Digging & Dreaming

Primary Permaculture

Between now and Christmas I am lucky enough to be working in some primary schools in Manchester supporting the work of Manchester International Festival and its Biospheric Project. This is an innovative urban food project looking at food production and food security in urban communities through the creation of an urban farm in an old industrial building in Blackfriars, Salford. There are two different strands of work that I am doing in the schools:

• Firstly I am working with children who visited the Biospheric Project last summer to recap their learning and create an assembly to share this with the rest of the school.
• Secondly I am working with children who attend the assemblies to support them to think about food within their own community by developing plans for their own urban farm on their school site.

The project is a real pleasure as all of the children are so engaged by the idea of food growing in the city, and they all have brilliant ideas and responses. I have also particularly enjoyed using simple Permaculture design tools to take the children through a design process thinking about how they may make their school site more productive. What is particularly satisfying about this is how going through a simple site survey with them in a space that they are very familiar with allows them to observe the world around them in totally different ways. It has also been a great education for me thinking about the design processes that I use myself, and how to make them accessible to other people.

The notes above were written by one of the children at Marlborough Road Academy. It was brilliant to see what creative ideas they had and how excited they were by the idea of making their school site more productive. I look forward to seeing their final designs and to see which ideas they manage to implement in reality.

Day 9 - Thursday 17th November, INIFAT and Alamar

Welcome to Alamar
This was a big exciting day as we were taking a trip to visit a working organopónico! This meant an earlier start than normal as we were driving out to Organopónico Alamar which is one of the largest and most famous organopónicos in Cuba. The site itself is situated in Alamar which is a small town on the Eastern outskirts of Havana with 27,000 inhabitants in the immediate community and 50,000 more in the outlying areas.

Different growing spaces in the heart of the community

The organopónico was founded as a co-operative by four local men in 1997 and now extends to around 10 acres in total. Our visit began with one of the founders giving us an introduction to the history of the site before handing over to one of the growers, who was also a qualified agroecological engineer, to show us around. I do not know if it was a coincidence of all the people I had happened to meet, but once again both men spoke in absolute pride and positivity about their country and their community. A direct contrast to the impressions given by the British and American press that most Cubans are tired of Fidel and the socialist regime.  It was also fascinating to hear their take upon co-operatives and how they function in reality in Cuba.

After our introduction we were taken on a tour of the whole site, which can be described as nothing less than exceptional. Here’s an outline of what we saw:

• A semi-protected cultivation house where plug plants are brought on before being moved outside.
• A processing plant for making natural fertilizers and insecticides as well as breeding natural predators like ladybirds.
• Literally acres and acres of beautifully cultivated land made up of a variety of raised beds and beds cultivating the soil directly.
• Semi-protected cultivation houses for growing crops like cucumbers.
• A huge area for making compost and substrates, including worm compost.
• A preservation room teaching and practicing the preservation of fresh produce.
• A large nursery and shop selling ornamental plants.
• A punto de venta where local people could buy freshly grown produce at low, low prices.

Alamar Punto de Venta

The whole place was an absolute revelation – especially when you look around the borders of the site, see the surrounding flats and are reminded that it is right in the middle of an urban neighbourhood. That really is placing food at the heart of a community!

Breeding ladybirds and other useful bugs

After our visit to Alamar we headed back to INIFAT for a session on bio-fertilisers and bio-insecticides. This is one aspect of Cuban urban agricultural practice that I do struggle with. It is a subject that Cuba has done a great deal of research about alongside genetic engineering, although the research into genetic engineering appears to have dropped off a great deal in recent years. Their interests in the subject appear to be twofold. Firstly they have a genuine belief that these methodologies will play an important part in the future of agriculture on the island. The second motivation is that they need access to the hard currency that they can get when they sell the products that they have created overseas. I have to admit this is the first seminar I took part in where I had significant qualms or questions about any of the work that the Cubans are doing. Although all of these products originate from a natural source I do have to question the long term-validity of their semi-industrial production. I also feel there is a lack of research into the long-term impact of releasing this type of product into the natural environment. In my opinion I am much more convinced by an organic system that does not make use of this kind of industrially produced product.

New this season - taking over extra land at Alamar

Day 8 - Wednesday 16th November 2011, INIFAT Santiago de las Vegas

If I rated my days in Cuba on the basis of how much Spanish I spoke and how much I understood then this was a very good day!

Beautifully constructed organopónico at Alamar, outside Havana

We started the day with another session from Daniel, this time focusing on the construction of sustainable food growing sites. It was interesting to learn the level of knowledge that the Cubans have in constructing these things. For example, the average hectare of organopónicos ,which are growing sites using raised beds because the soil isn’t so good, includes 122 beds which are all 120cm wide, 20 – 30cm deep, no longer than 30m in length and 30cm in depth. It was also clear that there are definite benefits from growing in this way, which are also true of huertas intensivas which are the same as organopónicos but without raised beds because the soil is sufficiently fertile to cultivate:

• They allow for sustainable intensive production.
• They can include a wide variety of cultivars.
• They make use of unproductive land and vacant urban areas.
• Their systems can be adapted to different contexts.
• They only need a low initial investment to set them up.
• They offer accessible employment within local communities.

During lunch some of the group wanted to visit the Tienda Agropecuario in Santiago to learn more about the support that this resource gave to local food producers. As I was the only person in the group who knew where it was I took everyone up there, followed by a trip to the two little parcelas I knew in Santiago to look at them as well. It was nice to be out in town with the group but it was also frustrating because we are so conspicuous when we are all out together. There was something very nice about when I was at INIFAT on my own because it meant I could go about my business in town without immediately drawing attention to myself. Now, in this big group, it was very different. Illustrated by the fact that this trip into town was the first time that I had experienced any begging in Cuba, with a small boy begging from money because he knew the group were from Mexico and probably thought they would have money that they could give him. Very sad.

Advice for growers in the Tienda Agropecuario in Santiago de las Vegas

The afternoon at INIFAT was another practical session with Daniel looking specifically at Vermiculture, or worm compost, which is the backbone of urban agriculture in Cuba. However, as the class went on Daniel began to give his own perspective on the Cuban political system, which was fascinating. He revealed that he earns 23 CUC per month, which translates to about £14. Even with access to the NP economy, food rationing and state subsidy of many things this is a punishingly low wage to survive on. However, Daniel’s opinion was that he has everything that he could ask for in Cuba in terms of health, education, community…etc… so why should he want anything else or ask for anything more? Once again reinforcing the strong commitment that many Cuban’s have to their own country and community.

More Cuban vermiculture - this time at Alamar

Then it was on to the evening with more food – they feed us constantly here. There was also more opportunity to talk and hear Spanish. The next day there was a trip planned to Alamar, one of the most famous urban agriculture sites in Cuba. We also all felt ready for the trip out as it was getting quite intense for the whole group to be together at the ministry every day!

And that’s it. There I was at the end of my first week in Cuba and it felt just as great as I had thought and hoped it might feel. I like Cubans, who are on the whole generous, kind and intelligent. I also like Mexicans too though many of them are much more tied up in Western preoccupations than I had imagined they may be. I would also have imagined them to have more sensitivity to the Cuban situation than some of them did making the lack of understanding from some members of the group a big surprise.

In my first week I also discovered:

• There are lots of ways of eating eggs. Even as an accompaniment to bananas.
• Dual currencies are desperately confusing for everyone involved.
• Cuban mosquitoes love Mancunian skin.
• Sun makes you feel good – especially when the weather is hot.

Mosquitos prompt extreme fashion responses

Day 6 - Monday 14th November - INIFAT, Santiago de las Vegas

So, the first day of proper classes at INIFAT and you’ll be pleased to hear that I actually made it! The big new challenge for me was that I was now part of a group of food producers from Mexico City who I would be tagging along with for the rest of my time in Santiago. Which was great because it meant I now had people to bounce ideas off and discuss what I was learning with. It also meant that I would be spending long days in seminars and study groups that would be delivered entirely in Spanish with Spanish speaking audience in mind which would certainly be very different to the one on one sessions I had been having so far.

My Mexican Friends at INIFAT

But before I start telling you about the programme let me introduce you to my new classmates.

Conchita ­– a housewife who grew lettuces using hydroponics and who also has horses that her husband hired out for weddings and other celebrations.

Alberta – who worked for a rural development programme with special focus upon women working in rural areas.

Maritza – who grew ornamental plants and flowers, as well as corn. She was in Cuba because she wanted to learn more about organic production.

Rosa – grew medicinal and ornamental plants.

Leonardo – a producer of pork and pigs and other related products. He was in Cuba because he wanted to learn more about the production of corn as an animal feed.

Maria – an actuary, who lived on the family small holding. Before inheriting this she had no contact with growing or agriculture.

David – a student of Agro-ecology with a specific interest in organic agriculture and compost.

Maria Minerva –a small producer of rabbits who wanted to learn how to cultivate food for her rabbits.

Alejandra – a housewife who grew lettuces and tomatoes in a roof garden using hydroponics.

Valentine – interested in capacity building around Agro-economy. Also interested in native Mexican corn species and their cultivation.

Alejandro – corn producer.

Miguel – a small holder interested in returning to more traditional and sustainable forms of agriculture.

Paula - a vet.

Alfredo – a corn producer.

Grasila – worked in community development with particular focus upon urban agriculture.

Alejandra – worked in commercialisation of vermiculture systems.

The day began with Maritza who co-ordinates international programmes at INIFAT giving an introduction to the work that they do there. This was followed by a presentation on the basic foundations of Urban Agriculture in Cuba from Dr Nelso Companioni who founded the Urban Agriculture programme at INIFAT and who remains one of the leaders in the field.

Typical urban farming site in Cuba

Nelso explained that Urban Agriculture was a key form of agriculture for the future in Cuba. As well as having a role providing food within communities it was also thought to have a role in public health and the preservation of the health of the soil and the environment. It focuses upon native crops where possible, as these are generally easiest to grow using organic methodologies. He also explained the support system that has been put in place to make Urban Agriculture possible on the island, and highlighted the fact that all of this was seen within a context of sustainable development.

The key factors within Cuba’s Urban Agriculture Strategy were explained as:

1.      Making use of mechanisms that incentivise and give interest to people to produce food and to develop their skills.

2.     Supporting a rational and intensive use of all available land, with each area having its own defined programmes and specialities.

3.     Cultivating the maximum diversity of species and varieties in each garden, patio…etc… in order to create a strong base of cultivation that will guarantee seeds for future growing.

4.     Elevating the culture and knowledge of food and the environment through a programme of outreach education for the public and for food producers.

5.     Developing a wide basis of support and co-ordination on a national level.

He also outlined his ideas on the key foundations of success and support in Urban Agriculture in Cuba:

• Inclusive participation on all levels with integration and collaboration at the heart of everything.
• The development of outreach and community support as crucial to driving the national programme forward.
• The development of a National School (where I was at INIFAT!) as crucial in its support of producers, as well as those managing urban agriculture programmes. The school has also helped develop Urban Agriculture around the world with “extensionistas” from the school allowing for the transfer of knowledge, as well as constructing a vehicle for excellence within development.
• Commercialisation is key in form that is flexible and easy with no more that 2 or 3 stages between the producer and the customer.
• Investment from the Ministry of Agriculture in an ongoing strand of research so that Urban Agriculture is developing constantly and so that it is supported with a system of control and evaluation.

Then in the afternoon Dr Rosalía González took us through the fundamentals of Agroecology within the context of Urban Agriculture. She began by introducing the concept of the Cuban Green Revolution that occurred in Cuba in the early 90s as a result of the Special Period. In their case this revolution was reflected in a desire to change the agricultural systems and technologies that had lead to misuse of chemicals, energy, mechanisation and monocultures. It also recognises the crucial link between man, the environment, society and the physical world. Finally it bases itself upon a foundation of sustainable development:

“Development that satisfies the necessities of this generation without compromising the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own needs.”

In reflection of this definition Urban Agriculture in Cuba is regarded as a crucial part of the sustainable development of cities. The system of a city is traditionally linear and not reflective of natural systems that are circular. It is the integration of Urban Agriculture into this system that makes the creation of a circular, and therefore sustainable, system in a city possible. Rosalía then went on to explain how agroecology complemented and supported this thinking in a variety of ways:

• Through the optimisation of the use of locally available resources, combining them as part of a system.
• By reducing the use of external resources, and resources that do not contribute to the health of the producer and the consumer.
• By combating causes and not symptoms.
• By asking “what is available locally to use and to support what we want to achieve?”
• By considering the relation between the design of cultivation, its potential productivity and the local environment.
• By working to value and conserve biodiversity and make optimum use of the biological and genetic diversity of species of plants in surrounding areas.
• By valuing the practices and knowledge of local people even though this knowledge is rarely scientifically verified.

Inventive recycling in a Cuban garden

And what was the biggest revelation of everything that I had learnt on that day? That, rather excitingly, I actually managed, more or less, to follow what was going on. How good did that feel? After all the years of studying Spanish I could actually understand and be understood in the gorgeous language that I had invested so much time in. Good stuff! Good stuff indeed!

After the day’s seminars I had a bit of time in the evening to start getting to know the Mexicans, who seemed to be a lovely bunch of people. It was interesting to hear their experiences of cultivating food in a huge variety of places in Mexico City. Like Ale for example, who supported her family by growing lettuces on her roof using hydroponics. A wholly inspirational day at INIFAT.

 

Day 4 - Saturday 12th November - Santiago de las Vegas and El Jardín Botánico

This was my first day free of seminars at INIFAT and it started as a rainy and cool one. After breakfast I took a little walk through town up to the CADECA to change some more money so I could be sure that I would have enough money to pay for the weekend’s adventures. Santiago Street

Santiago is a busy little town and around 9am each day stalls pop up selling things in front of many of the houses. Since 1993 it has been legal for Cubans to become self-employed and run their own small business. Initially this started with 150 different occupations but each year this has increased little by little until most recently on 1^st January 2012 when Cuba expanded its free-market reforms further to include carpenters, locksmiths, photographers and repairmen.  They will be able to set their own prices, while paying taxes and leasing their premises from the state. The measures are the latest reforms aimed at reviving Cuba's socialist economy by boosting small-scale private enterprise. This change will be rolled out gradually over the course of the year, starting in six provinces including the capital, Havana and is expected to add to the 200,000 Cubans who are now thought to work for themselves. In Santiago these changes are most apparent to outsiders in these little stalls that sell a wide variety of items from toiletries and hair bobbles to snacks and drinks. This makes for a fascinating landscape in the town that is changing all the time.

On that particular day this informal market dotted throughout the town include one old gentleman selling books from the small patio outside his book filled house. He sat out front in his rocking chair with a prosthetic leg at his side on the floor and had no qualms about engaging in a very heated argument with his son (that was far to impassioned and angry for me to understand!) whilst I browsed. Most of the books on sale were between 10NP and 20NP (30p and 60p) and I was happy to find a lovely anthology of Shakespeare plays from 1960s Cuba and an interesting book about typesetting and typography in Cuba for Jo.

By the time I got back to INIFAT the weather was starting to clear just in time for my visit to the national botanical gardens with Marisol. El Jardín Botánico Nacional is a huge expanse of parkland to the south of Havana, and about 10km away from Santiago, containing a massive variety of plants and trees. Laid out as a savannah the grounds are split into sections according to continents, including a beautiful Japanese garden donated by the Japanese government in 1989 to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The best way to see the park is to join the guided tour that takes you around the gardens in what is billed as a trackless train but is effectively a tractor pulling a trailer, that is full of seats and that are protected by a roof. Beautiful lake at the Botanical Gardens

Our guide was a lovely gentleman called José who spoke clearly and eloquently about the park and who also had an impressively well-pitched patter with a group of teenagers who had joined the tour as research for a project that they were doing at school. I later learnt that he had been a secondary school teacher before he worked at the gardens that explained why he was so natural in that situation!

Semi-protected Glass House
When we stopped at the Japanese garden in the centre of the park there was a beautiful vegetarian buffet (an absolute rarity in Cuba!) and José joined Marisol and me for lunch there.  As we chatted and ate José explained that he was also from Santiago de las Vegas but from a different neighbourhood to INIFAT and Marisol. It soon also became clear that he was an absolute expert on the local history of the town! He explained that Santiago had been built for people who came over to Cuba from the Canary Islands and who became tobacco farmers in the area, growing tobacco for the king. These people were known as las vegas hence the name. And a very similar reason to where Las Vegas in the states got its name too! He also explained that the local village called Calabareza was named after a driver who crashed his trailer and spilled his cargo of pumpkins (calabazas) into the river. And that Ranchero y Los Boyeros gained their names from “los rancheros de los boyeros” or “cowboys of the bulls” that used to populate the area.

Most interestingly this local knowledge was backed up by a great commitment to his local cultural identity and history, with a sense of sadness that much of this was being lost to a new generation who were more interested in national and international affairs.

 “Without a local story a place is nowhere,” he explained. “So the loss of interest in these stories is always going to be a very sad thing. Santiago used to have its own philharmonic and two cinemas. It had a glorious cultural life for a place of its size. And on top of that people visited here because the town had pride and believed that there was a reason for people to come and visit. Einstein came here, the Pope, Federico Garcia Lorca. People came here and there was a record made of it. But now that kind of event doesn’t happen and if it does it isn’t recorded in the same way. And without that the identity of our town will gradually stop existing as well.”

Beautiful Cuban Leaves
Later when were about to leave the park Marisol nipped to the bathroom. Whilst I was waiting for her José came out of his office with a leaflet for me as a reminder of my visit.

 “What do you think of Cuba?” he asked, the question that many Cubans seemed to like asking.

 “I like it,” I replied. “I like the people and I like the diversity and mixture of people living together.”

 “Yes,” responded José. “We are certainly all a mixture and we are certainly all a contradiction. Cuba… it’s a country of great contradictions. That is certainly how I’d describe it anyway.”

 I liked José. I liked him a lot. He had a kindness and honesty that seemed reflective of most of the Cubans that I had met so far on my trip. Take Marisol for example, Saturday was supposed to be her day off work but she was insistent that I should not be on my own. Thus organising our trip to the gardens and our trip into Havana the next day and reflecting once again the great sociability of Cubans and their desire to look out for people and do the best they can for them, no matter how much or little they know them.

 It was also nice to spend this day with Marisol away from INIFAT and have time to talk more in the tranquillity of the gardens. I was particularly interested to hear about her experiences working in Mexico, which she had to do as part of her job. First time she visited for ten days, then another trip for three months and now she was preparing to go again, this time for a whole year. A year when she would be a way from her husband and son, with little or no easy contact with them. It was sad to hear her talk about this because her family obviously mean a great deal to her but she approached the situation without any self-pity or criticism. It was simply part of her job that could not be avoided and on this basis she would live with the situation as positively as she could and make the best out of it that she could.

 Marisol was a very nice person. A typically kind and honest Cuban, two qualities that are very common in Cuba and that I would come to really admire during my stay. She was clearly deeply knowledgeable in her own specialism of soil but also had an incredible love and knowledge of all things horticultural, which she brushed off as just being part of her job – it isn’t! I loved Marisol’s openness and positivity and hoped that one day I may be able to reciprocate her wonderful hospitality in my own city. I’m not sure how this may be possible but I’m determined to make sure that one-day it will be.

Day 3 - Friday 11th November - Santiago de las Vegas (Afternoon)

INIFAT - Main Driveway

A busy morning followed by a quiet afternoon.

As we were going to the botanical gardens the next day I had the afternoon off to revise the work that I had already done and to do some more reading. After rice and beans for lunch I decided to see if I could email Jo – a task that isn’t as straightforward as I am used to in the UK. The first thing that I did was to ask in the international office if I would be able to email from there however, there was already a problem with this… Although many staff at INIFAT had internet access for work most did not have access via a computer terminal in their own office. To go online they had to go over to the main INIFAT building where there was a small room containing three computers with internet access that were shared between the whole organization (there are around 400 people working for INIFAT at present!). The next challenge was that although these computers had internet access you could not use internet email services such as Gmail or Yahoo. You could only use INIFAT’s own email accounts. Fortunately one of the ladies in the international department was kind enough to let me gatecrash her account to send an email to Jo.

INIFAT - Entrance Hallway

The American embargo of Cuba has played a big part in challenges in communication that the island faces. Until recently Cubans only had access to the internet via one Italian satellite that they were able to use. This issue of internet access is made worse by the fact that computer equipment is extremely difficult for Cuban’s to import, and therefore also extremely expensive meaning that many people simply don’t have the access to the hardware necessary to get online. These different factors contributed to the fact that Cuba has had among the slowest internet speeds in the world.

In 2011 the island welcomed the arrival of an undersea fibre-optic cable linking it to Venezuela, and representing a new blow to the US economic embargo. It was hoped that this cable would transform communications in Cuba making download speeds 3,000 times faster for the small minority of Cubans who have internet access. It was also hoped that it would make international phone calls much cheaper, which have been prohibitively high due in Cuba to lack of communication resources. But for now, as I was learning, online communcation still remained frustratingly slow for most Cuban's who has access to it. And those with access still only reflects a tiny proportion of the whole population.

The Beautiful Hotel at INIFAT

After the adventure of sending an email my next decision was how to spend the rest of my afternoon. I didn’t fancy walking out into Santiago in the rain so decided to spend some time talking with two of the ladies who work in the hotel where I was staying at the ministry. Both were similar age to me and it was fascinating to get a feeling of how they viewed life in contemporary Cuba. Similar to Marisol’s son who I had met the day before it was revealing to see how much lack of access to information, for a variety of different reasons, makes people crave knowledge to ridiculous levels. And also how lack of knowledge gives people an unrealistic perception of life in the Western world. For example, it means that many people have an opinion of life in countries like the UK that is unrealistically positive. They know very little, so automatically assume that everything in the UK must be better than life in Cuba. Of course, in reality this understanding is very far from the truth. For example, although material poverty and lack of access to resources is very striking in Cuba by average British standards, the country has a social identity, wealth and cohesion that’s value far exceeds material wealth that is generally used as the marker of personal and community success in Britain. Admittedly there is no denying that materially and financially life is currently very difficult for people in Cuba. However, there is a social coherence and strength that exists as a foundation to life that money cannot buy; a sense of civic responsibility and pride that Cuba has every right to be greatly proud of.

We spoke for a long time about what life was like in Manchester and the shared conclusion seemed to be that in reality there could be a lot of answers to the Western social challenges to be found in the Cuban system, if only the West would be sensible enough to acknowledge it.  And that many problems that Cubans face on a day to day basis could easily be resolved if they had access even to the most basic resources that we are now used to in the UK. Obviously this conclusion is no consolation to the hardship that Cubans have to contend with oin everyday life, but their physical and intellectual isolation means that they are not allowed to have a realistically positive view of their own social achievements and the great aspects of their own culture that shine as models of excellence internationally.

We also spoke a lot about how proud they were of their country and how sad they were about how difficult life was as well as the reasons that their country needed to change as a result of these difficulties. But this was not a “down with the system” sense of change, more a “our country has been great but now it is so isolated that it is making it almost impossible for that greatness to carry on.” A sense that the general populace was proud of Cuba and felt sad at the personal and social compromises that were now having to be made in order simply to survive. What was most striking for me though, was the insidious capacity that the Western consumerist ideal has to put people under unreasonable pressure and to make them really, really unhappy. Even there in socialist Cuba, this ideal was making people really, really unhappy;

“If only I could have x my children would be happy.”

“If only I had y the relationship I have with my husband would be better.”

Nonsense of course, because that sense of identity, community and family that everybody is desperately trying to buy themselves in the Western world has never gone away in Cuba. It may be rough around the edges and bloody hard work for everybody involved to maintain but it definitely exists as strong as anything. And its simple existence is something that Cuba and her people have every right to be absolutely, hugely proud of. And it is something that people in the West should look to for answers as we try to right the wrongs that now exist so prominently in many aspects of our own society.

Other things that I experienced today and wanted to remember:

• The tastiest, freshest banana I had ever eaten.
• The lovely old gentlemen working their gardens.
• A breakfast room filled with Cubana cabin crew on a break from the airport.
• Tropical morning rain.
• The rooftop garden with grapes and rabbits.

Day 3 - Friday 11th November - Santiago de las Vegas (Morning)

 

Santiago's Tienda Agropecuario

When it rains in Cuba it really rains. But the positive side of the rain was that it certainly took the edge off the heat and the clouds served as some degree of protection against the sun, the strength of which I was still getting used to. There was a cold front on it’s way over apparently, according to Ricardo who was jefe of the hotel, so I should expect more of the same weather over the coming days. I would also come to learn over the coming weeks that the passing of a cold front is used by Cubans to explain any fluctuation in the weather and that it was a meterological event that prompted much discussion and interest, between friends, acquaintances and, amazingly frequently, amongst strangers. Despite the change in the weather Marisol and I were determined not to change our plans to walk out into Santiago so we pulled on our cardigans, grabbed umbrellas, and headed out into town.

First stop was Santiago’s own Tienda Agropecuario (pictured above). These shops exist throughout Cuba to support people who want to grow food, both for themselves and as a business. They sell seeds, plants, tools and organic fertilizers as well as offering advice and ideas to growers of all shapes and sizes. They do this on site at the shop but also through their network of consultants who travel through each municipality visiting projects and offering support and ideas. The aim is that advice is available in some form within every community that is involved or aspires to be involved in urban and sub-urban agriculture. Quite an undertaking but the feeling seem to be that the level of provision that had been aspired to was now in place, and self funding – originally these tiendas were supported by the government but in recent years many of them had become self supporting through the income they earn as a result of sales in the shop.

Parcela in Santiago

After that we visited two parcelas, that were broadly similar to allotments in the UK. The main difference is that they are on their own and not part of larger, organised sites like we are more familiar with. They tend to be on vacant lots of land in residential areas and are where local people grow food to eat themselves, and to sell directly to neighbours if there is any excess. The two sites we visited were beautifully tended and sat opposite each other across a small road in a residential neighbourhood. It was lovely to see food being grown right in the heart of a community, as would prove a common site during my travels around the island.

Close to the parcelas was the first organopónico that I visited in Cuba. Although these are the most well-known form of Cuban urban cultivation in the rest of the world using raised beds filled with worm compost. They are not the most common in reality and are only used in situations where the existing soil is not fertile enough to be cultivated directly. If the soil is cultivated directly the site is know as a huerta and this is what we visited at the school just across the road from the organopónico. Unlike the other sites we had visited, Marisol had no previous contact with the school huerta, however as soon as the head teacher saw us looking in over the gate he came down to greet us and invited us onto the site. He explained that his school was a special school and that the huerta was cultivated by a group of his students who found the activity extremely therapeutic. He was also keen to show us inside his school that was busy, but peaceful and friendly. He showed us the work that the children were creating, in spite of the lack of resources that were available to them. He was also particularly proud to show us the school kitchen and dinning room where freshly picked food, grown on site, was prepared each day and that the children sat down together to eat. This was something that he clearly felt was a very important part of the school routine and he was amazed to learn that many schools in the UK no longer had a kitchen. And many of those that did no longer produced a freshly prepared meal each day, instead resorting to heating up pre-prepared food or serving cold lunches to those children who did not bring in their own.

School Garden in Santiago

Finally, on our way back to INIFAT, we looked at a couple of different Punta de Ventas – the public facing arm of Cuban urban and sub-urban agriculture where the fruits of each day’s harvest are sold. For sites located in residential areas these tend to be part of the site where the food has been grown but more distant food producers may bring their food to a central punta to be sold in an area closer to where the food will be cooked and eaten. In fact, the whole Cuban urban agriculture system is constructed on the basis that nothing is grown further than 10km from where it will be sold / eaten as this is deemed the maximum distance you can travel easily in a day in a horse drawn vehicle. This is a major consideration in Cuba, a country that has serious shortages of fuel causing significant challenges for all types of transportation on the island.

The first punta we came across was a gentleman bringing a trolley out onto the street selling the freshest of fresh bananas.  They looked delicious! As soon as he appeared people came out of their houses to see what he was selling and to buy his gorgeous produce for 10NP a bunch. It was fascinating to see once again, in this supermarket free world that has a recent history of real hunger and hardship regarding food, the way that Cuban people relate to food. Seeming to be on the look out for something fresh, tasty and good value at all times. And how they just buy what they need buy day by day, avoiding waste at all cost. The range of food on offer may seem limited by Western standards but everything that is for sale is deliciously fresh and seasonal - this is a country where necessity means that people have become accustomed to buying and eating what is available when it is available. A discipline that has disappeared almost entirely in many Western, consumerist societies. In Cuba there is no mega weekly shop piled into the back of a car like many of us have become used to but as a result food waste is virtually non-existent and people, on the whole, eat a simple, functional, healthy diet that seems to work. This is, of course, on top of the state food ration that still exists in Cuba but we’ll come back to that later.

And then, as if to prove my point, as I sat writing I could hear someone else out in the street passing by with something delicious for sale. Pushing along a trolley and shouting “Fresca fruta! Piña!” and someone else calling out “Cebolla! Cebolla fresca!”, and reflecting the Cuban way of doing things I was half tempted to head outside and see what price everything was going for today.

Day 2 - Thursday 10th November - Santiago de las Vegas

Santiago de las Vegas is part town, part sprawling suburb 30km south of Havana, just near the airport. It’s a rambling little place with about 35,000 people living there and is the place where I was going to be based for the first two weeks of my visit to Cuba. Around the outskirts of town are blocks of flats that were built in the 60s and 70s that are about 6 storeys high with rough, dry, scrubby patches of grass in between them where dogs wander and children play. Then, as you come further into town you come across more traditional houses. Streets and streets of low level houses that are neatly laid out on a logical grid making it easy for visitors to find their way around. Houses that lead straight onto the pavement and have gated doors so the air can get inside and keep the residents cool. And so people can pull their chairs outside and sit in the shade during the hottest part of the day, as they seemed to like doing. A lot.

INIFAT is situated on a large, green site right in the middle of the place, in a location that used to be a hospital many years ago. Now it is laid out with offices and labs at the top of the site, gardens and fields all around for growing and the hotel where I was staying (in a building that was once a hunting lodge) located on the bottom of the site near the main road that brings people in and out of town.

Rather irritatingly my first full day in Cuba didn’t start as well as I had hoped it would as I hadn’t slept particularly well the night before. This was partly due to my body’s confusion at what time it was combined with the world’s loudest air con unit in my room that also meant I was horribly cold all night, and that was my one and only experience of air con in Cuba! Who’d have though it? Perishingly cold on my first night in the tropics? It certainly wasn’t what I would have anticipated anyway!

The day started early with a simple breakfast of cheese and bread in the hotel. This meal also included my first confusion around language that involved some degree of debate over what I was going to drink which resulted in me learning that Cuban for juice is “jugo” and not “zumo” as I was more familiar with. I should also point out that this was to be the first of many Cuban word confusions during my stay! I then spent the rest of my morning with the wonderful Marisol who was to be my mentor during my stay at INIFAT. Marisol is a specialist in soil and soil fertility, and she spent the next couple of hours taking me through the basic structures of urban and sub-urban agriculture in Cuba – the different types of sites, how they are managed and how they are evaluated. It was all fascinating stuff and my Spanish just about held up to it, although it made my head ache to be in such a total language immersion where not a word of English was spoken by anybody! Though a good form of immersion I think because even within that first morning I felt more confident and fluent than I had felt in all the years that I had been learning the language and pottering by in the UK.

Then after a delicious lunch of soup and salad with omelet and the obligatory Cuban beans and rice Marisol and I headed into Santiago to have a look around. And what an amazing place it is! Classic cars driving all over the place – I’d thought that was a myth laid on for tourists but it so isn’t, it’s absolutely true and those cars, as a testament to Cuban ingenuity and inventiveness are everywhere you look. There’s a real buzz about Santiago too, with people everywhere going about their business. On the streets on bikes, walking, pushing things. Political slogans carefully painted on the walls like “Fidel – we’re still with you!” as well as a couple of the typical Che portraits for good measure. But alongside this energy there is also a sense of everything being physically a little old and tired and patched together – it’s a little sad in a way. If the people weren’t so upbeat and happy and the sun didn’t shine it would certainly be a very different place. And one of the most striking things for me was that, although the place was clearly poor, you didn’t get a sense of poverty – the first real sign of what high priority Cuba as a whole places upon looking after people.

First we went up to the main street in town so that I could change some money at the CADECA – the government run bureau de change where you could change sterling to Convertible Pesos (CUCs) and where you could also change CUCs to National Pesos (NPs). NPs are generally reserved specifically for Cubans and CUCs reserved for tourists but as I would need NPs for public transport in Santiago and to pick up snacks and items from the market Marisol advised me that it was worth changing a small amount of money into them. Though not too much – NPs are used as a way of keeping the price of staple goods stable for Cubans who are paid a very low wage (on average around 20 CUCs per month which is around $20 dollars) so even 10 CUCs worth of NPs (about 240 NPs) is an enormous amount of money in local terms.

After the CADECA we headed onto the local market, passing guys selling fresh produce from barrows and bikes all the way. It was an amazing thing to see people come out of their houses to see what was on offer as people passed, demonstrating an active and constant relationship with local seasonal food that hardly exists in the UK anymore. On the market Marisol showed me all sorts of fruit and vegetables that are typical to Cuba, and many of which we had seen growing in INIFAT’s own vegetable garden earlier that day. It was also on that market that I made my first NP purchase of a beautifully fresh pineapple for 10NP (about 20p) and an equally fresh grapefruit for 5NP (about 10p) – gorgeous!

Next we took the bus the short journey to Marisol’s flat, via the CUC shop where we bought two cans of Fiesta which is a Cuban version of Coke, even going so far as to have Fiesta written in a font which is a blatant copy of the font used for Coca-Cola. I should also point out that each can cost 0.60 CUC putting it far out of the grasp of many Cubans who do not have access to CUCs, which are typically either earned through working in the tourist industry or are sent over by family members and friends living overseas. My first simple but clear lesson of how much of a challenge everyday life can be for Cubans.

Marisol lives with her son and husband at the top of a small block of flats about a kilometer away from INIFAT. To get to her flat you climb the stairs that run up the front of the building until you reach the landing at the top shared by Marisol and her neighbour, and where you are greeted by two beautiful Eames style chairs which have been set out there to make the most of the evening sun at the end of the day. I stayed there for about an hour talking to her, and her son Roberto, who is studying Maths and computers at Havana University and who is clearly extremely bright, who spoke good English and who had a great desire to learn as much as he could about England and Europe from me in the short time that I was there talking to him. As we spoke we drank cola and shared fruit we had bought on the market and it felt like my first introduction to the warmth and openness of Cubans that I would come to know well and love during my time on the island. Then, when it was time to go back to INIFAT, Marisol and her husband gave me a lift back in their old Lada that was proudly parked in front of their building and that was a real luxury item for them to own by Cuban standards, especially as they didn’t use it as a taxi or suchlike to earn a living and make it pay its keep.

And that was it- my busy, busy first day. Then I was back in my room writing up my notes and diaries and hoping that the horrible, noisy air con wouldn’t turn itself back on and keep me awake for another night. (You’ll be pleased to know it didn’t)

Other things that I wanted to remember from my first day:

• Meeting Dr Nelso Companioni – the deputy director of the Cuban National Programme for Urban Agriculture.
• Seeing the plastic apple ice bowl on the table in Marisol’s flat that is exactly the same as the one that I have back home in the UK.
• NP shops and CUC shops – the confusing dual economy.
• Harry Potter's popularity in Cuba.
• Food stalls at the end of every street – fresh food for everybody.
• Crazy taxi buses.
• Computer students with 10 days internet access per month (or 3MB data!)
• The beautiful Cuban children in their immaculate school uniforms.

 

 

Day 1 - Wednesday 9th November - INIFAT – Santiago de las Vegas

So there I was. I made it. Thousands of miles across the planet to this beautiful island called Cuba. I could hardly believe that I was finally there after all those months of planning and organizing and preparing. Finally I’m there in a homely little hotel at INIFAT in Santiago de Las Vegas and I felt… well… tired. It had been a long, long day to say the least!

I started off early that morning at a slightly weird hotel outside London, eating fruit and croissants and drinking tea and wondering what the day was going to hold. Of course I had some ideas and expectations but I was still nervous about what the day was actually going to hold in reality. Then it was time to leave the hotel and go on to the Gatwick Airport. And there I was in the crazy horrible place that airports are just wanting to get on the plane and go and not wanting to wait for the adventure to start anymore. Next it was onto the plane where all we seemed to do was eat and drink and watch films and where everyone who asked what I was doing and why I was going to Cuba on my own said “ooo, aren’t you brave” when they learnt about what I was going to be doing in the coming weeks. And that was it for the next nine hours. Nine hours! That’s a long time on a plane but it was all worth it to see beautiful green and red (rich, ruddy red) Cuba appear below us surrounded by the dark, blue sea.

And that was it. That was the place that I had been waiting for and that I would be free to explore, as soon as I was reunited with my visa at the airport. An experience that took twenty seemingly never ending minutes as the long queues from my flight melted away and I was left as the only person waiting in a big, empty, immigration hall. It was such a relief to finally have my visa in my hands and be able to pass through the doors into arrivals, pick up my bag and head through the doors into the foyer of the airport to meet Maritza and Raul from INIFAT who had kindly come to meet me. Now is probably a suitable time to explain what INIFAT is.

INIFAT stands for Instituto de Investigaciones Fundamentales en Agricultura Tropical “Alejandro de Humboldt” and it was founded in 1974, as a development of the Centre for Experimental Agronomy that had existed on the site since 1904. It is now an organization that is known nationally and internationally for the support that it has given to the development of Urban and Sub-urban Agriculture in Cuba. Its main aim, as part of the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, is to support the strengthening and development of sustainable agriculture with a specific focus on Urban and Sub-urban contexts. Since October 2009 INIFAT had also become home to the National School of Urban and Sub-Urban Agriculture and this was who would be hosting me for my first two weeks in Cuba.

INIFAT is based in Santiago de las Vegas which is sleepy little town about 30 km outside Havana, and 3km from the airport. This short journey was made in a little, black Lada with leatherette seats and Playboy stickers on the back windows, where I got to speak my first Cuban Spanish as I ate the peanuts that Maritza had brought along for me, and caught my first glimpses of Cuba in the dusky light of the evening. It only took about ten minutes to get to INIFAT and to the little hotel they have on site and where I would be staying during my time there.

After having my first (huge!) meal at the hotel I was happy to settle down in my comfortable little room and get some sleep in anticipation of my first full day in Cuba. When I would be able to get a proper feeling for INIFAT and Santiago de las Vegas in the warm and sunny light of day.