June 16, 2009

Well fed turns out to be an exaggeration. At night, in the warm, damp air, I listen to the nurses talking about how they can't do birthday parties for their kids, how one mother made macaroni salad for her son, and then he invited people over and they ate up a whole bowl full-- food for several days. Our new friends Myrtha and Alexis meet us in Old Havana and after some persuasion, agree to let us take them out for lunch at a reasonably priced place with delicious food-- except that what's reasonable in CUCs, the “convertible” currency that has some relationship to foreign exchange and hard currency, turns out to be more than a month's salary in Moneda Nacional, the internal currency of Cuba.. My physical therapist makes about $20 a month in CUCs. A can of cooking oil costs $2.15. An electric fan is $35. The “canasta,” a minimum monthly amount of food guaranteed to every Cuban, doesn't even begin to cover a month's worth of eating, so everyone contrives, and there isn't enough protein in most people's diets. The huge disparity between CUC prices and Moneda Nacional salaries is intimately related to the US blockade. I've gotten a variety of explanations about exactly how it all works, and look forward to meeting my friend Karen's neighbor who is an economist. It least part of it an attempt by the Cuban government to manage the distorted trade relations created by imperial bullying, and get get hold of hard currency. Then there's the immense extra cost importing things the long way around, since any country shipping to the US can't ship to Cuba without penalties. Adding three stops can triple the price.

Still, things are easier than in that terrible time following the break up of the Soviet Union called the Special Period--- Jorge, my PT, says his high school girlfriend's grouchy, counter-revolutionary father would always ask him-- what's so special about it? Jorge was in his last year at a very rigorous science and technology high school when the Special Period started. He says it was like going to sleep with everything and waking up with nothing. A soda and a hamburger bun for lunch. Never enough to eat, and a devastating power shortage, with so many rolling blackouts people talked about “alumbrones”-- the moments when the lights were on, instead of the “apagones.” There was a joke that from the air, Cuba looked like a Christmas tree-- when the lights when off in one place, they went on in another. Jorge says you could hear the cries of protest down one street and rejoicing on another as the power came and went. Whole neighborhoods went out to sit along the Malecon, Havana's 8 km walkway by the ocean, to sit and talk somewhere other than their hot and dark houses. “So when did the not so special period begin? I ask. '97 or '98, he says. So things got better then? Jorge laughs, no, no, they STARTED to get better. Food became more available as people were given unused lots to farm, and the lights went on for longer and longer.

Arsenio, the revolutionary philosopher who cares for the pool, is fierce on the subject. “Someday history will know everything the Cuban people did to just stay alive, to feed ourselves and stay free.” His rage about the blockade is sharp and clear. Inhuman, criminal, savage, cruel—what possible reason could there be to do such a thing to a whole people? I say it's vengeance for your independence and the dangerous hope you represent. He says, but they didn't do this to Viet Nam, or China, or Korea. Arsenio is eloquent on several dozen subjects at a time, passionate about the revolution which he joined as an eleven year old literacy teacher in 1961. He says when I get rid of all this crap (waving a hand at my wheelchair) we're going to go run around, and by the way I'm looking “mamey, “ a lush tropical fruit. He has the most beautiful, coppery biceps I've ever seen.

Two days ago we bought a fan. Therese, the wealthy Haitian whose beloved son got a brain tumor while in college, and has travelled the world seeking help for him, has gotten one from a friend and set it up in the dining room. But the one we borrowed from the kitchen so we could play dominoes gives off a smell of burnt rubber after five minutes of use, and the nurses and pantristas, the women who heat up and serve the food brought from the main kitchens, are visibly wilting. By day our new fan lives in the kitchen, and by night we do our part for the current energy conservation campaign by using it instead of putting on two air conditioners in order to sleep. It is really, really, really hot. Thick, humid air that sticks to the skin. I can sit absolutely still and watch sweat drip from my body until my clothes are drenched. Yes, somehow I don't mind. I have adapted better than I could have imagined.

I've lost five pounds since I got here, a combination of all that sweating, many hours a day of working out and a week of nothing but yogurt and pumpkin for breakfast. (Jorge and one of the other PTs laugh and say—it sounds like Special Period food!) Now it's supplemented by Cuban sweet potato, malanga and plantain which we bought while waiting for the official approval my diet change, only to find that Chinita, the pantrista, had also picked some up. But the best part is the garlic we got on Sunday at the public market. Now either Leah or Chinita fries up the boiled starches of the day with a good handful of chopped garlic and we share it with our Venezuelan friends whose money has long since run out. Even the pumpkin tastes delicious.

Today was the second day of electrical and magnetic treatments, and the result has been amazing. My pain levels have dropped dramatically, and I'm able to walk much farther. The exercises that made my feet go icy and aching Monday morning have become easy, and I can feel the fibers of my muscles growing strong. Jorge watches closely and announces that tomorrow we'll be adding more weights to every exercise. We have some catching up to do, since the first week we worked well below the normal level. I'm lifting 33 lbs with my stroke foot, and forty-something with the uninjured one. The goal is to push 20% above my own body weight. I ask when I'll get to use the walking machine. He say, when I can walk all the way around the track several times. Not if---when. Tomorrow we'll begin exercises to strengthen my back and ankles..

Today I also had laser acupuncture and learned a new, deliciously simple meditation technique. Carlos Manuel says I need to realign myself with natural cycles, rise early, work by day, go to sleep at night. Next week he'll inspect my supplements and hopefully thin them way down. And in between all the other healing activities, I had an ultrasound of my shoulder, done by a doctor, who showed me exactly what he was seeing—a chunk of missing cartilage where I repeatedly landed, hand, during seizures. But no inflammation, so we can start working my shoulder as well. Good, says Jenny, the “defectologa.” I know he said ice, but what do you think about using heat? I'm all for it,.in spite of the external temperatures. The heat lamps are marvelous, even if they're literally held together with silly putty.

I spend much of my time in defectology stringing beads, putting nuts on bolts, pegs in holes, and colored tiles into patterns I must memorize. Every day, right about the time my afternoon session starts, a handful of children in maroon and white school uniforms spill through the walkways and into the rooms where their parents work. They go to school two blocks away and come here when it lets out.. They climb on the equipment, ask patients about their rehab, clamber onto their parents' laps and generally make themselves comfortable. A five year old asks me how old I am. I tell her I'm 55. Her eyes widen. “You must be very long!” Yes, I tell her solemnly. I am. She peers under the table to check out my legs. Later she shows up in the gym and climbs onto a mysterious piece of equipment with a padded bolster she can swing on. Jorge patiently adjusts it to her height so she can play in safety, and then gives me my next instructions: OK, now do three sets of twelve with the right leg, and I press my calf on the padded metal, take a deep breath and push.