Tropical Storm

Tropical Storms

Like an unfavorite cousin, Isaac threatened to blow into town earlier this week, and about a day ahead of his expected arrival, he changed his mind and changed course for New Orleans. We heaved a sigh of relief and thought for a minute of the poor New Orleaners sitting there below sea level with only 14 billion dollars worth of new pumps and dikes to protect them from another Katrina disaster. Probably few of us thought of the people who live along hundreds of miles of Cuba's north coast which closely parallels Isaac's track through the Florida Straits.

Well, there is some reason to worry more about New Orleans than Cuba. It's because Cuba has a hurricane protection plan that works, as has been proven time and time again. They evacuate everyone in advance of a storm, and this includes sick, elderly, bedridden, and everyday citizens. This isn't just a sheriff's deputy knocking on your door to tell you the Governor says you should leave. In Cuba it is regular radio broadcasts, arranged transportation, established shelters in reinforced buildings and lots of advance planning. In Cuba there are no gridlocked highways full of frightened fleeing people stalled in the rain and blowing their horns. Only a small fraction of Cubans even own a car. The preplanned busses that everyone must take are there, and their capacity matches the number assigned to them.

Of course here in the US, the Governor can't really tell me to do anything unless I've committed a crime or he has declared martial law, so we always have a certain number of dauntless adventurers who "ride it out" hunkering down at home with varying results. They can get off scot-free and comfortably if the electricity and gas service holds out, or they can lose the gamble and lose power, their house, or their lives in ascending order of importance.

Someone once said the best defense against a hurricane is not to be there when it arrives, and that's the sage advice upon which the Cuban plan is based. They say "go," and you "go." You can do those things in a strong man style government. And to give them their due, since 2001 only 35 Cubans have died in 16 named storms. Compare this with 1836 people dead just in Katrina's 2005 visit to New Orleans.

So we can all agree that as admirable as Cuba's record is in protecting its population from tropical storms, it comes at least partially from the iron grip its leaders have on power and from their control over individual freedoms. It's hard to imagine such power ever being wielded here in the USA.

Considering our different style of governing, I think future US performance in combating storms will be pretty much like our past record: a few lives lost in direct hits and near misses and the occasional Katrina- like disaster when we become lax in flood protection or building codes or evacuation plans or shelter availability.

One hopeful trend I've noticed here in recent years is provision for household pets in public storm shelters. This was completely ignored in the past, but today many shelters have such capability. It's a good thing when you consider that many people think of their companion animals as family members. Really dedicated pet owners would no sooner leave their dog or cat at home to ride it out while they evacuate than they would leave their first born son. Our family is in that category, and you should see us when we evacuate.

We have to rent a large SUV as neither of our cars are big enough for 2 dogs, 6 cats in cages, 2 people, and our necessities for a few days., Preparing all this takes a couple of extra days which injects us into an even more iffy "cone of uncertainty." More than once we have found ourselves 200 miles from home, holed up in a motel, and walking the dogs in the rain while the storm turned, followed us, and the weather back home never got worse than slightly breezy with a light rain.

Les Inglis

Santeria

Santeria

When he or she feels the need to pray to his god, a Cuban
can be as likely to go to his santero as he would be to go to his priest. For many Cubans, both Santeria and Catholicism
are practiced in a weird duality less common in the rest of the world. It's like spiritual matters are referred to
one of two religious systems which somehow exist side-by-side within the Cuban
culture.

How did this come to be?
Major factors in Cuban history since the arrival of the Spanish have
something to do with it. Cuba is
particularly sensitive to the residual effects of Spanish rule and slavery—having
suffered greatly from both influences longer than all the other new world
countries. Slavery didn't end in Cuba
until 1880, and Spanish domination, with its pervasive corruption continued
until 1898 despite three Cuban wars of independence.

The Spanish, from the time of Columbus oppressed the African
slaves in Cuba to work the plantations.
They required of the slaves faithful participation in the Catholic Church. The slaves, knowing you cannot dominate a
person's mind, gave outward obedience by keeping Catholic shrines, crosses,
saints, etc., but in their minds these symbols represented Santeria orishes
(channeling entities that connect with Santeria's one god, Olorum). Thus a slave girl kneeling in front of an
altar with an idol of a Catholic saint was really communing with Chango, an
orish. The name Santeria was derived
from "santa," the Spanish word for "saint," and because of
the deception involved, was disliked by many as the name of the religion. Some still prefer "the Yoruba Religion"
named for a tribe in Africa.

Common practice is to follow both religions, choosing
between them based on the nature of one's religious need. The Cuban will use the Catholic Church and
the national health system for support during preventative health care, inoculations,
and for surgery, but he would see his santero on spiritual, emotional, or
mental matters. The santero will not
intervene medically beyond giving some herbs, chants, and drumming.

One facet of Santeria widely disliked is the practice of
animal sacrifice. Most sacrifices are
birds and turtles, but goats and sheep are victimized as well. These sacrifices have stimulated opposition
based on animal cruelty laws here in the US.
In the early 1990's a case was taken all the way to the US Supreme Court
with some help from the Humane Society of the US, but the court held the
sacrifices are constitutionally protected as a religious freedom. The Texas court system also upheld a man's right
to religious sacrifice of animals in 2009.

It's too bad that animal sacrifice, one of the most unjust
and unfair of all religious practices, has been upheld in the US. The way I look at it, the animals should have
their own Bill of Rights.

Les Inglis

El Almendrón y Perros Vagos

Cuba is beginning to change as various reforms are made by
the government. But some parts of Cuba
seem immutable, frozen in time. I'm
thinking of the old American cars and the dogs in the streets. No visitor goes home from Cuba without
pictures of both of these especially Cuban sights branded into his or her
brain.

The cars make you feel you're in a time machine—going back
to your youth or perhaps your father's youth.
The mental images are particularly vivid because they were already there
in our heads. Yes, these aren't new
sights, but instead they awaken memories of our own lives many years ago. Fifty some years ago a revolution occurred in
Cuba—not just in the government, but also in the cars on the street.

As Fulgencio Batista's grip on power slipped away, 71
percent of Cuban businesses were American owned. A huge share of foods, house wares,
furnishings, appliances, and, of course, automobiles were made in America. In Cuba, as in the US, Japanese and European
car brands were hardly known in North America.
So, if you think there are lots of old US cars in Cuba now, they were
nearly all American brands in 1959 as Cuba threw out its government.

But, as luck would have it, the two neighbors fell out, and
after a very few years and a nationalization of US businesses, an embargo shut
down all Cuba-bound trade with the US including American cars and their repair
parts. The message was clear, if you had
a car, you'd better take good care of it.
As a result, Cuba developed a huge corps of shade tree mechanics who
keep the fleet running decade after decade.
If you're lucky and rich and well connected, you can buy a Russian or
French or South Korean car in Cuba today, but most people think if they have a
car it's the only one they'll ever have.

Those bulbous, chrome decorated behemoths of the 1950's have
attracted their own name in Spanish. The
guajiros call them "almendrones", which means big
almonds. The "ón" part is a suffix that means "big" in Spanish,
and almonds have a simple, almost streamlined shape like the cars of the
'50's. In fact, can you picture a more
almond-like shape then the upside-down bathtub design of the 1950's Nash?
That's the best example, but they're all of a type—bloated,
maybe even a little silly looking.

So these iconic cars move and rest all over the city of
Havana. As they wear out, they spend
more time in front of the house on the side of the street, up on jack stands,
with the hood off, one guy on his back underneath and one leaning over half
swallowed in the hood cavity.

Now, as to the dogs of Havana's streets: You can't be sure when you see a stray dog on
the streets if he is homeless or not. As
most Cubans here have no yards, they let their dogs out to relieve
themselves. The best way to guess is by whether
or not his ribs show, suggesting he isn't well fed. But other signs can be found. A dog that has been on the streets long will
likely develop mange, which is easy to recognize. Collars and leashes are nearly unknown as are
ID tags. An owned dog will return to his
master's doorstep—that is, if he doesn't get grabbed by the dogcatcher. So does that dog have an owner or not? You can't be certain, but there are clues.

And why did I compare the old US cars with street dogs? Here are my ideas:

·
Stray dogs and old cars are both slow beasts
whether due either to the
Cuban heat or to a tired old engine.
·
Stray dogs are always hungry and the 10 mpg almendrón always needs a tank of gas.
·
Mange, scratches, and lesions on their fur
attest to the hard life of a stray, while rust, bent fenders, and cracked
windows form a parallel for old cars.
·
We can't help loving the old cars, and the same
emotion stirs when we see a dog we think may not have a home.

Cuba and the US can never really become enemies as the
streets there are filled with icons most of us love.

Les Inglis

Pictures at an Exhibition

Pictures at an Exhibition

As a way to thank TAP for its support of Cuban animals, as few years ago Nora Garcia, President of Aniplant, gave Charlene and me a pair of large posters showing many pictures of Cuban street dogs. These dogs weren't show dogs by any means; they were photographed as they were found on the streets of Havana, and you can see their sad condition in the spots of mange, the patches of scratched off fur from fleas and ticks, and the ribs defined by a lack of fat showing the scant food they live on. But they also show a strange beauty—a dignified look that seems to say, "I may be down, but I'm not out." The posters are among our prized possessions.

That dignity and beauty intrigued a famous Cuban photographer, José Rolando Molina, and he went through Havana's streets documenting a national shame—the neglect of man's best friends. With a truly original collection of moving portraits, José collaborated with Nora to get the pictures into the public eye. I first saw them at the dedication of Aniplant's new headquarters. Aniplant members and the public milled through the beautifully restored and renovated 200 year old building, and the public areas were fittingly decorated by framed color photos of Molina's street dogs—the ultimate beneficiaries of Aniplant's massive spay-neuter programs.

Nora and José didn't stop there. Because one Aniplant mission is humane education, they organized a public demonstration outside one of Havana's theaters to show the public what the organization does. This time, the street dogs photos hung over the shoulders of Aniplant members, sandwich board style. There were no written messages, no logos, no phone numbers—only the poignant photos of the homeless dogs. If a spectator was so moved, he could ask and be told of Aniplant and its animal protection mission.

When José matted and framed his portraits of the street dogs, he decided not to sign them as a photographer usually would do. He wanted nothing in his work to detract in the slightest from his subjects, the noble street dogs. So, if you're in Aniplant's headquarters admiring the art, you have to ask to find out what fine artist found such beauty in homeless street animals.

But José hardly needs more recognition. He is Artistic Director for a Cuban magazine on the sea and fishing in addition to being a painter and photographer. Adding his talent to Aniplant's 25 years of experience in animal protection has created a synergy that can only help those little canine and feline citizens of Havana's streets who live in our midst without homes or human companions.

On a recent trip to Cuba, Nora arranged for me to meet José. I was introduced to a nice looking young man we found on Obispo Street, Havana's street of fine tourist shops. José invited us into a little coffee bar and treated us to a cafecito, Cuba's ritual drink of hospitality. As we sipped the strong black coffee, I could see the same special spark I see in the eyes of so many lovers of animals.

Hardly surprising, I guess.

Les Inglis