emails asking if there is a way we can find that dog. Perhaps the dog is at a beach resort, a tourist area, or hanging around a hotel. If Aniplant gets involved, we can get veterinary help, a health certificate, and find a way to fly the animal to the US or Canada. Well that's a big job with Aniplant doing the work, but it can be done. We've taken on a number of such projects. Except for the emotional appeal of saving "that little hungry dog I found on vacation," it would be far more efficient to stop by your local shelter and have your choice of breeds, colors, sizes, and ages.
The big swindles can come if the tourist makes that commitment to the dog with only a few days left before he or she must leave and then is forced to rely on strangers to try to keep the dog temporarily, get it vet care, and get it to the airport when you can arrange a ticket to fly it to you. "No problem," the pressed tourist says, "I can pay for any expenses involved" to the helpful stranger near the hotel.
"No problem", says the casual thief, "I am a dog lover, I have a clean place for him to stay, and I know a great vet." The tourist thinks to himself, "someone is up there really looking out for me."
I have no doubt the park swindler with the sick little brother would also immediately offer to give a dog a good temporary home and get him to one of the best vets in town. Like the great retailer, Marshall Field, whose motto was, "give the lady what she wants."
And about how much for a couple of weeks' or a month's fostering, food, vet, etc.? Maybe 300 or 400 CUC's (about 1 CUC per $) will do for now, and the tourist is sure he or she can find a way to send more if there are delays before he is flown to north. The tourist and the thief write down their addresses, phones, even emails, but a week later if you go to that address, the little dog will be gone.
Sue, who didn't initially know about Aniplant, contacted us after returning home, and, at my suggestion, asked Nora to check on the Dachshund dog, Diva, and its "foster home" that she had arranged. The wife of the guy she found in the park gave up the dog to Nora (see picture of the Diva substitute), and Nora emailed its picture to Sue. Guess what? Wrong dog! When they knew a real animal protector was coming, they found a different dog to give to her.
Normally, Nora is very careful to be sure she is receiving the right dog, but the email Sue had sent with pictures went astray, and Nora was flying blind when she got to the house with no idea of what the first dog looked like. But still, the dog needed to be removed from this home--the place wasn't suitable for housing a dog.
Sue, a good soul who had placed many dogs in the past, wants to take both dogs if Diva, the first dog, can be found again. It's bad enough when a dog is abandoned in a strange place by the swindler for easy money, but it can be a death sentence for the dog. At least when street dogs are in familiar environs, they can eke out a living begging for food. Right now we don't know where the first dog is, but we're looking.
In another case, we heard of a traveler who came back to Cuba to get the dog for which she had made casual arrangements with a street person, and found the caretaker demanding a large additional payment--basically a ransom demand.
And even if you aren't swindled and inexperienced people don't handle the dog's paperwork carefully, the dog can be held at the flight destination and possibly even killed by Customs. This could happen even after a successful fostering by a well-meaning friend.
Dogs, cats, cigars, peanut vendors, milk for my little brother--all seem to attract swindlers to scam the tourists' money. Frankly, rehoming a street dog isn't a good idea even when you have qualified help, but how do you tell that to a recent traveler who fell in love with a dog a couple of weeks ago when she was in Cuba?
Les Inglis
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Imagine
Imagine
Imagine you wake to find yourself on the streets of a large city, hungry and scared. You don't seem to have any connections there, and you don't have any idea of where you fit in. There seem to be two kinds of people on the streets and they don't all talk alike. But some, the minority, seem to have more than enough to eat, and they often throw away leftovers. If you're lucky enough to be around when they throw food away, that's what you eat. If not, your old companion, hunge,r always hovers nearby.
Your leg hurts from a run in with a car, and you limp a little. You wonder if it will ever be much better, but at least you did learn to cross the street when people do to avoid other mishaps with cars.
You've learned there are a few people on the streets who like you--even pet you and feed you scraps. You've learned these are usually same the people who look well fed, and you learn to hang out in the part of town where the kinder people congregate. You like them, but they usually walk away. Your beat is hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions.
You can't remember a family or a real home. You remember a little of your mom, and you haven't seen her in a long time. Your memory is more of her smell and feel than what she really looked like. But that's all in the past now--you really don't expect to see her ever again, and that cute little bunch of brothers and sisters you were with were picked up by men in a truck never to be seen again. You wonder if you were lucky the men missed you that day. When there is little food, you're not so sure you were lucky to have been overlooked.
One day a well fed find man paid far more attention to you than you expected, and your life began to change. That man was a tourist, but he picked you up, gave you food and a temporary home and even a bath and lots of medical care. They made your leg stop hurting. You had changed from street dog to companion animal. You learned you had a name, Fidelity, and your temporary caretakers trained you to a cage and a leash. But after several days you wondered where was the kind man who changed your life?
One day a lady picked you up in a car and drove 2 hours to an airport. There they all seemed to make a fuss over you as papers, tickets, and health certificates were bandied about. Finally, stowed in a travel carrier and accompanied by lots of baggage, you are placed in a pressurized, air-conditioned baggage compartment for a 6 hour long, dark and noisy transfer to Toronto Canada.
You felt a spark of recognition as the kind man met the plane around midnight. Others gathered around including reporters flashing their cameras, and suddenly that strange, far away, inhospitable city became a distant memory.
You had one more long flight from Toronto the New Orleans to reach your new forever home with the kind man where you'll never lack for food or medical care or love and companionship again.
Imagine if all street dogs had a good home.
Les Inglis
PS Fidelity arrives at his new home on the same day as this posting.
Imagine you wake to find yourself on the streets of a large city, hungry and scared. You don't seem to have any connections there, and you don't have any idea of where you fit in. There seem to be two kinds of people on the streets and they don't all talk alike. But some, the minority, seem to have more than enough to eat, and they often throw away leftovers. If you're lucky enough to be around when they throw food away, that's what you eat. If not, your old companion, hunge,r always hovers nearby.
Your leg hurts from a run in with a car, and you limp a little. You wonder if it will ever be much better, but at least you did learn to cross the street when people do to avoid other mishaps with cars.
You've learned there are a few people on the streets who like you--even pet you and feed you scraps. You've learned these are usually same the people who look well fed, and you learn to hang out in the part of town where the kinder people congregate. You like them, but they usually walk away. Your beat is hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions.
You can't remember a family or a real home. You remember a little of your mom, and you haven't seen her in a long time. Your memory is more of her smell and feel than what she really looked like. But that's all in the past now--you really don't expect to see her ever again, and that cute little bunch of brothers and sisters you were with were picked up by men in a truck never to be seen again. You wonder if you were lucky the men missed you that day. When there is little food, you're not so sure you were lucky to have been overlooked.
One day a well fed find man paid far more attention to you than you expected, and your life began to change. That man was a tourist, but he picked you up, gave you food and a temporary home and even a bath and lots of medical care. They made your leg stop hurting. You had changed from street dog to companion animal. You learned you had a name, Fidelity, and your temporary caretakers trained you to a cage and a leash. But after several days you wondered where was the kind man who changed your life?
One day a lady picked you up in a car and drove 2 hours to an airport. There they all seemed to make a fuss over you as papers, tickets, and health certificates were bandied about. Finally, stowed in a travel carrier and accompanied by lots of baggage, you are placed in a pressurized, air-conditioned baggage compartment for a 6 hour long, dark and noisy transfer to Toronto Canada.
You felt a spark of recognition as the kind man met the plane around midnight. Others gathered around including reporters flashing their cameras, and suddenly that strange, far away, inhospitable city became a distant memory.
You had one more long flight from Toronto the New Orleans to reach your new forever home with the kind man where you'll never lack for food or medical care or love and companionship again.
Imagine if all street dogs had a good home.
Les Inglis
PS Fidelity arrives at his new home on the same day as this posting.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
My Little Black Book
My Little Black Book
After six years of working with Aniplant, a Cuban organization that protects animals, I have developed an interesting address book of people who have their own links to Cuba. I get calls, here and there, from people who do interesting things in Cuba, sometimes for animals, sometimes for humanitarian projects, and some even for religious work in Cuba.
The first contact in my address book I found browsing on the Internet. I had had a friend, Margaret, who visited Cuba as part of an educational tour to Havana. This was before George Bush cut off such educational contacts. I have always been curious about Cuba, and I wanted to visit there, but Bush moved faster than I did, and tours like the one Margaret took were terminated by the US Government before I could arrange one. But my Internet browsing found Rick Schwag, President of Caribbean Medical Transport, an idiosyncratic lover of The Pearl of the Antilles.
Rick had a license from the US Government to affiliate with people and authorize their trips to Cuba for humanitarian purposes. Thus began our adventure helping Cuban animals. Rick still helps Cuba by sending shipping containers full of donated mattresses, bicycles, wheelchairs, medicines, etc.
Another important contact in my address book is Alex Vicente, my travel agent. Alex is a Cuban American, makes several trips a year from Miami to Havana, and his travel agency, ABC Charters of Miami, arranges charter flights on a regular schedule back and forth to Havana. Many people think travel to Cuba is illegal, but it's not--it's just complicated. Alex can help anyone going for the right reasons.
A woman named Darci Gallati who lives in Canada found her way into my address book. Her organization, Candi International, is a charity that helps people fly newly adopted animals out of the Caribbean to new homes in the north. That activity, too, is complicated, but they're good at it and have made many families more complete with loving adopted companion animals.
My address book is replete with names of veterinarians and vet techs who have traveled to Cuba and participated in Nora's traveling weekend sterilization campaigns--names like Sylvia McAllister, Scott and Paula Mather, Dr. Dick White, and others who have spread their skills far beyond the neighborhoods where they keep their offices.
I could go on for many pages, but you get the idea. This is not just a few animal lovers trying to do good things; it's a huge informal network of good people who have had the kindness to focus on Cuba and make a difference for the animals and people there.
Les Inglis
After six years of working with Aniplant, a Cuban organization that protects animals, I have developed an interesting address book of people who have their own links to Cuba. I get calls, here and there, from people who do interesting things in Cuba, sometimes for animals, sometimes for humanitarian projects, and some even for religious work in Cuba.
The first contact in my address book I found browsing on the Internet. I had had a friend, Margaret, who visited Cuba as part of an educational tour to Havana. This was before George Bush cut off such educational contacts. I have always been curious about Cuba, and I wanted to visit there, but Bush moved faster than I did, and tours like the one Margaret took were terminated by the US Government before I could arrange one. But my Internet browsing found Rick Schwag, President of Caribbean Medical Transport, an idiosyncratic lover of The Pearl of the Antilles.
Rick had a license from the US Government to affiliate with people and authorize their trips to Cuba for humanitarian purposes. Thus began our adventure helping Cuban animals. Rick still helps Cuba by sending shipping containers full of donated mattresses, bicycles, wheelchairs, medicines, etc.
Another important contact in my address book is Alex Vicente, my travel agent. Alex is a Cuban American, makes several trips a year from Miami to Havana, and his travel agency, ABC Charters of Miami, arranges charter flights on a regular schedule back and forth to Havana. Many people think travel to Cuba is illegal, but it's not--it's just complicated. Alex can help anyone going for the right reasons.
A woman named Darci Gallati who lives in Canada found her way into my address book. Her organization, Candi International, is a charity that helps people fly newly adopted animals out of the Caribbean to new homes in the north. That activity, too, is complicated, but they're good at it and have made many families more complete with loving adopted companion animals.
My address book is replete with names of veterinarians and vet techs who have traveled to Cuba and participated in Nora's traveling weekend sterilization campaigns--names like Sylvia McAllister, Scott and Paula Mather, Dr. Dick White, and others who have spread their skills far beyond the neighborhoods where they keep their offices.
I could go on for many pages, but you get the idea. This is not just a few animal lovers trying to do good things; it's a huge informal network of good people who have had the kindness to focus on Cuba and make a difference for the animals and people there.
Les Inglis
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Iron Curtain Remnants
Iron Curtain Remnants
I guess there isn't any iron curtain anymore, and its disappearance has lost for us a big subject of curiosity. Most of us never did venture beyond the iron curtain when it did exist, and now satisfying that curiosity isn't even possible. Well, that is if you don't count Cuba.
Cuba happily placed itself behind that curtain shortly after its successful revolution in 1959. They adopted communist ways and we all watched as their gradual separation from our western world took place. Pretty soon it was hard to get there, even though the island is almost our closest neighbor.
Even today, vestiges of life on the other side of the iron curtin remain. On the streets are an inordinate number of Ladas, a little Russian car that looks like a Fiat and doesn't work any better, either. Cars are precious in Cuba, and if one breaks down, it is repaired by any means possible. Cars are never junked, and local mechanics give them more lives than a cat.
But it isn't just the old cars that hint at the iron curtain. Cuba has a fleet of taxis as modern as any. For the most part they are Kias and Hyundais. A few newer Peugeots can be seen as well. These South Korean and French cars come from the western side of the iron curtain, but it is the absence of modern US cars that tells us of the long years of curtained separation.
By far the most impressive vehicles you can see in Cuba today are the new Yutong buses which come from China. They are streamlined, comfortable, quiet, and ubiquitous. It would be hard to find a bus in the US today that matches them as they move tourists to all parts of the island. They pull up and idle at Havana's big hotels while hordes of Brits, Germans, Spanish, and French board, deboard, and move their luggage around. The omnipresence of Yutong buses speaks to the growing influence of China in today's Cuban life.
Yes, if you look, you can still see vestiges of the iron curtain in Cuba, but it is a different country today than it was in the years before the Soviet Union self destructed. Then it was a secretive, cloistered place suspicious of strangers, while today's Cuba courts tourists from anywhere and moves them around their lovely island in the most beautiful buses you've ever seen.
Les Inglis
I guess there isn't any iron curtain anymore, and its disappearance has lost for us a big subject of curiosity. Most of us never did venture beyond the iron curtain when it did exist, and now satisfying that curiosity isn't even possible. Well, that is if you don't count Cuba.
Cuba happily placed itself behind that curtain shortly after its successful revolution in 1959. They adopted communist ways and we all watched as their gradual separation from our western world took place. Pretty soon it was hard to get there, even though the island is almost our closest neighbor.
Even today, vestiges of life on the other side of the iron curtin remain. On the streets are an inordinate number of Ladas, a little Russian car that looks like a Fiat and doesn't work any better, either. Cars are precious in Cuba, and if one breaks down, it is repaired by any means possible. Cars are never junked, and local mechanics give them more lives than a cat.
But it isn't just the old cars that hint at the iron curtain. Cuba has a fleet of taxis as modern as any. For the most part they are Kias and Hyundais. A few newer Peugeots can be seen as well. These South Korean and French cars come from the western side of the iron curtain, but it is the absence of modern US cars that tells us of the long years of curtained separation.
By far the most impressive vehicles you can see in Cuba today are the new Yutong buses which come from China. They are streamlined, comfortable, quiet, and ubiquitous. It would be hard to find a bus in the US today that matches them as they move tourists to all parts of the island. They pull up and idle at Havana's big hotels while hordes of Brits, Germans, Spanish, and French board, deboard, and move their luggage around. The omnipresence of Yutong buses speaks to the growing influence of China in today's Cuban life.
Yes, if you look, you can still see vestiges of the iron curtain in Cuba, but it is a different country today than it was in the years before the Soviet Union self destructed. Then it was a secretive, cloistered place suspicious of strangers, while today's Cuba courts tourists from anywhere and moves them around their lovely island in the most beautiful buses you've ever seen.
Les Inglis
Friday, May 27, 2011
A Better Answer
A Better Answer
If you're a Canadian, you don't have any tropical vacation spots in your own country--you have to plan international travel to sit on a beach under a palm tree and enjoy the sound of the waves and the feel of the breeze. So you get on a plane, and if you don't want to go further than necessary, you land in Cuba, The Pearl of the Antilles, and the former crown jewel in the Spanish Empire. And the beaches are spectacular, the weather perfect, and the people are friendly. No wonder so many Canadians make the trip. There are no travel restrictions to fight as we have to do here in the US.
Most Canadians love their vacations in Cuba, and few have anything negative to say about their holidays there. One exception we hear is that many deplore the large number of street dogs and strays they see in Cuba. Like other third world places, animals don't get much humane treatment there. But a number of Canadians with kind hearts want to do something about the strays. Often they take pity on the stray and try to arrange its adoption and move back to Canada when they get back home.
Too often we get calls about a dog or a puppy near a resort that is accepting handout food from the tourists and seems to beg to be adopted and taken far away to a new home.
It's hard to counsel people who've allowed some hungry little dog to steal their heart, and who've searched the Internet for someone to help save the unfortunate little animal. But we feel obligated to educate these good-hearted people in the realities of saving the street dogs of Cuba. To arrange a successful adoption and transport takes much more time and money than you might think.
First there's the problem of finding the animal, and then you have to verify that it doesn't have an owner. If this takes place in many parts of Cuba, that might mean a long round trip from Havana for a vet or a volunteer. It could take two trips to find the right dog and bring it to Havana.
Then there's arranging a foster home for at least two weeks, vet exams, deparisitazions, more vet tests, waiting for test results, and arranging air transportation back to Canada. Most of these projects cost more than $500 in expenses before the dog is put on a plane (and this number does not include air transportation charges).
Yes, it might be nice to bring that little lovable animal into your home and to be able to tell your friends of the sad plight he or she faced when found. But for all that time and expense, how much more have you done to reduce animal suffering than if you had visited your local animal shelter and picked out a healthy, life-long friend from a huge range of breeds, sizes, shapes and colors?
No, as much as we all want to help save a hungry street dog from his stark, unhappy street life, we have to realize that isn't always the best answer. We need to stay focused on our main activity, conducting massive spay-neuter campaigns. That, at least, helps street animals by drastically reducing their numbers.
When we discourage these kind souls who want to help, it isn't for lack of compassion--we've got it in spades--it's because we have a better answer. We don't want to seem callous, but we have to focus our energies where we can do the most good for Cuba's animals.
Les Inglis
If you're a Canadian, you don't have any tropical vacation spots in your own country--you have to plan international travel to sit on a beach under a palm tree and enjoy the sound of the waves and the feel of the breeze. So you get on a plane, and if you don't want to go further than necessary, you land in Cuba, The Pearl of the Antilles, and the former crown jewel in the Spanish Empire. And the beaches are spectacular, the weather perfect, and the people are friendly. No wonder so many Canadians make the trip. There are no travel restrictions to fight as we have to do here in the US.
Most Canadians love their vacations in Cuba, and few have anything negative to say about their holidays there. One exception we hear is that many deplore the large number of street dogs and strays they see in Cuba. Like other third world places, animals don't get much humane treatment there. But a number of Canadians with kind hearts want to do something about the strays. Often they take pity on the stray and try to arrange its adoption and move back to Canada when they get back home.
Too often we get calls about a dog or a puppy near a resort that is accepting handout food from the tourists and seems to beg to be adopted and taken far away to a new home.
It's hard to counsel people who've allowed some hungry little dog to steal their heart, and who've searched the Internet for someone to help save the unfortunate little animal. But we feel obligated to educate these good-hearted people in the realities of saving the street dogs of Cuba. To arrange a successful adoption and transport takes much more time and money than you might think.
First there's the problem of finding the animal, and then you have to verify that it doesn't have an owner. If this takes place in many parts of Cuba, that might mean a long round trip from Havana for a vet or a volunteer. It could take two trips to find the right dog and bring it to Havana.
Then there's arranging a foster home for at least two weeks, vet exams, deparisitazions, more vet tests, waiting for test results, and arranging air transportation back to Canada. Most of these projects cost more than $500 in expenses before the dog is put on a plane (and this number does not include air transportation charges).
Yes, it might be nice to bring that little lovable animal into your home and to be able to tell your friends of the sad plight he or she faced when found. But for all that time and expense, how much more have you done to reduce animal suffering than if you had visited your local animal shelter and picked out a healthy, life-long friend from a huge range of breeds, sizes, shapes and colors?
No, as much as we all want to help save a hungry street dog from his stark, unhappy street life, we have to realize that isn't always the best answer. We need to stay focused on our main activity, conducting massive spay-neuter campaigns. That, at least, helps street animals by drastically reducing their numbers.
When we discourage these kind souls who want to help, it isn't for lack of compassion--we've got it in spades--it's because we have a better answer. We don't want to seem callous, but we have to focus our energies where we can do the most good for Cuba's animals.
Les Inglis
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Our Cost Rican Connection
Our Costa Rican Connection
You've heard lots in these blogs about Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President. Nora is the central nervous system of animal protection in Cuba. But this time I want to write about another woman who has played an indispensable role in our work in Cuba.
Lilian Schnog is a Dutch woman who comes from Aruba. Years ago she and her husband, Ben, made the move from Aruba to Costa Rica, settling into a beautiful home halfway up a mountain, near the capital, San Jose. Many years ago, I was a Director of HSUS at the time I first heard of Lilian. John Hoyt, HSUS's President and I were talking about the formation of HSI, Humane Society International, when he told me he was making a quick trip to Florida. Lilian had called him and wanted to meet and talk with him about some problems at the WSPA (World Society for Protection of Animals) shelter near her home where she volunteered her time to help the animals.
John met with Lilian and agreed there should be changes at the shelter. Lilian was willing to make a major contribution to acquire the WSPA shelter and animal hospital if she had the support of HSUS, which Hoyt was willing to promise. Her plan was put into effect, and Lilian replaced WSPA's shelter manager and began to run the enterprise, certainly in a more humane fashion.
About that time I made two trips to Costa Rica and was able to see the changes for myself. Lilian was in charge, doing really important work, and HSI had people visiting to advise on improving the animal hospital function. Over the years, HSI and AHPPA, (Asociación Humana Para la Protección de Animales), Lilian's shelter, have maintained their association and in a recent year, Lilian was awarded HSI's highest honor for animal protectors.
When we wanted to supply anesthesia medicines, to Aniplant's spay-neuter campaigns, we needed a source of the meds and a way to get them into Cuba reliably. Lilian did some checking and found out there are no restrictions on trade between Cuba and Costa Rica. She works regularly with a distributor of medicines who exports to Cuba. So our problems were solved. If we could pay for the needed meds, Lilian could buy them and have them shipped to Nora in Cuba. We've done this several times now, and we have a reliable, legal way to ship drugs that Nora cannot otherwise acquire. Also, both Lilian and Nora are certified as persons who can buy, store, and handle controlled substances, which many of the drugs we buy are.
There are many wonderful people who work to help animals. Some are right in our home towns and some are spread out across the globe. We, and the dogs and cats of Cuba, are fortunate to have Lilian Schnog as a friend and a participant in what we are doing in Cuba.
Les Inglis
You've heard lots in these blogs about Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President. Nora is the central nervous system of animal protection in Cuba. But this time I want to write about another woman who has played an indispensable role in our work in Cuba.
Lilian Schnog is a Dutch woman who comes from Aruba. Years ago she and her husband, Ben, made the move from Aruba to Costa Rica, settling into a beautiful home halfway up a mountain, near the capital, San Jose. Many years ago, I was a Director of HSUS at the time I first heard of Lilian. John Hoyt, HSUS's President and I were talking about the formation of HSI, Humane Society International, when he told me he was making a quick trip to Florida. Lilian had called him and wanted to meet and talk with him about some problems at the WSPA (World Society for Protection of Animals) shelter near her home where she volunteered her time to help the animals.
John met with Lilian and agreed there should be changes at the shelter. Lilian was willing to make a major contribution to acquire the WSPA shelter and animal hospital if she had the support of HSUS, which Hoyt was willing to promise. Her plan was put into effect, and Lilian replaced WSPA's shelter manager and began to run the enterprise, certainly in a more humane fashion.
About that time I made two trips to Costa Rica and was able to see the changes for myself. Lilian was in charge, doing really important work, and HSI had people visiting to advise on improving the animal hospital function. Over the years, HSI and AHPPA, (Asociación Humana Para la Protección de Animales), Lilian's shelter, have maintained their association and in a recent year, Lilian was awarded HSI's highest honor for animal protectors.
When we wanted to supply anesthesia medicines, to Aniplant's spay-neuter campaigns, we needed a source of the meds and a way to get them into Cuba reliably. Lilian did some checking and found out there are no restrictions on trade between Cuba and Costa Rica. She works regularly with a distributor of medicines who exports to Cuba. So our problems were solved. If we could pay for the needed meds, Lilian could buy them and have them shipped to Nora in Cuba. We've done this several times now, and we have a reliable, legal way to ship drugs that Nora cannot otherwise acquire. Also, both Lilian and Nora are certified as persons who can buy, store, and handle controlled substances, which many of the drugs we buy are.
There are many wonderful people who work to help animals. Some are right in our home towns and some are spread out across the globe. We, and the dogs and cats of Cuba, are fortunate to have Lilian Schnog as a friend and a participant in what we are doing in Cuba.
Les Inglis
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Doggie Bags
Doggie Bags
Walk around the older parts of Havana and you'll conclude that Cubans spend lots of time sitting on their front stoops. It doesn't matter that the front door is open, as most of these houses don't have air-conditioning. So the door and most of the windows are open, and the owner sits on the step up to the front door with his feet out on the sidewalk.
And the family dog? He's inside unless it's time for him to go out. Then he just lets himself out. The owner doesn't worry about the dog getting lost because he knows the dog will show up at dinner time when his food is set out or even sooner when it's time to get in the shade to avoid the hot sun. So the whole thing about keeping a dog is a pretty casual affair, both on the owner's aprt and on the part of the dog.
Dogs in Cuba almost always get the table scraps from the family's dinner table. You can't buy commercial dog food there unless you're very rich or have CUC's (tourist money) to spend. Neither CUC's nor riches are common in the hands of Cuban people, so table scraps it is for the dog. A few lucky dogs are fed a cooked down mixture of rough rice and slaughterhouse waste (fat, scraps, brains, eyeballs, etc, etc.) That's what the eight dogs who live at Aniplant's headquarters get.
You may already have asked yourself how you can tell if a dog on the street is a family pet or a stray. I'm sorry to say there is no certain test, as Cuban dogs seldom sport collars or ID tags. One not very accurate test is to look at his body. If the ribs are not easy to see, it might be someone's pet, just out for a little pit stop.
No Cuban leaves food on plates in a restaurant, and when I'm there I don't either. You ask for a foam plastic box or perhaps carry a supply of plastic shopping bags like Nora does. Cubans define "doggie bags" better than anywhere else. Here is a country full of animal lovers who share their scant provisions with their animal companions.
When I walk away from a restaurant with a plastic box full of leftovers, I immediately look for a hungry animal, but then I'm faced with the question, which dogs are pets being fed, and which are truly needy street dogs. And one should not make quick decisions in that situation. If I see a dog near a stoop sitter, I ask if that's his dog. I wouldn't want anyone feeding my dogs something, and he probably wouldn't either. I'll offer the owner some of my leftovers if he wants, but I'm really looking for an animal whose ribs are showing. When I find one and no apparent owner is near, there's little difficulty in getting him to eat.
I'm thinking , "Good, now I don't have to carry this box of leftovers around," and the dog is thinking, "Good, now I don't have to be hungry all day."
Les Inglis
Walk around the older parts of Havana and you'll conclude that Cubans spend lots of time sitting on their front stoops. It doesn't matter that the front door is open, as most of these houses don't have air-conditioning. So the door and most of the windows are open, and the owner sits on the step up to the front door with his feet out on the sidewalk.
And the family dog? He's inside unless it's time for him to go out. Then he just lets himself out. The owner doesn't worry about the dog getting lost because he knows the dog will show up at dinner time when his food is set out or even sooner when it's time to get in the shade to avoid the hot sun. So the whole thing about keeping a dog is a pretty casual affair, both on the owner's aprt and on the part of the dog.
Dogs in Cuba almost always get the table scraps from the family's dinner table. You can't buy commercial dog food there unless you're very rich or have CUC's (tourist money) to spend. Neither CUC's nor riches are common in the hands of Cuban people, so table scraps it is for the dog. A few lucky dogs are fed a cooked down mixture of rough rice and slaughterhouse waste (fat, scraps, brains, eyeballs, etc, etc.) That's what the eight dogs who live at Aniplant's headquarters get.
You may already have asked yourself how you can tell if a dog on the street is a family pet or a stray. I'm sorry to say there is no certain test, as Cuban dogs seldom sport collars or ID tags. One not very accurate test is to look at his body. If the ribs are not easy to see, it might be someone's pet, just out for a little pit stop.
No Cuban leaves food on plates in a restaurant, and when I'm there I don't either. You ask for a foam plastic box or perhaps carry a supply of plastic shopping bags like Nora does. Cubans define "doggie bags" better than anywhere else. Here is a country full of animal lovers who share their scant provisions with their animal companions.
When I walk away from a restaurant with a plastic box full of leftovers, I immediately look for a hungry animal, but then I'm faced with the question, which dogs are pets being fed, and which are truly needy street dogs. And one should not make quick decisions in that situation. If I see a dog near a stoop sitter, I ask if that's his dog. I wouldn't want anyone feeding my dogs something, and he probably wouldn't either. I'll offer the owner some of my leftovers if he wants, but I'm really looking for an animal whose ribs are showing. When I find one and no apparent owner is near, there's little difficulty in getting him to eat.
I'm thinking , "Good, now I don't have to carry this box of leftovers around," and the dog is thinking, "Good, now I don't have to be hungry all day."
Les Inglis
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Our Neighborhood Feud
Our Neighborhood Feud
I gave a little talk at a nearby Rotary Club this week, and I decided to call the talk, "A Cuban Scrapbook." While planning what to say, I felt I couldn't only talk about our work with the animals there. I knew I'd have to give them a little background on Cuban and US history and relations.
This year we mark 50 years since the US and Cuba broke off diplomatic relations. For the first 16 of those years there wasn't even an interests section for the other country in either capital.
With such a long freeze in relations, there's little wonder US citizens know very little about Cuba. And yet, before the current estrangement, the US and Cuba had a huge amount of interaction. At the time of the Castro Revolution (1959), the US owned 71% of all the business in Cuba and 76% of all its arable land. Pre-Castro, there were lots of Americans in Cuba and vice versa. Today it's a fight to travel between the two countries, and most people avoid the fight and don't even go.
So I sketched some of what it was like in the old days when the two countries were on good terms. We moved rapidly from 1492 to 1898, the Spanish Colony years--all except for 1762 when the British occupied a small part of Cuba. Later The Brits traded their Cuban holdings for Spain's part of Florida. (I wonder who got the better of that deal?)
Finally I got around to why I go to Cuba. That is to help Aniplant protect Cuban animals. Our little charity, The Aniplant Project (TAP), raises money to help Aniplant in its projects. TAP really got going in 2007, and the cooperation between TAP and Aniplant has been growing every year since then. Take a look at some then and now comparisons:
Item /Then/ Now
Sterilizations yr /624 / 3077
Headquarters /8th floor, broken elev/ restored 1st fl showplace
Isolation /no visits to US for years /2 visits in 2 years for Nora
Anesthesia meds /hospital cast off- outdated /fresh modern vet drugs
Electrocute strays /frequent /completely ended
We're not bragging, just trying to show how things are changing for Cuba's animals. Also the rapid growth of animal protection work is partly due to pent up demand from earlier years.
And for every dog or cat that is sterilized, the population of street animals is reduced by thousands in a few years.
Les Inglis
I gave a little talk at a nearby Rotary Club this week, and I decided to call the talk, "A Cuban Scrapbook." While planning what to say, I felt I couldn't only talk about our work with the animals there. I knew I'd have to give them a little background on Cuban and US history and relations.
This year we mark 50 years since the US and Cuba broke off diplomatic relations. For the first 16 of those years there wasn't even an interests section for the other country in either capital.
With such a long freeze in relations, there's little wonder US citizens know very little about Cuba. And yet, before the current estrangement, the US and Cuba had a huge amount of interaction. At the time of the Castro Revolution (1959), the US owned 71% of all the business in Cuba and 76% of all its arable land. Pre-Castro, there were lots of Americans in Cuba and vice versa. Today it's a fight to travel between the two countries, and most people avoid the fight and don't even go.
So I sketched some of what it was like in the old days when the two countries were on good terms. We moved rapidly from 1492 to 1898, the Spanish Colony years--all except for 1762 when the British occupied a small part of Cuba. Later The Brits traded their Cuban holdings for Spain's part of Florida. (I wonder who got the better of that deal?)
Finally I got around to why I go to Cuba. That is to help Aniplant protect Cuban animals. Our little charity, The Aniplant Project (TAP), raises money to help Aniplant in its projects. TAP really got going in 2007, and the cooperation between TAP and Aniplant has been growing every year since then. Take a look at some then and now comparisons:
Item /Then/ Now
Sterilizations yr /624 / 3077
Headquarters /8th floor, broken elev/ restored 1st fl showplace
Isolation /no visits to US for years /2 visits in 2 years for Nora
Anesthesia meds /hospital cast off- outdated /fresh modern vet drugs
Electrocute strays /frequent /completely ended
We're not bragging, just trying to show how things are changing for Cuba's animals. Also the rapid growth of animal protection work is partly due to pent up demand from earlier years.
And for every dog or cat that is sterilized, the population of street animals is reduced by thousands in a few years.
Les Inglis
Friday, April 22, 2011
Getting There
Getting There
Getting to Cuba for a US citizen isn't easy, but it can be done. Most people who want to go are shy about running the gauntlet of rules and regulations that form the US embargo of Cuba. But if you dig in and wade through the regulations, it all begins to make a little sense, and there are plenty of people to help you. First, Google the Office of Foreign Assets Control--OFAC will do. After you have passed though the rules covering travel to Cuba, it won't seem so difficult.
You'll need to fall under one of three main areas which allow travelers to go to Cuba--Humanitarian, Religious, and Research. These classes of travelers can affiliate with one of many organizations licensed by the US government to authorize your travel. Many people can find something in their background or education to link them to one of these three exception areas. Also, under recent changes promulgated by the Obama administration, educational trips for small groups are now being offered to promote people to people exchanges.
As a starting point, you'll use a travel agent licensed by the US government to arrange Cuba travel. I can direct you to a good one in Miami if you need it.
But every i must be dotted, and every t must be crossed if you go. In November 2009, two friends and I ran into a real problem as we arrived at Miami's airport for a week in Cuba. The desk man studied our papers for a long while and then told us we had the wrong kind of a Cuban visa, and we could not travel that day. It was unbelievable, having jumped all the hurdles we were told to. It seemed the licensee was a religious organization, and our Cuban visa was for tourists. Well, Cuba requires a special kind of visa for religious organizations, and it levies fines on airlines that don't get the paperwork right. It hadn't been our fault as we never intended to do religious work, but we couldn't go that day.
We were crestfallen after months of planning, preparations and driving 240 miles to Miami's airport. We slowly gathered up our luggage and went out toward the parking lot, hardly knowing what to do next. Before we got to the garage, I heard a man running after us and yelling for us to stop. It was the desk agent, and he told me he had found a loophole that would allow us to go after all. Back inside he adjusted our paperwork and passed us on through. I was so grateful, I offered him a nice tip, but he wouldn't take it--explaining he was just doing his job.
The reason for telling this little story is to illustrate how you have to be ready for adventure if you want to go legally. It's still a little like buying a ticket on a roller coaster.
As for those who would sidestep the formalities and fly to Havana through a third country, my advice is don't do it. Like the old saying, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Don't mess around with Uncle Sam either.
Sometimes even when you try to do everything right, you can still run into trouble. Thankfully, we were helped by a ticket agent who must have known how important our trip was to us.
Les Inglis
Getting to Cuba for a US citizen isn't easy, but it can be done. Most people who want to go are shy about running the gauntlet of rules and regulations that form the US embargo of Cuba. But if you dig in and wade through the regulations, it all begins to make a little sense, and there are plenty of people to help you. First, Google the Office of Foreign Assets Control--OFAC will do. After you have passed though the rules covering travel to Cuba, it won't seem so difficult.
You'll need to fall under one of three main areas which allow travelers to go to Cuba--Humanitarian, Religious, and Research. These classes of travelers can affiliate with one of many organizations licensed by the US government to authorize your travel. Many people can find something in their background or education to link them to one of these three exception areas. Also, under recent changes promulgated by the Obama administration, educational trips for small groups are now being offered to promote people to people exchanges.
As a starting point, you'll use a travel agent licensed by the US government to arrange Cuba travel. I can direct you to a good one in Miami if you need it.
But every i must be dotted, and every t must be crossed if you go. In November 2009, two friends and I ran into a real problem as we arrived at Miami's airport for a week in Cuba. The desk man studied our papers for a long while and then told us we had the wrong kind of a Cuban visa, and we could not travel that day. It was unbelievable, having jumped all the hurdles we were told to. It seemed the licensee was a religious organization, and our Cuban visa was for tourists. Well, Cuba requires a special kind of visa for religious organizations, and it levies fines on airlines that don't get the paperwork right. It hadn't been our fault as we never intended to do religious work, but we couldn't go that day.
We were crestfallen after months of planning, preparations and driving 240 miles to Miami's airport. We slowly gathered up our luggage and went out toward the parking lot, hardly knowing what to do next. Before we got to the garage, I heard a man running after us and yelling for us to stop. It was the desk agent, and he told me he had found a loophole that would allow us to go after all. Back inside he adjusted our paperwork and passed us on through. I was so grateful, I offered him a nice tip, but he wouldn't take it--explaining he was just doing his job.
The reason for telling this little story is to illustrate how you have to be ready for adventure if you want to go legally. It's still a little like buying a ticket on a roller coaster.
As for those who would sidestep the formalities and fly to Havana through a third country, my advice is don't do it. Like the old saying, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Don't mess around with Uncle Sam either.
Sometimes even when you try to do everything right, you can still run into trouble. Thankfully, we were helped by a ticket agent who must have known how important our trip was to us.
Les Inglis
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
