Plaza de la RevolucionReprinted From:
http://www.post.co.zm/nyemba3139su.html22 May, 2005ALONE in a country with a shockingly different culture and an alien language induced a strange fear in me and a feeling of being trapped in a world I did not understand and where I could not be understood.
By Nyemba M’membe in CubaI knew no Spanish! In fact I knew no other international language but English! Those familiar with me may ask: “Didn’t she learn French?” Well, the truth is I studied French for the sole purpose of passing my Cambridge ‘O’ Level exams; which I did ... but I really know nothing about the language.
Here in Cuba I have learnt the importance of language and how it should be taken very seriously be it local or international.
Language holds such immense power, even more so today in this rapidly changing ‘capital-driven world’ where no one really cares if you sink or float; and no one really knows what is actually going on as the mass media spins its wheels to the beat of power, power that disposes the majority of us.
It is for these reasons that I admire the fact that a number of Cubans can speak two or more foreign languages.
It is crucial for us to be well informed now more than ever before. Information on everything from everywhere is a necessity today. We cannot afford to be ignorant. It is imperative that we build a cultural trust of knowledge, we must build a people that think beyond possible ... a people that are able to question and read beyond the obvious, a people that are innovative within their means and a people that pray for all but also act towards improving themselves.
Let me call this next part of my writing “story time”. I attended a book fair three months ago that was going on for a week or so in Havana; there were thousands of books! You would not believe! And they were for everyone! From preschool children’s books to scientific and political books! What was even more striking was the vast number of people! It was almost like going to a smaller version of the Lusaka Agricultural Show! People went round buying books for hours, they brought picnics, bought ice cream and generally made buying books with titles like ... “The Cold War” ... fun. Everyone could buy a book because the prices were so reduced you could buy five to nine children’s books with US$1 or one or two good political or biology books.
I must say I have never had so much fun buying books!
It is no wonder a good number of Cubans I have met are so interesting to talk to; they seem to know about a wide variety of things, including music, poetry, literature, culture, politics, religion and so on. It is through some of these intelligent conversations that I have learnt quite a few things. “Functional illiterate!” someone once called me. At the time it felt insulting, now it feels like truth ... I am a functional illiterate, I have never stopped to think about what is happening around me or what happened before me or even seriously questioned why I learnt some things; all I know is what I have learned in my education so far and I must tell you that most of it, like French, vanished after my exams. Which leaves a young Zambian who really knows nothing about anything. And I am no doubt a reflection of many young Zambians. This is a worldwide problem I admit. However, given the problems Zambia faces today - AIDS, poverty, corruption, etc. - we cannot afford to sit back and be global about these problems. We have to find a way to fight ignorance and encourage young people to be thirsty for information about their community, country, continent and the world at large. This can only happen when the education system is heavily supported in all areas.
This brings me to the most impressive thing I discovered in Cuba: The
free education and healthcare for all.
Everyone should have a right to knowledge and life, which at present appears to belong to very few people in Zambia. A pattern of greed that is accepted by the world today means the sum total of the 15 richest individuals’ wealth is greater than the GNP of all sub-Saharan African countries!
It is not a question of fate in Cuba, education and health services are for all. I am amazed by the number of scholarships Cuba gives to young adults from other countries. This year 76 Jamaican students are graduating from various areas of study, which include dentistry, pharmacy, medicine, agronomy, engineering, nursing and sports. There are over 300 Jamaican students on this scholarship programme! Among this year’s graduates is a friend, Paul Andrew Pearson.
In his words: “I have enjoyed studying in Cuba, the education in Cuba is well balanced, they use practical teaching and the exams are student-friendly.”
A medical school was established in 1998 when a hurricane hit Latin America. There was a serious shortage of doctors and the governments’ ability to provide adequate healthcare eroded during the 1980s because of the civil conflicts’ costliness and guerrilla attacks that destroyed many previously existing facilities. Noticing this problem, the President of this Third World country, Fidel Castro, opened a free medical school for Latin Americans. The school has about 3,000 students now. It also has a number of people from Guinea and Nigeria.
Guillermo Arguerta of El Salvador, a fourth-year medical student at the university, almost wooed me into studying medicine in Cuba with his enthusiasm, love for humanity and sense of purpose. Cuba has helped make his dream come to life ...
“They know everything! They are an open book! It makes student life so much easier,” said Guillermo commenting on his lecturers.
He went on to tell me about the worst nuclear disaster in history that happened at Chernobyl in the Ukraine and how the Cuban people received these children as if they were their own.
Tarara Health Centre, east of Havana, is a hospital where about 15,000 children - mainly from the Ukraine but also from neighbouring Byelorussia and Russia - and approximately 3,000 adults have been given free medical treatment since the Chernobyl accident. Cuba is still giving free treatment to a large number of children from the Ukraine today.
One thing I love about Cubans is their willingness to share. Be it love, food, a seat on the bus, resources or education, they share. And most of them are proud of that. They have accepted a lot of foreign students as one of them. They could be selfish and ask: “What about us? Why should money be spent on foreigners when we have needs too?” Which is true, they do have a lot of needs, they are a Third World country after all. But not the Cubans, most of them have open arms for others in need.
Their musical talent is remarkable! A large number of people can play an instrument or sing! Old ladies and men, maths students, salesmen, doctors, primary school children and all; it just makes one marvel at how rounded their education is ... it is not just music, it is sports, it is seeing 5-year-olds being taken to bale class. But the music is what most caught my attention. After all I am African; “I have rhythm”. So I went to a number of musical concerts, most of them free. I went to a number of clubs, theatres, salsa parties. And in the process, I developed an interest in dancing to everything - Soca, a Caribbean dance, Afro-Cuban rhumba, reggeton, Cha! Cha! Cha! You name it and I’ll attempt to dance it! However, my favourite dance is Cuban salsa.
This got me thinking about how little we have in terms of social places for both young and older people in Zambia. What do we have? What traditional music do I dance to? Where do we go when we want to balance play and work? Is it even possible to have fun without guilt in Zambia’s state of poverty? Anyway, Cuba has a place for all, on occasional special days a fun event is prepared for kids and so a number of parents and kids meet, they have a famous ice cream social area called Coppelia. You find free live concerts on a regular basis as well as a good number of clubs and discos where students and young professionals may go once in a while when they have some money.
There are some disco “tembers” of course! These are more tranquil discos with the good old music that attracts more mature people. Of course there are a lot of tourist places that are much more expensive, and therefore most Cubans cannot afford to visit them. But nevertheless everyone has a chance to relax. Cuba has taught me one thing for sure; it is healthy to have some social fun! Mothers, grandfathers, children ... everyone can have a time and place to relax and socialise in Cuba at least once in a while.
The other thing that struck me was the fact that I saw no street children. I have seen very few people that appear homeless in Havana and they seem to be mentally ill. Of course there are some people who will come over to you once or twice to ask for money or clothes, but they are not like the beggars you find in Lusaka, far from it! These people are clearly not starving. I have not experienced the same awkwardness walking in the streets of Havana that I feel in the streets of Lusaka. The awkwardness of trying to make yourself blind and desensitised, that feeling which creeps in on you, a feeling of shame that washes over you at the traffic lights when hungry accusing eyes haunt you and desperate fingers brush the windows of the car or public bus. I have not felt that here. This fact has triggered a lot of questions within me. I realise Cuba has a different history, a different beginning and a different people, but they did have their hard times. The Cuban revolutionary government, which was constituted on January 1, 1959, inherited an economy characterized by extreme structural weakness and critical social conditions for the vast majority of people. Thirty three per cent of the workforce was unemployed or under-employed, the living conditions of peasants were anguishing, eight per cent of the big land owners owned more than 70 per cent of the land. A lot of that land was left idle, while about 200,000 peasants had no land to cultivate. There was one doctor to approximately 1,076 people, the rural areas had insufficient medical services. Over 600,000 children were not enrolled in school and about 10,000 teachers were unemployed. So my questions are, how did they get from down there to today? How did they survive the abrupt loss of financial and commercial relations that had been established for more than 30 years with former ex-socialist countries of Eastern Europe? And how have they survived the United States’ tightened blockade? How do they survive being the only country in the world that does not receive financing from any regional bank or international financial institution? How is it possible that they don’t have a million children on their streets today? Why do I feel like I am part of the people that have put a death sentence on a million children? What will become of them as adults? Being subjected to inhuman conditions, I fear for the future. There were already cases of rape a year or two ago in Lusaka, if we do not do anything innovative now we are all guilty of sentencing a million plus children to a life of hell, and as what goes around comes around. This crime will come back to haunt us.
As a young woman, I was particularly impressed by Women’s Day and Mother’s Day!
A Cuban band performing at Vedado Hotel in Havana in October last yearOn Women’s Day almost all the women got at least a flower or best wishes and a kiss on their cheeks from family, friends and at times just someone in the street. Mother’s Day was nothing I have experienced before. Two weeks before the day, decorations at shopping centres reminded you
“dia de las madres” was approaching and the TV stations talked about it, the newspapers wrote about it, they even had a column for jokes about mothers! President Fidel Castro made Mother’s Day cards affordable for all, at one peso for one. US$1 is 24 pesos, so everyone bought a card for their mother.
On Mother’s Day, families came together to have fun by having a big meal and some rum, and gifts, hugs and kisses where exchanged. Sons and daughters went to put flowers on their mother’s graves. I must say I wish my mom experienced this once a year ... it is a wonderful way to bring a family together and appreciate women, to thank our mothers.
One of my highlights was May 1, Workers Day.
The University of Havana Students came together and had a party in the University Park the night before Workers Day.
On the morning of May 1, at approximately 01:30 hours, red t-shirts saying:
“ESTA HUMANIDAD TIENE ANSIAS DE JUSTICIA-FIDEL (This humanity has desire for justice)” were handed out to different faculties for free. I got one from my faculty, naturally. A free snack and drink were also given.
At about 03:00 hours, different faculties were called out to line up and get ready to march to the
“Plaza de la Revolucion”. By 06:00hours we were part of one million plus people ready to listen to President Fidel Castro’s speech. I was part of the university students! I was part of the masses! Can you imagine? It is an experience I will never forget.
As you can see I am fascinated by Cuba! The people appear just a little bit more relaxed and quite content. This is reflected in their warm way of greeting - a kiss on the cheek and their open affection towards each other ... mothers kissing babies, couples flirting, old men and women holding hands, old men playing dominos in the streets, children playing baseball with sticks, guys openly throwing compliments at the young ladies.
This is not to say Cuba is perfect. It is not.
Cuba has a number of its own problems. We must remember it is a Third World country. One of Cuba’s income sources is tourism, which has presented its usual problems. The Cuban government has tried to control these problems by checking the identity cards of Cubans in the company of tourists regularly, inspecting
“casas particulares”, it is frustrating and favours no privacy but the truth is Cuba needs to earn foreign income from tourism. They do not have many resources and even if they did, the blockade makes it difficult for them to trade well with the international community. You will also meet
“jineteros” (people who have a thousand ways to suck your money without you realising it). These can be a problem if one is foreign. Also some young Cubans in Havana do not realise that the free education, health service, multi-racial freedom and the reserved culture they enjoy are all a direct result of the revolution. However, do note that these problems are mostly in Havana, the capital city - the rest of Cuba is quite different.
Subsequently, like all places, everything is not perfect, you find bad people and good people, corrupt and honest - that is just the reality of life. The system does not allow people in general to advance in terms of acquiring material things and wealth, but it does allow them to advance intellectually. Conversely some people somehow get wealthier than others, except this inequality is nothing near what Zambia is facing today, or the rest of the world for that matter. Yes, there is a shortage of houses so families usually live together; this has brought about friction within families, but also a culture of family closeness. A number of the houses are not in the best of conditions and so you have to be very careful walking in Old Havana because a balcony may fall on you, as the buildings are a couple of hundreds of years old and therefore falling apart.
They do not have a multiparty political system. As a result, some people are unhappy, some feel they need more, some feel they cannot freely express themselves, some feel there are a lot of rules and regulations to be followed, some want to go abroad. But, in all honesty, most of them understand their dilemma and love their country.
Through the eyes of my friends from the developed world, Cuba is suffering; they see potholes, they see un-renovated buildings, some unfashionable clothes and wonder how people can live like that, they see not many shops, blackouts, a lack of tap water at times,
jineteros (pronounced “
hineteros”), queues for everything. They see people living in houses under construction and a number of symbols of a Third World country.
However, the image in my eyes is different: it is education, a health system for all, no hungry children. I see grandparents enjoying old age instead of starting again to look after orphaned grandchildren. I do not see funerals everyday. I see a multicultural society, no racial segregation, no debt! People with life! Music! And joy. Almost everyone having access to a phone, some water, gas for cooking, electricity for most of Cuba. Cuba is not wrapped up in First World glamour or luxuries, but when I think of Cuba I think hope.
Yes, I applaud the Cubans, for their courage, self-sacrifice, for standing up for the good of humanity single-handedly, for discouraging globalisation with its mono-culturalism, and their willingness to share.
I think there are some things we can learn from Cuba: discipline, organisation, selflessness and setting goals to achieve the most important things: nutrition, health services and education.
I am not talking politics, or even the words that go with it. Quite frankly, I know nothing about that! But even an ignorant person like me can see that our country is disorganised, its priorities are displaced! We spend our time verbally fighting over positions in government and titles. How low will we sink before the crew and captain realise we are sinking? Looking at Zambia from the outside I can only say it is a “sick cruel joke”, it is pathetic! It is an insult to the people that fought colonialism! If the developed world treats us like kids I cannot blame them! We act like kids ... wasting time and misguiding others into irrelevant things! Mismanaging our funds! Stealing from ourselves! How can anyone take us seriously? Look at what our education system is like! It is a joke! The condition of schools, the leakages of exams etc. It is embarrassing! Look at our police force, health system, council. Is there anything we can show? Some sad people point at Manda Hill and Arcades! I have no choice but to entertain this nonsense; we have about two million people in Lusaka, have you ever wondered how those two places manage to support this population? Ever wonder why the people you see there are always familiar? Those places are just for a very small group of people who can afford to go there, that is the only reason you do not see huge queues to go into restaurants, Game Stores, the cinema or clothes shops!
We cannot point fingers outside even if our reasons may possess some truth, because quite frankly a number of those fingers point right back at us! I do not group myself under headings of political ideologies, as I said I know nothing of that. I am merely painting a picture of part of my experiences and expressing my thoughts.
From:
http://www.post.co.zm/nyemba3139su.html
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