New Housing Construction in Isla de la Juventud

Postcard from a recent visit by NS Cuba member and CUPW retiree Ruth Larson:

My first visit to the Isla de la Juventud was in 1996 and I have gone there many times since. It is Cuba’s largest island and is 2200 square kilometres. The capital is Nueva Gerona where marble hills can be easily spotted. This island has no sugar cane but is known for citrus fruits and marble. The locals sigh when they hear of Isla de la Juventud, “Ahh, La Isla es muy bonita”.

“La Isla” is the least populated region of Cuba. Gerona has a population of about 14,000 and La Fe about 9000, and people are scattered amongst the small farms and towns. Scuba diving along the ‘Pirate Coast’, Indian cave paintings at Punta del Este, Presidio Modelo built under Batista, capable of holding 6000 prisoners and where Fidel was once imprisoned; the black beach and unspoiled coral keys are some of the highlights of this island.

Getting there is for the adventurous! Cubana flies an Anatov aircraft from Havana to Nueva Gerona a few times a day; it is a 30 minute flight. As well, there is a hydrofoil that takes about two hours and leaves from a port near Havana.

Casa Particulares are a good option and food is good; as well, there are a few small hotels nearby.

Horse and cart and bicycle taxis are still important modes of transportation.

Hurricanes have caused devastation to homes and crops over the years. On my last visit two years ago, I saw the devastation caused by the most recent hurricane with roofs destroyed, crops uprooted, the local post office destroyed and the roof of the stadium completely gone. We watched a baseball game, shaded by umbrellas from the hot 30 degree sun! The latest visit in 2011 allowed me to see the determination of the Cubans on La Isla with the construction of new homes in Sierra Caballo, near Gerona, built with aid from Venezeula (these are typical models built by the state in Venezuela).  In Gerona there were other homes being constructed.

People on the Isla are easy going and friendly. I have friends whom I met on my first visit in 1996. I have been to the Isla about 25 times over the years, including once on May Day; La Isla is nearly always on my list of “things to do in Cuba”.

Enjoy the photos!

Ruth Larson

New Housing Construction: Venezuelan Aid

Canadian-Cuban artists exchange art and culture

Three Cubans recently spent six weeks in Nova Scotia teaching and learning about Nova Scotia art and culture.  Although the two Cuban artists spoke little English, through a translator Heriberto Acanda Ramos said, "Culture has no language."

Mr. Acanda was accompanied by fellow artist Raúl Jesús Garcia Hernández and cultural centre manager Mayda Hernández Morejón. The group brought 20 pieces of art from their home in Pinar del Rio. The pieces were on display at the Lunenburg Art Gallery and at Pier 21 in Halifax.

The Nova Scotia and the Pinar del Rio cultural exchange began in 2003 when Lunenburg County artist Ruth Wilton hosted a Cuban supervisor through the Canada World Youth Project. After developing a friendship, Ms Wilton and her husband visited Cuba in 2004. During their stay, they met with Ms Hernández Morejón and the idea for the art and culture exchange resulted.

Read more at South Shore Now

Farmers Tour of Cuba!

Canada-Cuba Farmer to Farmer Project

Winter 2011 Farmer Exchange

BOOKING DEADLINE NOVEMBER 15th

Three days of sun and luxury on Cuba's beautiful Varadero Beach / Eight days of travel through Cuba's countryside visiting large cooperative farms / Three days in Old Havana

Winter 2010-2011 Brochure (PDF)

Farmers: this tour is deductable as a business expense!

The Pinar del Río / Nova Scotia Cultural Exchange

in partnership with

Pier 21 Canada’s Immigration Museum

invites you to attend the opening of

“Cuban Connections” 

A celebration of Cuban Culture and Art in 2 Parts.

October 6, to Nov 14, 2010.

Ralph and Rose Chiodo Harbourside Gallery

Details available on the website of
the Nova Scotia-Cuba
Artists' Collective

www.cubaNSart.com 

Reverend Lucius Walker, Found of Pastors for Peace, Passes Away

The Rev. Lucius Walker, one of the leading figures in the fight for normalized relations with Cuba, is dead.

Walker, 80, of Demarest, N.J., led the Pastors for Peace caravans to Cuba. He was a longtime civil rights activist and founding director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, or IFCO. An IFCO announcement said:

It is with immeasurable sadness that we write to let you know of the passing of our beloved, heroic, prophetic leader the Rev. Lucius Walker Jr. this morning. We will write with more information as soon as arrangements are made. Please keep his family and his IFCO family in your prayers.

Cuban Medical Teams in Haiti: Update

Six Months after the Earthquake: Time to Build Public Health Care in Haiti

July 29, 2010--In the six months since the deadly earthquake struck Haiti, MEDICC and its partners have launched multiple initiatives to support long-term health care provided by hundreds of doctors on the frontlines in clinics and hospitals across the country. These are young graduates from Haiti and the region trained at Havana’s Latin American Medical School, joining over 350 Cuban doctors and other health professionals to dramatically increase access to health care for all Haitians by building a system of public health services.

Full Story at MEDICC.org

A key reference on Cuban doctors abroad programmes

Cuba is rarely assessed objectively by external critics, typically being viewed through leftover Cold War filters or dismissed as an anachronism for its continuing effort to make socialism work. This book provides an excellent survey and analysis of Cuba's deeds in the international arena of health care, disaster relief and South-South cooperation. Kirk and Erisman effectively answer those critics who see Cuba's international medical programme as having foundations in the economic crisis of the 1990s (i.e., selling medical services to keep the money flowing) and instead provide a comprehensive historical accounting of Cuba's assistance to the developing world. 

The case is effectively made that Cuba's global health initiatives arise from a commitment to solidarity rather than any profit motive. Of particular interest is the revelation that in situations where Cuban military or technical support has been requested (Algeria, Angola, Congo, etc.), the Cubans ensured that medical and educational staff were significant components of any agreement. One looks forward to a followup study on Cuba's activities in Haiti, as this book was published before the January, 2010 earthquake. Cuban assistance to Haiti pre-dates the disaster by a decade, and is a prime example of the enduring benefits Cuban assistance provides: Cuba's medical teams were on the ground when the quake struck, were and continue to be the largest single medical team working on the island. This is development in practice, rather than empty words.


Important note: The authors of this book are generously donating all profits to the MEDICC programme that supports the Cuban medical effort in Haiti.

Spoken Word Performance by El Jones: MONCADA

MONCADA




By El Jones, Halifax, Canada, July 23, 2010



I am the weapon fired in the Barracks at Moncada

I am the first blow struck for liberty in the resistance

I am the raised fist and the heroism of the martyr

I am not a rifle, shotgun or pistol. My ammunition is

The ideal of equality sown in the minds of the parking lot attendants

Delivery boys, chauffeurs and street vendors

The 25 rebels raised without fathers

The legacy of oppression felt in every ghetto

From Rio de Janeiro to Harlem

I am the bullet in the chamber loaded in Santiago

In the speeches of Eduardo Chibas

And broadcast in the barrios on the people?s free radio

I am Viva La Cuba Libre in embryo

Spoken in Spanish and Creole and

Stoked in poverty and broken homes

Until it was shown in growing whispers among the youth

On the streets and in universities



I am the truth and the grassroots marching in the boots

From day labourers to Che Guevara

I am the ancestral memory of the sugar cane fields

The machete passed from the hands of Toussaints warriors in Haiti

To the Cuban sugar workers labouring in the heat

I am snatching victory out of the jaws defeat

I am the speeches written from the prison cell

And the spit in the eye of the torturer

I am Fidel?s courtroom testimony

When I descend I strike a blow for solidarity

I am the revolution waged since 1492

Begun in the resistance of indigenous Taino and Arawak

And sustained in their descendents

Labouring in tobacco plantations



I am embargo and self-sustaining

I am guerilla tactics learned on the 26th of July

I am the absolution of history

I am the ongoing battle for independence from

The American attacks from 1906 to Guantanamo occupation

My echo has been felt from Palestine to Iraq

In every national struggle for liberation

I am the refusal to bow to imperialism

I am the destruction of class division

I am the 300 million of the people?s money Batista carried into exile

I raise fists against corruption I march miles

For the people?s rights I am the general strikes

I am the shot fired across the color line

For the mulattos and Afro-Cubanos

The shades not light enough to work in hotel cabanas

I am the legacy of slavery and African birthright

Whose beat runs through the salsa and mambo

I am the spirit of Baba Shango

I put the heat in the cold war

I am street festivals and the resistance of the poor

I am the redistribution of land and local ownership

I am nationalization of industry, collective agriculture and public education

I am the constitution that says the people own the nation

I am the belief that rice and peas served to all people

Tastes sweeter than steak served to the elite

The shots I fire are completed in Cuban doctors

Saving earthquake victim and free health care

Extended across the Caribbean



I am brown and black people?s freedom

I am the troops sent to Angola to fight South African apartheid

I am asylum offered to Asata Shakur and political exiles

The blows I strike have been felt from Bolivia to Venezuala

I am the coca farmers and the baseball players

And the peasants fighting oil corporations in the Amazon basin

I am the battle for land repatriation and slave reparations

The Caribbean workers in the free trade zones sewing sweatshop labels

I am the union organizers on Dominican sugar Bateys

The squatters rights and transnationalization of indigenous populations

The indigenous confederations fighting from Brazil to Peru

I am the Cuban revolution

And I will survive beyond Castro

Because I am the shot fired in the name of equality by heroes and martyrs

I am Moncado, I am Havana,

I am the ideal that thrives in the minds of the people

I am liberation.

MONCADA DAY COMMEMORATION - VICTORIA PARK, HALIFAX

Friday, July 23rd from 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Victoria Park (Spring Garden and South Park), Halifax

July 26, 2010 will mark the 57th anniversary of the act that is annually celebrated all over Cubaas the beginning of the movement and struggle that paved the way for the Cuban Revolution.  On that day 57 years ago, Cuba's rebels rose up against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.  Although that first battle was lost, the Revolution ultimately prevailed.

On July 23, we gather to remember and honour those that were lost on that day, and to celebrate Cuba's independence.  There will be performances from noted Nova Scotian jazz artist Jeff Goodspeed (director of famous youth music group Los Primos), El Jones (acclaimed spoken word artist), and more!

This is a free event organized by the Nova Scotia Cuba Association.