The Green Screen

Arrived in Santiago Nov 23 to find a huge heap of dirt and rubbish at our porch. There's one of those new "revolutions" going on. Now it's the water. Every home will have a water meter, and all tubing in the streets is replaced with new plastic tubing. They have built two new factories for all the plastic tubes that are needed, and most of the island's prisoners are working on the water system. First a large tractor with a huge saw makes a huge slit along the street, then a somewhat smaller tractor with a not so huge saw cuts slits across, for connecting tubes to every house. Ours was already connected when we got there.

All houses now shall have a water meter. The philosophy behind is that it will make people save water, thus saving the state huge costs for pumping. After three weeks without water, I check the meter, and it shows that more than 200 cubic metres of water has passed. It is still running, but not a drop of water reaches our tank. Somewhere under the pavement, thousands of gallons is seeping into the soil under our house, and we get no water. The neighbour's meter shows about 15 cubic metres, ours 204.

But there's still water in the old system, and we arrange a hose from the neighbour to fill our two tanks. One for the washing machine. We need to wash a lot, because the father of the guy that watches our house while we're away is very ill, and he needs special attention and wets his clothes. He's been ill for several months, prostate cancer, and he is in terrible pain, moaning and screaming any time around the clock. We decide to make room for him in the house after he has been to the hospital for a cat scan, so we host him in our back room. He needs attention 24h, and we hire hands for some of the time.

There's no way of getting morphine; the family doctor never shows up. We have a few friends that are doctors, helping us with medication, but the painkilling drugs we use are not sufficient. The poor man is suffering, and I'm frustrated that I cannot alleviate his pain. He has methastases in the column and cannot lie down. He's in his rocker chair, and he's been sitting in it for three months now, well into the fourth. One day the son takes all the clinical history to the oncological hospital and asks whether they might take him in there. He is told to bring in the old man, and we go there with an ambulance. The ambulance people are careless, so they scrape his arms against the walls while carrying, so he arrives to the hospital with a couple of wounds.

At the hospital, they don't receive him, the doctors don't even care to look at him. He's a 91 year old gentleman that has served the "Revolution" most of his life, and now he's looked at as some animal we scraped up from the gutter. We're told that they cannot take him in, as we don't have the diagnosis from the family doctor or the policlinic. So we take the agonizing old man in a taxi to the policlinic where we are first taken to the urologist, where two doctors palpate his lower abdomen and conclude that it's not a case for them; he has no urine retention. Then we are taken down to "la guardia", where he's laid on a bed, still in agony. I adjust the bed so that his edema in the lower legs is relieved, in a kind of half-sitting position, and he's given a saline solution of dextrosis with vitamin B that takes a few hours. All the time in agony. By the end of that dripping intravenous infusion, he's finally given a dose of morphine.

In Cuba morphine has serious restrictions, and the vial must be returned to the pharmacy and there's a lot of paperwork. They don't readily want to do that, so they are very reluctant to give morphine. Anyway, it works, he calms down, we can even talk to him, and he wants to go home. Before leaving, he's given a catheter, and when he pees, we find that it is too small, he pees at the side and wets the bed and makes a little lagoon on the floor. We stay there another hour before anyone cares about cleaning up. That's when we are ready to leave. One of the clinic hands comes to make the bed for the next patient, and by now the sheets have dried, so he makes it with those old sheets... I tell him "esas sábanas tienen meao", and he removes them and gets some clean bedsheets.

We take him home, and keep him there till early, a few minutes into December 23, he gives up his breath. Me and his son lay him down on the bed and dress him neatly. I put his teeth in and we shave him. He really looks fine when we put him in the coffin. Now there's a struggle to get a doctor to make the papers we need for the funeral. It's raining all the time, and the son has to take a taxi to the clinic and back with the doctor and then back to the clinic again. When he gets to the funeraria, they discover that the papers aren't correctly filled, so the son must once again go to the clinic. The taxi bill was over 20 CUC. An hour before noon the old man is buried. There is one institution that is prompt, la funeraria. It is even cleaner than the hospital.

And that day I was crying. We were alleviated that we didn't have to wake over him any more, but I was so frustrated that I hadn't been able to alleviate his pain, and that the old man was treated in such an undignified way while still alive. Is it too much to ask, that an old man's pain is relieved the brief time that he'll still be alive? All we could do was give him TLC, but we could not relieve his pain. I'm so sorry.

So; I'm back in Sweden. I have seen more than I ever wanted to see of Cuban health care. If I ever get into such a situation as the old man, I hope it will not be there. Here in Sweden, not even a dog is treated like that.

And I keep thinking that, there, but for fortune, go you or I.

How sad! I hope Michael Moore gets to read this.

So why on Earth would I go back to Cuba. Wouldn't that be like writing FMH on my forehead? I remember that one day when I ventured downtown to find something that my wife wanted me to buy, and I sat down a while to rest, I was approched by two Cuban ladies. Those were not the kind you might think of as jineteras, both of respectable age, looking like a couple of ladies going into the city to shop. But Cuba is like that, full of surprises. Anyone is looking for an opening, anyone might get some revenue by knowing a foreigner. They asked me if I had been to Santiago before, how many times, and whether I liked Cuba. When I told them that I didn't particularly like it (who does?), they confirmed that they too, although born there, did not like it.

And going for the umpteenth time, the only defense I have is that it was my wife that coerced me into making her company. She was glad that I was there, as I could help with injections, infusions and waking, taking my turns, as well as going downtown to buy things that aren't available in the closest store or the local market.

There might of course also be another reason. I admit being guilty of helping a few Cubans to get out of there. There are still more to go, may the last one turn off the tap and switch off the light... It's like the swift I found one day in a flower pot, unable to lift from the ground. I took it up, fondled it, examined its wings and took it to a high place where I tossed it into the air. Immediately another swift came down from the skies, and screaming, the two of them flew away wingtip by wingtip. The other one was there so fast, only a few yards away from me, that I am sure that it was watching all the time and saw what I was going to do. When I stretched my arm back to throw, it must have started the dive, to catch up so rapidly. Freedom, freedom is one of the few things that only grows so you get more of it when you give it away, when you share it. That little swift had a heart beating in there, just like my heart, and his freedom is mine. And I am not ashamed that I have granted that same freedom to some Cubans. They may try their wings, I won't babysit them, but also elderly ladies yearn for that freedom. That's why they approach a stranger, asking to invite him to a drink. And I still have friends there that want to get out, friends that need to get out, friends that are choked by the inhuman system. That's why I return.

Sr. Cocuyo. Welcome home. I GUARANTEE you will never be the same again. Somehow, when a person witnesses such tragedy, it becomes imbedded in your psyche.

I am ALWAYS a mess when I come back from Cuba. It takes me months to totally recuperate.

I know I have never been the same again.

P.S. Incredible. This post has had 67 views and only 2 people had comments. Something is definitely wrong.

Es cuba everybody passes the buck ;not my job ; or whats in it for me ??

True Mercy, I know that I will never be the same again, I am stirred and shaken, and have not recovered yet - wonder if I ever will. And there was more actually, it's just been too much.

I committed a stupidity.
Maybe I can blame it on the tiredness, but I never went to inmigración to renew my visa, so I couldn't board the plane in Havana, but was told that I had to go back to Santiago to fulfill the omitted payments for extending the visa that had expired in December. It would not be possible for me to go to Santiago, so I told them that I would have to do it in Havana and asked for directions, but the immigration officer did not tell me where to go. There was also another problem. I don't know Havana, I had been there only briefly, and the only person that I could go to was somewhere where I just might find if going back there, but I didn't know the name of the place. I knew it was not far from the Boyeros national airport, and that it was close to a place where there had been an air crash close to a railway crossing, and that on the way down to the place there was a graveyard, and that in a downward slope with a slight left turn, there was a huge almond tree, and there's where my friend's place is.

So I went out to the taxis and explained my situation and asked if there was anyone who could take me there. I had one more hint, one positive point of orientation, a huge pit where rainwater collects when there's much rainfall, just outside the national airport. I had to go far back in the queue of waiting taxis to find a guy that would dare to take that ride. We went to the national airport, I saw that pit, and I knew from there, which way to take. He was bothered, because the price on the taxameter was going up above CUC 15, but nevertheless, I told him to go on. It was tricky, because at night nothing looks the same as in daytime, but when I told him to take that way, he said: "that's to Calabazar", and I remembered that that was the name of the place. So we continued on that road, and when it began sloping down, I saw the almond tree. That lifted a stone from my heart, and they were very surprised to see me again there. But I had a place for the night, and my friend helped me to find the immigration police the day after. Iberia changed my ticket till the next day, and they returned €150 because I had left my seat the day before to someone on the waiting-list.

I was very polite and didn't make much noise with those officials, I just wanted to get out of there as promptly as possible.

My friend's son, who is deaf, had been robbed of his bicycle at about the same time as we arrived in Cuba. Not a regular cycle theft, but three guys attacked him, pushed him so he fell, and beat him with iron implements, breaking his jaw and damaging several teeth, and they left him there in the gutter inconcious, probably thinking he was dead. He had succeeded to get home, and when I saw him he had recovered rather well. Crime in Cuba is like that, and Calabazar is a place where you would not expect this kind of thing, it is a calm suburb, and people there know each other, everyone, but he didn't see who attacked him.

So Calabazar is also a place where you can get killed for a bicycle. The family was really worried that I had been there alone at nighttime. But I wasn't all alone, I had a few CUC, and I arrived in a taxi - Thank God, they said.

Eso sí es Cuba.

I'm sorry for your friend. A lady I know in Cardenas, her father hung himself after suffering with cancer for too long.

The water business would have tipped me over. How frustrating it must have been for you. Honestly, the patience you need there. It forever a battle for me.

Cocuyo, it is wonderful to see you back on this forum. I am so sorry to hear about the death of your friend's father. Indeed, it is hard to go back to Cuba and see that nothing changes and just gets worse, and if there are changes, they screw it up, ie the plastic tubing.

All that being said, it is great to see you on this forum again. There are only a few posters who write as eloquently as you do (one of them I know very well), and you always give a sensitive and interesting description of all that is going on with your family and friends in Cuba.

I hope all is well with you and your family. Thank you for sharing your story here, it is like a breath of fresh air to read your stories.

Next March I will get back to Cuba (was there in 2007) to attend the quince of my beautiful goddaughter. I would post her photo, but she is way too beautiful and it would not be good to have her photo out there on the internet. She is intelligent, sweet and lovely, and I look forward to being with her and the family next year in Santiago de Cuba.

All the best to you and your family, Cocuyo.

Oh my Yanet. Your goddaughter is already going to be 15??????

She was a baby when you started writing about her on this Board. Yikes. Time flies.

Glad to see you are always "lurking" around here.

Sr. Cocuyo. I understand your frustrations. I have absolutely no patience for these people. It is the attitude that bothers me the most. And, the lack of education as to how to treat people. There is no empathy there anymore.

Glad to hear someone else besides me, say it like it is.
Welcome Back Cocuyo, I for one will probably not return to Cuba in a few years, I found everytime I come back I spend 2 weeks recovering and dragging my ass around with deep depression , so I promised the wife I would not go until that old bastard dies and Cuba takes a different approach to their own people.
Fock Fidel.

Hello cocuyo well after reading what you had written i thought to myself how does this happen? Then again it depends where you go in Cuba that said things happen. I myself have been to mostly Horiente so this came as a surprise to me. I have never heard of such cases where I reside. Let me tell you for example I had to get one of my molars removed due to a bad root canal job done here in America(also note how in America they couldn't remove it because the anesthetic injections would not go through so they wanted to put me under general anesthesia). I was terrified the same thing would happen there. After the injection the Dentist who they called "Barbaro" (pero es verdad que es un barbaro jaja) clamped and pulled out the molar quick, delicate, and painless. This was not because I was a foreigner I had said I was from Santiago in order for them to let me actually get things done.
Point is they treated me very nice and just for a molar. I don't know but for some reason if I ask myself if I had a chance to go back would I? The answer is yes i would. If i was financially stable and able i would definitely go back. There are many places in Cuba where i have yet to take pictures and explore.

Claudia Nawe.

cocuyo, sadly I have not read this thread before. I can tell you that while living in Cuba, different place, different disease, a man who dedicated his life to the revolution died in my arms on December 23 of that year. I have never fully gotten over it...

I had not read this sad and touching story before either. I'm glad I did. Stories like this, both the happy and the sad, well written and full of emotion are the primary reason I am here on the GS. Thank you for reminding me of that, and thank you for sharing this.

Cocuyo, I am so happy that you are here again. I missed your posts so much. They always touch my and other GS members' soul.

The story of your friend's father is very sad and sadly, it reflects the unfair and inhuman approach of the system to the people that it cannot make any use of them.

Thanks to your effort that old man and his son were not left alone with their big problem. There were you and your wife who tried to relief his pain and do your best to help him. God bless you for taking care of people who are in need.

And please, stay with us, if it is possible.

Cocuyo, my friend, this is a wonderful post.

One of the first books that one of my Cuban friends read when she came over was Animal Farm by George Orwell. It made a tremendous impression on her. The horse Boxer reminded her of her father- dedicated, devoted, noble, taken advantage of, used up, discarded. He is still alive but if not for the daughter living in El Norte- his end would be like your friend's father. She had to leave her country to be able to help her family, and that is an indignity.