GTMO

I've been telling you all about one of the more fantastic chain of events and the themes that run through it so that you might imagine how rare of a country Cuba is. It is very different, and doesn't always make sense in many more different ways. The ways things happen here don't necessarily fit the context of a latin country, or a western one, they don't fit with a developing one or a developed one, a country that has resources or doesn't, is managing them from a socialist mandate or with capitalist aspirations. Yet all of these seem to be true in Cuba.
But let's leave the socio-economic and political descriptions behind.
First, I'm going to second Jess' motion to recognize Ranil as a far-out walking encyclopedia who radiates a passionate and yet serene energy. I had a hell of a lot of fun learning from him. After my encounter with him, my objective is analog forestry, so much so that I have it in a tattoo (the design was originally conceived after my grandfather, an extension forester in NS, died).
I hope take on the Analog Forestry portfolio at Falls Brook Centre, and make it an example of what AF can do. I've already been thinking of three other sities that I have access to where AF might be spread.
Second, I'm going to tell you about the house where I am staying. Jean described it very succinctly as “...a rarified existence.” The family are artists. The father has sculptures around Guantanamo, in the largest Baracoa Hotel, and some of the most stirring paintings I've ever seen.
One of his sons is preparing an exhibition even now, and took time from that to do my tattoo. As artists in Cuba they are hardly of the starving sort and as hosts of foreigners they are down right rich. The house is large and green. I feel like I'm in the fifties every time I look around it. It has a patio on the front and a patio/courtyard out back. The roof is barren and accessible for sunning, or watching the street below. Because of the quality of their home, to say nothing of their hospitality, I'm sure they get more than their fair share of guests.
So, to fill out the house, let's count the family entire. The Mother and Father. From the mother's first marriage are two sons (they live elsewhere but frequent the house enough) who work in security. The two sones from this marriage, the 24 year old's wife is pregnant, the 22 year old is dating a 15 year old. Until recently there was a second pregnant lady, the wife of the one of the security guards at the house. On weekends the two daughters (8 and 9) of the other guard might visit. Next there is the Negron, Duque, the huge Dobermann who inhabits the back patio. He is a beast but really a push over. On my first day here I saw him hit by a car. He just rolled with it, missing two steps in his chase for another dog. Princesa is the little white dog a third of his size, and if ever I've seen a couple in love, these two are.
This big green box of madness is my home. Conveniently situated a three minute walk from El Puente Negro, a rail way track crossing the river that recently had a ped-way welded on the side. It's not uncommon to be crossing, especially at night and meet the train. Every time it happens I think of Stand By Me. Claudia, Jean, Ranil and Mamerto (from D.R.) had that experience one rainy night. Another eight minutes walking and you arrive at the bustling downtown Gtmo, with its Plaza, two pizzarias, and two restaurants(one is all veggie).
Eight minutes in the other direction from the house is the Formadora, the round-about with the Guantanamo sign you may have seen in Micheal Moore's film “Sicko” when he tries to bring Americans to Gtmo Naval base for free health care, and ends up taking them to the La Habana hospital. Beyond this sign, is a very agreeable fifteen minute bicycle ride (I've left behind the horrible traffic and crammed buses of La Habana where my Ipod and camera were stolen) down some gentle hills to the dry, saltly, god-forsaken savannah—a vista you could easily confuse with Africa; so easily that Claudia has left to go to Uganda on vacation, but it is here—where the farms are. This is where Analog Forestry can prove that it can turn a desert into the forest that once was.