The Wall Has Eyes

 

Neighborhood Watch

 

The seventh congress of the neighborhood-level organization that keeps an eye out for counterrevolutionary activity and engages in recycling and blood drives. One of the many cross-cutting modes of sociopolitical organization that check and balance each other.

Remodeling Permits

Most people do not get the legal permmission to remodel or make additions to their homes, even though state licenses allow you access to subsidized materials. The more common illicit route is pursued with private under-the-table contracters and labor, and more costly stolen or mined materials from the black market.

This AP article does not explain why Cubans do not go the legal route. The assumption is that it takes too long and often results in rejected requests. Neither does the article mention why the state would be stingy on licenses when perpetually facing an extreme housing shortage.

La Federacion de las Mujeres Cubanas--a decisive force for the Revolution

FMC

fuerza decisiva para la Revolucion

aniversario 50 de la federacion de mujeres cubanas

This billboard celebrates the “decisive” role that the women’s official mass organization has played over the half-century of the Cuban Revolution. It is complimented by an arabesque print of fluid fertile flowers that provides a feminine aspect to the design.

Women’s allegiance to the revolution has always been crucial. Early on in revolutions in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America such as Chile, the reluctance of more conservative women has presented challenges to leftist programs. Women are often the linchpin of homes; so as goes the woman in political support, so goes the rest of the family. Finally, the gains of the Cuban revolution gave women the opportunity to work--which created the “double shift” of labor at the workplace and at home. This resulted in some conflicting opinions about the new revolutionary situation.

The FMC plays a role at the neighborhood level in social communication and carrying out some house-to-house campaigns. Politically, the FMC takes part in the selection process of members of the national assembly.

For these reasons it may be important to underscore publicly the FMC’s value to the revolution.

We Work for you

TRABAJAMOS Para Usted

This image is different from the printed billboard produced by the Cuban Communist Party. It is a crudely painted mural at a state-run vendor. The painted wall pronounces that the service outlet “works for us”. This double entendre means that the firm serves us (its customers) and works for us (as owners of the state firm). In a country where employees often do not have much motivation to attend to clients, this message could be attempting to counterbalance popular sentiment about the low quality of the service industry. It may also be reminding people that they themselves as citizens are owners and beneficiaries of the means of production.

The unintended message that is revealed only in this particular photograph is an ironic statement on the social indiscipline of the workforce. In the middle of the day, a crew of idle men sit under the shade of a sign that proclaims “we work for you”. Clearly, state messages can change when perceived in the social context of the signs’ “natural” environment.

News Theme Song

This is no longer the song used to open the broadcast--which could be heard coming from all directions, walking through any neighborhood at 8pm.



I would like to hear a hip hop beat sample this song.

Artsy Fartsy

The 10th Havana Biennial art show is on. See images at the following links:

http://centrefortheaestheticrevolution.blogspot.com/2009/04/pablos-choices-havana-bienal.html

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/03/31/arts/design/20090401-biennial-slideshow_index.html

http://progresoblog.com/espanol/?p=883

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/slideshow/ALeqM5hnDAbUsD2Ub7obCjhcRWcsI1j-lQD97A2RIG1?index=0

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/exclusive-pictures-havana-biennial-2009/9490

Hay que cuidar su propia basura: Dr. Mentepollo

How Coffee is Made (laughter ensues)

House in Matanzas

Superior Sundries

The state firm that supplies subsidized neighborhood outlets of food and limited household products has indicated that it has added fluoride to the toothpaste and made the soap more fragrant and colorful. The packaging of both have been remixed as well.

Revolutionary Training

The motto of the Union of Young Communists is "Study, Work, Rifle". Seriously.

Energy Revolution

As an economically embargoed nation with few proven natural energy resources and historically dependent on foreign oil subsidized by geopolitical allies, Cuba has recognized the need to consume energy efficiently. It is also very attuned to the threats of climate change particular to its geography—soil desiccation and receding coastlines. The ensuing "Energy Revolution" has involved replacing all the light bulbs on the island with compact fluorescents, developing and distributing efficient kitchen appliances and televisions, and swapping out old wasteful American refrigerators and Soviet air conditioners for new efficient Chinese models. The replacement campaigns operate at the neighborhood level in the door-to-door manner of the census; and families pay for their new appliances on installment plans. The state has also purchased fleets of Chinese buses and made upgrades to power plants and the electric grid. There are no longer systematic blackouts—yet unintended blackouts still occur sporadically. Cuba is near to rendering itself efficient enough to be an energy exporter, if the seabed tracts currently being explored yield the levels of petroleum estimated.

Signs of Revolution

“And just when they seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honored disguise and this borrowed language.” --Karl Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte", 1852.

Billboards

Citizens in Concert

To commemorate the 50th anniverary of the Cuban Revolution, top musical groups will play free open air concerts and there will be other music and dance opportunities across the capitol and the wider island. This is common for holidays such as 1 January or 26 July--but this year will probably be more spectacular than usual--if the state budget allows.

Constituent outreach

Raul Castro speaks to people evacuated and effected by Hurricane Paloma. During his visit he recalled that a hurricane killed three thousand people around the same town of Santa Cruz del Sure, circa 1932.

For this third major tropical cyclone this season, the Cuban authorities evacuated 1.2 million people and not one person died.

Turning Living Rooms into Classrooms

With many schools damaged by the hurricanes, families are opening their doors to displaced students. Some teachers are now giving classes in the confines of a neighbor's living room.

A longtime leader of the Cuban revolution, Armando Hart Dávalos, notes that this recent invention by necessity is the intertwining of three main pillars of society: family, community, and school.

Queuebanismo

If long bread lines are the derogatory stereotype of socialist societies, Cubans have made waiting in line an art form.

Queues are rarely physical files of humans; rather they are mental abstractions in which everyone knows behind whom they are positioned, no matter where they wait. You can be third in a line of twenty and sitting in the shade of a tree a block away.

The procedure for "formando cola" entails arriving at the bus stop/bank/social club and shouting an interrogative "¿último?" to find out who is last in line. When that person identifies themselves, you ask them whom they are behind. This is because people do not wait in their physical order, and if that person leaves the line you need to know behind whom you are then positioned.

This free form way of lining up lifts the weight of the wait for a lift, and is one of the many types of "lesser" freedoms that Cubans enjoy.

An infuriating wrinkle of this otherwise logical and flexible process for interminable waiting is that people physically present at the queue can be holding the place of multiple others who are basically waiting in absentia, around the block or even asleep in their homes. So if you arrive somewhere and see a short line of only 12 people, you could actually be 200th in line. Although that is an extreme example, it illustrates the concept and is not unheard of.

People sometimes offer to hold others' place in line for a small fee.

Even in Cuba, freedom isn't free.

Few Phones for so many Mouthy Cubans

Many Cubans do not have a telephone in their homes, despite their penchant for talking all the time. There are 1.24 million landlines for a nation of 11.2 citizens. I imagine many of those lines belong to enterprises and offices.

Often times to call somebody at their home, one must call a neighbor's number. The instructions go like this: "Call 555-5555 and ask for Delia. When Delia gets on the phone ask to speak to me from Pedro's house down the block". Typically, Delia would dispatch her little daughter or another suitable courier to look for the call recipient. One then waits five to ten minutes for the person to come get on the phone.

Another variation is that one calls a number, and the person that answers says "Repeat the call" and hangs up. So one calls again and instead of the first person answering on the second ring, the intended party answers on the sixth. This way multiple households can share a single line.

So if you share a line with somebody, when you hear the phone ring twice, then another incoming call sounds seconds later, chances are its for you, answer it.

The shortage of telephone service is so severe and public discontent so chronic that there are entire episodes of the public commentary show, Libre Acceso, dedicated to addressing telephonic concerns. Often times the complaints or questions come via mail. Other times people borrow neighbor's telephones to call the show.

The panel receiving the questions is composed of journalists and officials such as representatives from the provincial parliament, institutional bureaucrats like those from the telephone company and, say, a member of the Communist party's municipal delegation.

The complaints voiced are all variations on a single theme: "We ordered a telephone line six years ago, and three years ago we were told it was to be installed, but we still dont have a line, and the local telephone company office just gives us the run around."

Invariably, the three hosts of the television program have no adequate response. Just as the complaint is always the same; so is the answer.

The underlying problem is based on access to technical equipment which cant be bought from the US due to the blockade, so must be purchased from farther afield at higher costs. But the hosts promise to look into the caller's particular problem.

Cuba has some very incisive sketch comedies on television (like Profe Mentepollo), but this is probably the funniest show on the air.

The lack of telephone lines makes it that much more hilarious that the Bush Administration took the bold step towards democratizing Cuba of allowing Americans to send cellphones to Cuba. The Bush Administration said something to the effect of cellphones allowing Cubans to speak freely in public.

If Bush really wanted to open up Cuba's communication, it would lift the blockade on materials required for telecommunications, including allowing Cuba expanded internet bandwidth. The US could even finance the installation of telephone lines in Cuba.

As it stands, Cubans will continue to shout and to debate loudly in person.

Sleeping with your Ex

Due to severe housing shortages (half a million in a country of 11 million), many divorced couples must continue to live under the same roof, in the same room, and sometimes in the same bed.

Often people build internal walls and ceilings/floors to create more rooms in their houses. When people get divorced, they often have to divide a house in two since there is nowhere else to go to live. I suppose when this new construction is prohibitive, divorced couples share their old bedroom.