Steven’s Cuba Blog

Faces of Cuba - footage and interviews from The Island

I’ve been doing some video work at home for an unrelated project, and came across some footage that I shot just over a year ago in Cuba. I wanted to use it as the beginning of a documentary about Cuba, a sort of question and answer session with everyday Cubans I’d met. It was an effort to document Cuba from the perspective of the people who live there.

As these things tend to do, it got buried behind other projects and work that I later focused on. Instead of letting the video collect dust, though, I’ve decided to put it all up here. The three posts below contain most of the footage, lightly edited.

The questions were very straightforward and apolitical - jobs, activities, plans. Dreams. The footage is mostly shot while traveling or walking around a city.

Lastly - and most importantly - I’ve decided to release all of the footage into the public domain. You can take the video, remix it, edit it, use it for your own purposes, etc. It belongs to the Public Domain. It would be cool if you could drop me an email or a comment if you do decide to use it for your own work, though - just to satisfy my curiosity.

You can download the entire clip (ignore most of the captions; they’re no longer valid) here at the Internet Archive.

GSM Cellphone roaming in Cuba finally working

I was able to use my cell phone - albeit with some difficulty, and not all the time - in Cuba last week.

Apparently there is a roaming agreement in effect now with Rogers and Fido, two major Canadian GSM operators. When I landed in Havana I saw huge billboards announcing the availability of GSM 900 service, with a photo of Vinales country in the background… I switched on my phone, and still couldn’t pick up a signal, outside Jose Marti airport a few kilometers from Havana.

However, after a few days, someone told me to set my phone’s network name to “manual” - something I never have to do when roaming elsewhere - and use CUBACEL as the access name (I have a Nokia 7610 - intructions may differ on your phone). Once I did that, I was more or less able to use my phone and send text messages - I obviously didn’t try web browsing / emailing, and I didn’t receive calls. The connection was surprisingly clear, as clear as it was from, say, Mexico the week before.

Cuba is listed as a “Zone 5″ roaming partner, meaning that incoming and back-to-Canada calls run at $4.00 a minute, local calls are $2.50 a minute, and international calls are $5.00 a minute. Not exactly cheap, but there it is.

Fido customers can check for more information on rates and details on the Fido international roaming page.

I should note that before I left, I reset my phone to “automatic” for the network name, and it picked up CUBACEL as well as two (!) more network names, one of which was CU C_COM (same exact network, I’m told) and another elaborate one with letters and digits… Maybe it was just a hiccup that it didn’t connect right away when I first landed; the infrastructure is young and still being developed evidently.

You can also rent phones and cards from Cubacel / ETECSA, though I can’t report on that. You can get more information on Cubacel’s homepage.

Incidentally, I also saw / met many more Cubans with cell phones this time around than I did last year. The service is obviously still out of reach for most Cubans (need to get a phone, pay to “activate” the line, then pay the usage costs), but the fact that it’s getting more widespread is a small step in the right direction.

Now, about that cheap broadband internet access…

Google lists Cuban newspapers in its news search results.

I was searching for some information on the Non-Aligned Movement summit (holy crap, they need a new website!), and was surprised to find that the only link to “today’s top stories” for the search term was to Granma Internacional, one of the main Cuban newspapers.

Neat.

Call to Cuban bloggers, writers and students

I’ve started building an arts and culture web aggregator specifically related to Cuban arts, culture and social life. We’re looking for a few good women and men living in Cuba to write posts about cultural events, parties, concerts, expositions and other happenings in and around all of Cuba.

You’d be expected to write, on average, one article per week - it could be anything from a paragraph mentioning some upcoming concert in a town near you, to a lengthy review of some cultural event you attended. It is important to note that this site will remain completely non-political and non-commercial. There will be no advertising or promotion on the site, and it is funded independently.

Even if you don’t know the first thing about writing, don’t worry - your entries don’t need to be perfect, and they will be corrected for grammar and spelling. You can post in english or spanish; we will take care of translating for you. Don’t have access to the web, but have an email address? No worries - we’re going to be set up to that you can post your entries via email as well.

We’ve already got a surprising number of Cuban writers and bloggers on board, but we’d like to reach more people, especially in the smaller cities across Cuba. This is a volunteer position at first, though we are working out the idea of eventually contracting the most proficient and prolific writers, and supplying media equipment such as digital cameras, computers, and audio equipment.

If you or anyone you know might be interested, please email me at steven [at] ahoracuba.com.

Will Hydro-Québec help solve Cuba’s energy woes?

Over the holidays, I had the opportunity to have dinner with a family friend who used to occupy a rather senior position at Hydro-Québec, one of the world’s premier authorities on hydro-electric power generation and transmission.

After a while, the conversation turned to Cuba (as it does so often with me…), and I was surprised to find out that there were, in fact, high-level discussions going on in the late 80s to build a large network of hydro-electric dams in Cuba. Apparently, these talks have recently been restarted.

Today, nearly all of the nation’s electricity is generated by nine plants, which are running on either oil or gas power. Largely based on ex-USSR technologies, these plants can be costly are difficult to repair as the parts needed are no longer manufactured and must be custom-ordered. The increasing number of blackouts in 2004 and early 2005 testifies to the problem, although recent measures taken by the Cuban state have helped rectify the situation somewhat. Regardless of its uptime, electricity reaches everywhere in Cuba; for better or worse. You find power lines in the most remote locations, and even the tiniest of villages has lights and television.

Despite the fact that Cuba does not have very large rivers, four sites were identified as being favorable to damming; it was asserted that on hydro-electricity alone, Cuba could go a long way towards power self-sufficiency.

The initial project never went through not because of economic or political concerns, but environmental ones. During and after the difficult “periodo especial” which Cuba went through following the fall of the Soviet Union, environmental protection became a huge priority for the state, since manufacturers and producers “could no longer ignore the possibility of a future with very limited resources.”

Because of necessity, conservation, self-sustenance and environmentalism became the keywords of the day. Organic inner-city gardens began sprouting up; 90% (!) of Havana’s fresh produce is from local farms and gardens. The bicycle made a comeback in force - to this day, I can personally attest to the fact that Cuba in general, and Havana specifically, is one of the greatest cities to cycle in. Eco-tourism is taking off all over Cuba, with health spas and uber-specialized health clinics all over the island.

Given the growing sense of eco-responsibility at the time, it didn’t make sense to flood hundreds of square kilometers of land - destroying countless species of flora and fauna that exist only in Cuba - and invest billions in hydro-electricity while nuclear energy was also being invested in (The two nuclear reactors are over 50% complete but are now mothballed).

Nuclear Central, Jurugua, Cuba

However, recent advances in hydro-electric manufacturing and production have allowed damming with minimal effect to the surrounding environment; our growing understanding of ecology also allows gives us more flexibility in gently displacing species - and, soon, entire ecosystems - without destroying them. Consequently, there is fresh interest in large-scale hydro-electric development in Cuba.

Solar, wind and other renewable resources are also high on the list of Cuban researchers and power producers. Regardless of the economic, political and social causes behind it, the truth is that Cuba is now in a very interesting position with regards to the use of renewable energy. The current economic climate leaves Cuba little choice but to slowly consider abandoning fossil fuels, and move on to become one of the first countries in the world to adopt environmentally-friendly, renewable power.

Google Earth has high definition satellite imagery of Havana

Google Earth, the famous mapping and geo-locating application from Google, now has some high-definition satellite photos of Havana. Unfortunately, the rest of the cities in Cuba are still in low-def, but they should be soon to follow. Also missing are the street names; hopefully they’ll be included soon.

The Capitolio and Prado.

The Plaza de la Revolucion.

Havana Flyover.

It’s funny how the colors seem so different from eye level than they do from a bird’s eye view. The familiar reds and whites of Havana buildings and the lush greens of the trees and grass seem so much more vibrant from the ground.

Also, looking at it in Google Earth reminds me how huge of a city Havana really is. It’s big and sprawling, yet so much of it is easily accessible by foot, like Paris or Budapest.