HOLY WATER BOTTLES, GRASSHOPPERS AND DRUMS -3



Car trouble



              On Thursday morning we went to the car park and got in the car.  Kieran fired the ignition; it gave one graveyard cough and died.      We found a man, a jump lead and a willing motorist… nothing.   We found better jump-leads, the manager of the hotel, a better car… nothing.    One of the hotel staff fiddled under the hood and… yieeeeeeeha… the car started.       But Kieran was nervous about it.   We were going to Linda and, if we got stuck out there, we’d be badly stuck.   The S.M.A. Fathers came up trumps and lent us another car and off we set to Linda.

   

            The road to Linda is paved… for about 100 metres, after that, it’s orange-red mud.   March is rainy season so the mud is rutted and potholed and churned and you have no way of knowing how deep the ruts and the potholes are because they’re filled with water.    You cannot drive on the “correct” side of the road because you have to slow to 10k per hour and suss out the high ground.   Alex sat in front suggesting routes while Kieran wrestled the steering.   Martin and I bumped about in the back. 

 We arrived at the Catholic Church in Linda.  

The mobile unit was there already and people had gathered for treatment.    At least there weren’t the huge numbers we had had to deal with the previous day.    We set up the audiometers, hearing aids and mould-making equipment.   Inside the church, sound bounced about so much that if someone were more than an arm’s length away you couldn’t catch what they were saying.   Maybe when it’s full the people absorb the reverberations but, it wasn’t ideal for hearing tests. 
Ready for action.

            Then, just over the church grounds wall we heard a band blaring through loudspeakers.   It was the Marie Stopes Sexual Health Clinic.   The Marie Stopes Foundation is wealthy so it can afford to hire a band and a loudspeaker system powerful enough to let everyone in the village know where they were.   They had people in yellow t-shirts handing out leaflets and directing the locals to the clinic.   The incidence of HIV and AIDS in Zambia is very high so, on the one hand, we were pleased that the Foundation was doing something to educate and help, on the other, the noise wasn’t making our lives any easier.   And, I swear, we weren’t a bit jealous of their superior spending power!


The Marie Stopes  Fiesta



            We set up on the church seats and, once again, I was faced with the problem of how to condition the small children for a hearing test.   This time however, there was a solution.   It was International Women’s Day and there had been a celebratory Mass that morning which finished just before we arrived.    Below the altar stood an electric guitar and a drum-kit.   I liberated one of the smaller drums from its stand.   It was surprisingly heavy.   But what the heck, it did the job and I was able to test several small children successfully.    


Note drum at the back



me, pattison and  musical instruments

We had fewer patients than we had anticipated, probably because they were all dancing, over at the Marie Stopes shindig.   Just as we were thinking of packing up, a young woman dashed in.   Her ear was hurting.   She had decided to clean it out with a match stick but the match had broken and the red, business end was stuck deep in her ear canal.   Kieran removed it and she promised that she would never stick anything smaller than her elbow in her ear ever again.

Kieran at work

We braved the unpaved road once more and we even got back to our hotel in time to have a quick swim in the pool.    It helped unwrinkle the kinks we’d acquired bumping along on the Linda road.   And no, we did not swim with the crocodiles, they were happily basking in the decorative pool with the papyrus and the weaver birds next to the bar.   We even had time to go to the bar for a drink and watch them bask.
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Going home



HOLY WATER BOTTLES GRASSHOPPERS AND DRUMS - 2

ENT ZAMBIA -  WEDNESDAY.

            On Wednesday we went to Mazabuka, a two hour drive from Lusaka.   The plan was to get there as early as possible so that we would be finished in time to make the return journey in daylight.    While we were still  forty kilometres away I got a text.   It was from Sister Mariana, a Zambian nun whom I’d met here in Ireland. 

“Many people are here,” read the text, "they are waiting anxiously for you to arrive.”

            We arrived in Mazabuka and went to Nchete House, a community centre run by the Sisters of Mercy.   People were streaming towards the waiting area.    We looked in.   Holy Guacamole!    People of all ages were crammed into the waiting room and more were arriving.  Time to get cracking.  



Kieran in the waiting room looking daunted.













Alex, Martin and I set up in a circular thatched hut in the grounds.    Part of the space was a waiting area and the rest a closed off room.   

Audiology Mazabuka

Three audiologists working in one room is not ideal but, it was the best we could do.   Mutanta, our interpreter, was continuously on call so there were non-stop interruptions.  Outside, the waiting patients all talked at the top of their voices and, every so often, we had to go out and hush them. Besides it was very dark inside the room, so we were all frowning through the gloom at our audiometers.  



Peerubgthrough the gloom.



Outside there was chaos.   The Sisters had taken names and given everyone a number as they arrived but, when we arrived, Kieran asked for the patients to be divided in to three groups. Ear, Nose and Throat.   This meant that people were no longer being seen in the order in which they’d arrived.   And nobody likes that.  Mutanda and Alex had to keep going out and explaining.

 

 

Pattison at work



At one point in the afternoon there was uproar outside and I went to ask the people to quieten down.   I opened to the door to find Pattison. Our ear-mould technician cowering outside.   Pattison is young and slightly built and his outsized white lab coat made him look even slighter.   He held a chart in front of him like a shield and his eyes were wide and darting.   In front of him stood three, large, middle-aged women, feet planted apart, hands on hips, heads wagging, angrily giving out the pay.   I reckoned they were not happy with having to wait but   I decided, coward that I am, to withdrew discreetly and suffer the noise.

I don’t even know how many patients we saw that day because it was heads down test one and then the next. Next, next.   There must have been about 150 altogether.     Two patients stood out one was a little girl who had suffered malaria and been treated with quinine.    As a result her hearing was severely damage.   Sadly, I couldn’t test her properly partly because of the conditions and partly because I did not have a drum.   A drum is very useful for conditioning small children for a hearing test because, no matter how bad their hearing loss they get the vibrations of a drum.   I had the sense that she might have some useful hearing but she clearly did not know what I wanted her to do so I cannot be sure.    Her little face has been haunting me ever since.

Another patient was Beatrice, a woman in her thirties, wearing a nurse’s uniform.   I asked her if she spoke English and, although she appeared to hear me ,she folded over, collapsed in to giggles, twisted about in her chair and looked away.    It was such an odd response that I wondered if she had difficulties other than her hearing.   Was she mentally ill?   Did she have a learning disability?    As I was furiously thinking how I should proceed another woman in a similar uniform came in and sat beside her.

“I speak English.”  She said.  

Then she dropped her voice and leaned confidentially over the table.

 “And I am very familiar with her “condition”.”

Good lord. What “condition”?

            I explained the test to the companion.   She passed on the information in Tonga to Beatrice.    Very soon her “condition” became clear.   She had a very severe hearing loss.   Once I realised this, I spoke directly into her ear.  She seemed delighted with this and it turned out that she spoke excellent English.   Her initial response was just embarrassment.    As soon as she got her new hearing-aids she was delighted with life.

            Mazabuka was also the place where Kieran removed wax from a man’s ear which had a grasshopper embedded in it!   Yuck…. But kind of interesting too!   He also declared that he’d seen more pus in Mazabuka than he’d seen in his whole life.   Martin suggested we call him Pus in Boots.    At the time it seemed hilarious!

 

Grasshopper in ear-wax... mmm...delicious!







            We had hoped to leave Mazabuka in time to get back to Lusaka in daylight but that didn’t happen.   In Africa the sun doesn’t bother lingering about delivering twilight.   It plops down behind the horizon without a with-your –leave or by-your-leave.  

Sun in the process of plopping.

Alex had to sit up in front and warn Kieran of potholes.   She also had to watch for pedestrians because it’s very difficult to spot Africans in the dark.   Then there were the cars that whiz past us on the inside and the cars driving at speed with no lights.   I was glad I was sitting in the back and I dealt with my fear by chatting merrily to our two nurses, Evelyn and Mercy.

            We arrived back at our hotel wrecked and slept the sleep of the just.



The end of a hard day.



HOLY WATER BOTTLES, GRASSHOPPERS AND DRUMS-1

E.N.T. ZAMBIA.  

MONDAY AND TUESDAY.



Me, Alex, Alfred and Kieran



Martin, Alfred and Kieran.



We set off on March 3^rd and flew from Heathrow, overnight, to Lusaka, the capital of  Zambia.    “We”, were Kieran O’Driscoll, E.N.T. surgeon, Alex Fay, Senior Audiologist,    Martin Stone, Audiologist and hearing aid wizard and me.   

Sr.Bernard

We arrived crumpled and dazed and, before I could get my bearings, Sr. Bernard had whisked us through passport and customs.   Sr. Bernard is “a friend of the corpse” and she has free rein in Kenneth Kaunda Airport.   She is the airport chaplain and, as a woman of formidable presence, all the airport staff defer to her.   Besides, she got a hearing aid from ENT Zambia.  

            At our hotel we admired the weaver birds and crocodiles in the pool by the bar.   

Not viewing guests as dinner

No, they’re not man-eaters; they’re moved into the wild before they’re old enough to start viewing the guests as dinner.   We unpacked, had a shower and went off to the E.N.T. unit in Beit Cure Hospital, Lusaka.  

Beit Cure is our base in Zambia.   The E.N.T. operating theatre was built and supplied by Irish Aid, and their mobile clinic was supplied by Gorta.  We met our Zambian colleagues, Alfred, the Audiologist, Charity and Evelyn the nurses, Pattison, the ear-mould technician, Daniel, the maintenance man and mobile clinic driver and Ute, the resident German E.N.T. surgeon.   The rest of the day was meetings, checking equipment, organising the coming week.  

            On Tuesday we were up at the scraic of dawn and off to Chainde in the four-wheel drive lent to us by the S.M.A. fathers.    The mobile unit travelled with us.   Chainde is just outside Lusaka.   It is where the S.M.A. fathers have a church and a community centre.   Kieran and the nurses set up in the mobile clinic and we audiologists set up our audiometers in the sacristy.   

While I was waiting for the patients to be sorted out, I took a look around.   There were classrooms for vocational training and a class for  special needs children.   I  went to visit the class.   It was a mixture of children with physical disabilities. hearing loss and social deprivation.   The kids gathered round clamouring for sweets.   I had none but I suggested that, instead, they might like to look inside my handbag.   Children love looking in handbags.   I showed them my purse, my comb, my packet of tissues and the shiny purple case of a lipstick.    I took it out and opened it .

“Would you like some?” I asked one little girl.

Me!   Me!   Me!   Me! Me!

Of course she did!  

I put a little lipstick on her lips and next thing I was mobbed by a jostling chorus of “ Me. Me.  Me.  Me. Me.  Me!”   And that included boys.   I got them to queue up… sort of… and the more enterprising boys  came back for a second application!

            My first patient was Francis, a young man in his early twenties.   He was frowning with the strain of trying to hear.    He had a significant hearing loss.   Some losses can be medically treated others can’t and his was the untreatable kind.   However  I knew that he’d benefit from a hearing aid.    He went to see Kieran, just in case, Pattison made the ear-moulds and Martin fitted him with aids to match his hearing loss.   Later he returned to my room with a big grin on his face.   Now he could hear.  

Francis with his new hearing aids.



            There weren’t too many children at the Chainde clinic so most of the time I was testing adults until Mary arrived.   She was four.   The problem with hearing tests is that the you need the full co-operation of the patient.  With adults, you ask them to raise their hand when they hear the whistle, put on the headphones and off you go.     But children are different.    They get easily distracted.   They get squirmy when  their legs are dangling from adult-sized chairs. They may not understand the instruction.      They may raise their hand when they hear the first sound and then leave it up and not  know what to do when they hear the next sound.    They get worried, lose confidence and, in an effort to please, they  give false responses and you have to start all over again.   So, when you’re testing  children you need a child-sized table and chair.   You need a box of bricks and you need a drum.    You demonstrate what you want by banging the drum and getting the child to put a brick in the box each time she hears.    But we had no child-sized furniture, no bricks, no box, no drum and not even a  common language.   Mary only spoke Nyanga and so did her mother. 

I just had to hope that Mary wouldn’t get too squirmy.   I decided to get her to tap the table with something each time she heard the sound.   I searched the room for something she could use.   There was a rack of Mass vestments.    But you can’t tap a table with a chasuble!   There was a shelf with a large missal and some books.    There were some missionary magazines, and copies of a parish newsletter.    Then I spied some small bottles.   Jackpot!


Note bottles on bottom shelf.

     One was labelled “Chrism”, it was very sticky.   Another was labelled  “Oil of Catechumens”, that was sticky as well.   The third was labelled “Holy Water.”   Okay, I thought, let’s go with the Holy Water.  Then I had to find an interpreter.   I found a Zambian nun who had come with another patient and commandeered her.

            Maybe the Holy Water performed a miracle or maybe Mary was a sensible, intelligent child.   She copped on immediately and, despite the fact that her four-year old legs were dangling, that she spoke no English, that I spoke no Nyanga and that we had no colourful, child-friendly toys, she didn’t get squirmy and she didn’t lose focus.   She listened, responded perfectly and performed a successful hearing test.   She had a hearing problem but it was of the treatable kind.    She went to the mobile clinic and Kieran looked after her.



Kieran at work in the mobile unit.



            At the end of the day we went back to our hotel tired but happy.  

rant-o-rama comments on life in ireland

CUBA 2.
Some people think that I don't "get "  Cuba.   I get Cuba all right.    I've read their history of colonisation, oppression slavery and more colonsiation.    I know the Americans haded it over to the Mafia in the 1940's and 50's.   I know it had obscene wealth and even more obscene poverty,lliteracy and lack of medical services. I understand absolutely why Fidel and Che started the revolution and I sympathise totally with it.   

I know about  Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs in the 1960's.   I know about the American embargo.    I know that Bacardi continues to pour millions of dollars  into trying to foment trouble on the island.   I know that the C..I.A. assisinated Che and have made numerous attempts to assisinate Castro.   I know that they continue to use Cuban groups in Miami to try and create trouble.   I believe that the American involvement in Cuba is outrageous and its embargo indefensible.

I went to Cuba full of empathy for the revolution and aware that the conditions there would be difficult.  However there were several things that make itCuba extremely difficult for even the most sympathetic traveller.   The American embargo explains why there is so little available  in the shops and why food is so limited but there are things that it does not explain.

Lack of information.  
I speak good Spanish and still found it next to impossible to get reliable information about times of buses or trains.   People who have lived there told us that they have had to wait three, four or even five days to get a train from  Santiago to Havana.    And that they had to go to the station every day to find out what the latest position is.     That's fine if you have no time limit on your travel.    It's impossible if you need to be back to catch a flight.

We had the strong impression that Cuba has no idea how to deal with independant travellers and caters only for group travel.    The irony is that most of the group travellers ( those we met anyway) are  unaware of Cuban history and are there only for sun, sea, sand and sex.   The independant travellers were much more clued in and more likely to be sympathetic to the Cuban position.   They are the ones who want to visit smaller towns and thus bring money to them but their ablility to visit other parts of the island is stymied by the lack of information.

Cost of Living for Tourists.
Because there is little public transport tourists have to relay on taxis and taxis are not cheap.... at least not for tourists.   A visit to the Botanical Gardens ended up costing us over 100Euro... it really wasn't worth it.   Food is very expensive  for what you are getting .   Besides I feel very uncomfortable knowing that no Cuban can afford to eat in the same restaurant as me.   The only Cubans you see are the girls or boys being entertained by middle-aged men.  

When we tried to hire a car we discovered that the cheapest cost 75euro per day but there were none available.   The ony cars available were 175 euro per day! Plus we could not get any decent maps.
A bus to varadero cost 11Euro if we were with a group but 55 Euro if we travelled independently! Plus, nobody could tell us for sure  what time it might go!
 I have no problem at all with charging tourists more than the locals would pay.   That happens in every poor country and that's perfectly reasona ble.    But I think there needs to be some sense of value for money.

The Jineteros
The scam artists and prostitutes of both sexes.   The levels of prostitution are clearly visible on the streets of Havana and as a tourist you are being continuously approached by people who want to scam you.

The sense I had was that Cubans were proud of their history.   Proud of the Revolution.   Proud of the achievements of the Revolution.   Proud of the fact that they have the highest level of literacy in the world.   Proud of the fact that they have sent doctors to Africa and South America.   Proud of the fact that they have educated doctors from Africa and South America.   They were very aware of the financial crises in the U.S and Europe.   It was on every news bullitin we saw.   They saw it as the end of Capitalism.   At the same time they seemed entirely unsure of what the future of Cuba might be and they longed for the freedom to travel and for better times.

rant-in-ireland

CUBA

We landed in Habana after 12 hours travelling with our knees up our noses.   But that’s long haul for you.   We eat the vile airline food, you try to sleep.    We breathe in.   We breathe out.   And finally… we arrived, crumpled, sweaty, our bodies in Habana, our spirits still hovering somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean.

            We found the baggage carousel and waited …and waited… and waited… and waited.   Three-quarters of an hour later our cases arrived.   We joined the line for passport control and waited…and waited…and waited… and waited.   Cuban passport Control involves a lot of writing on forms, a lot of stamping of things, a lot of scrutinising and comparing between your face and your passport photo.   Then they command you to stand back, take off your glasses and look into the camera and click… you’re on their computer.   They compare that, with your passport and you several times….   And finally … we were free.    That took an hour!  

We headed for Currency Exchange.   The queue was even longer here.   Fortunately a friend had advised us to slip upstairs to Departures where the queue was short.   Otherwise, who knows how long we might have waited.

Okay, so Cuba is a poor nation.   It’s often like this in poor nations and besides, they inherited their bureaucracy from the Russians.   And no one loves Byzantine complexity more than the Russians. 

            Outside the airport all was chaos.   It was already dark, the temperature was in the high 20’sC and there were only a few dim bulbs.   There are no airport busses in Cuba.   Hotels do not send coaches and Casas Particulares ( Cuban B+Bs) are not allowed to send taxis to pick you up.   Taxis were coming at us from all directions but none were available.   Newly-arrived passengers milled about like bewildered koalas.   Men in yellow shirts bustled about shouting at taxi-men and chivvying people into vehicles, apparently at random.   Men, assuring us that they had a friend with a taxi, dashed into the dark. Finally somebody asked if we’d mind sharing a taxi and off we shot into the night.

            The taxi-man did not know how to get to the first address.    We hurtled into the city, down a couple of lit streets and then plunged into streets with no lighting.   The taxi driver kept stopping to ask for directions.   At one of these stops, in particularly dark street, a door opposite opened and inside there was a blue light.   Latin music throbbed and a crowd of people ranging from grannies to infants were inside dancing  shaking their booties.   Finally we found our address and discovered that both groups of passengers had to pay the full price!   Well it’s a poor country… 

            We arrived at our Casa Particular where we were met by Armando.   The front door had a piece of scarred metal tacked over it.   Armando hauled our suitcases up two flights of dimly lit stairs.   Cracked steps, peeling paint, a broken window…   Welcome to Havana!

Inside the apartment was neat and clean and we met Armando’s grandmother Luisa, an old lady of 84 who was running the B+B with his help.   He did the required form-signing and passport-examination.   She made us coffee.    Our bedroom was simple, clean and comfortable and we had our own bathroom.

In the morning Armando helped with the huge breakfast of fruit, fried eggs and chips, bread, honey, coffee and fruit juice.   Once he’d established that we were, in his words, “very good people. Muy simpaticos.” And that I could speak Spanish, he  left us to his granny.   We never saw him again instead she was joined by a friend, Coralia who helped.

Our place was so close to the seafront, the Malecon, that we decided to start there.    Just as we went to cross a large junction, a long white 1950’s American car swung round the corner.  

“Wow, look at that!” we exclaimed in delight. “One of the famous fifties cars.   Oh wow!”

And immediately the front wheel fell off!   The driver jumped out.   The passengers staggered out.   Men appeared from nowhere to help and advise.   They got the wheel back on,  they opened the bonnet, and there… my abiding image of Cuba.   Four men, tón san aer. (arse in the air) heads deep in the innards, repairing the car.   Car breakdowns become so commonplace that you stop noticing.

            Havana is stunningly beautiful.    Like a combination of all the best bits of beautiful Spanish towns with a Caribbean flavour.   Beautiful 18^th C and 19^th C buildings both public and private with pillars and porticos and decoration.   But they look like they’ve suffered some earth-shattering catastrophe.   All of them are  crumbling .    Lovely detached houses with porticoed balconies, plaster decoration, have peeling paint, washing hanging outside and three or four families living inside.  

Parts of the old city have been restored, courtesy of private foundations in Europe and Japan.   The restored buildings are glorious and all you want to do is take photos.   The squares in that old part attract lots of women dressed up in the old Cuban style.   Bright scarves tied on top of their heads at the front, multicoloured tiered skirts and baskets of fake flowers.   Every time a group of tourists arrive they swoop on as many of the men as they can and kiss then on the cheek for the camera and a tip.     Then there’s the peanut vendors, the cigarette lighter vendors, the cake vendors.  The guys that call “Pssssst" from doorways.

"You want cigars?   Very cheap.”

I was even approached one day by a teenager selling his school text books.

Not to mention the music.   Every bar, hotel and restaurant has a band and, as you seldom hear the same one twice, I assume there must be some kind of official rota.    But these bands are good and you can hear great Cuban music everywhere.   However, after three or four songs, they come to flog their CDs and collect tips.  The music also attracts dancers who perform for tips.  

Cuban people are incredibly friendly and thrilled when you speak a bit of Spanish.      However there are problems,

            They have two currencies, one for locals (Peso Nacional, PN) and one for tourists (Peso Convertible CUC.)    1 CUC = 24 Pns.    Restaurants and bars are priced for tourists so you pay for a meal what a Cuban doctor gets in a month!   Naturally Cubans think tourists are incredibly rich and, apart from the photograph ladies etc., almost everyone  you speak to asks for money… for the children.   And then there was the problem of getting information.

            We wanted to see the Cuban National Ballet which has world wide reputation.    Someone said Carlos Acosta might be in town, or was that next week?   Or next month?  We decided to ask at the National Theatre.   The Security man sent us to two ladies sitting inside the hall at a desk.   They didn’t know anything about Carlos Acosta.   Will there be any ballet performance this week end?   They shrugged and pointed to another lady sitting on a chair on the other side of the hall.   She knew nothing about nothing either. We tried several more doors and more employees of the National Theatre… Nada.   Someone suggested the Tourist Office.  

The tourist office official was all spit and polish and spoke English.   She tapped efficiently on a computer, pressed return and sat back.   Nothing.   She shrugged and she suggested we ask at the office of Cultural Affairs which was within walking distance.   

At the office of Cultural Affairs we passed the security person and headed straight for the two ladies behind a desk ( it’s a rule - every office and public building has to have them!).   They looked taken aback at our questions and informed us, in no uncertain manner, that they only dealt with paintings and sculpture and we should try a travel agency.  

We tried several, nobody knew nothing.   

            Finally we did get information but only because Coralia, our B and B lady, had been a dancer in her day and had contacts.   Even then we could only book tickets on a Thursday between 2 and 3 pm!   But we did get tickets and it was fabulous… you feared for the scenery but the dancing was top class.   And the orchestra kept missing out notes which made you fear that they would put the dancers out of time… but the dancers were fabulous.

           

            Car hire was prohibitively expensive so that scuppered our plan to drive to Santiago.  Besides, we could not get maps, the roads are poor, the driving dangerous and the signposting very desultory.   We went instead to Varadero where we were in an all-in hotel.   Varadero is a beach with hotels full of Canadians and Russians.   The Canadians were making comments like,

“I can’t understand why they wanted a revolution, they were doing fantastically well with the Americans in charge.”

The Russians were avoiding all eye contact with everyone and being unspeakably rude to the staff.

There is nothing more to be said about Varadero.

We returned to Havana and stayed in the Hotel Nacional.    It is the Hotel where all the Hollywood stars stayed pre-revolution.   It is advertised as a 5 star and it has a great location overlooking the sea with a fabulous terrace above the Malecon  (seafront).   But we’ve stayed in better three star hotels in China and Peru.   One of the things that made it uncomfortable was the sense that every time the staff did anything for you they were looking for money while believing that they were working in one of the world's most luxurious hotels.

            The all over impression we had was that Cuban people are fabulous, friendly, funny and warm.    That they haven’t a notion how the rest of the world operates because their media is so censured.    Food is very poor and even fruit, which in the tropics you’d expect to be good, was of the poorest quality.  The music and dancing are first class.   

With honourable exceptions Cubans do not understand what it is to work.    They keep telling you that everyone has a job but, the sense you get in the streets is of a lot of people hanging around smoking and talking with their friends.   It seemed to us that many of the “jobs” are nominal.   Besides, as everyone gets paid more or less the same, i.e. really badly, why on earth would you bother killing yourself working? 

            They have a lot to learn about tourism.   Clearly they are only geared for all-in group tourists… and even then they seem unaware of  mass tourism standards elsewhere.   They are entirely unable to cope with independent tourists.   Whether that is the plan or not I’ve no idea Perhaps they do not really want us.   I kept thinking, why don’t you ask the Chinese for tourist information, or the Peruvians or the Africans?   Neither my husband nor I have any problem with basic services but the lack of information was the killer.  

A curious thing happened towards the end of our stay.   We were looking for cards in envelopes for Luisa and Coralia ( our B+B ladies)   We found the cards but  could not find any envelopes anywhere.   We tried every conceivable shop and I kept asking,

“Why is it so difficult to find envelopes?”

“The post.” Said some, “there are problems.”

“Do Cubans never write to one another?”

“No never.”

“Why not?”

“The post is only for foreigners!”

That says something about the state of information.

All that said every Cuban professes to love Fidel Castro, and I quote

“He has made mistakes but he is only human.   Mostly he is very wise.”

But they seem a lot less keen on Raul.    They have no answer to what might happen when both of the Castro boys have snuffed it.   They assured me that  they will stick to their anti –imperialist, socialist principles.   At the same time the queue for visas outside the American Trade legation every day  is very long indeed.

           

           

           

The Queen made me Cry

I've just seen Queen lay a wreath in the Garden of Rememberance and, to my total surprise, I burst into tears.

When I first heard that Queen Elizabeth the Second of England was coming to Ireland on a State Visit I didn't think much about it. I was happy that she had been invited, it suggested that as a nation we were growing up and , in view of the history between the two countries I knew it was significant but I wasn't going to be standing on the streets hoping for a glimpse. Personally I find the whole idea of royalty a hint medieval but, if other countries want it, fair dues. I hoped there would be no trouble from republican hot-heads who enjoy hurling insults and petrol bombs. Then I thought no more about it.

I had a late lunch to-day and I turned on the t.v. for a little distraction and there was the Garden of Remembrance and a voice was telling me that the Queen was expected in minutes so I stayed for a look. She arrived with Mary McAleese and stood in front of the sculpture of the Children of Lir. I though Mary looked a bit sober in black but the Queen looked her usual neat self in a pretty coat cutaway coat and signature hat. The army officer gave commands, the soldiers presented arms, the band played God Save the Queen. God love her I thought she must be bored out of her tree. But the Queen is an old hand at memorials and military events i knew she'd be fine.

Then she took a wreath and laid in in front of the memorial sculpture and that's when it hit me. She was laying a wreath for the men and women who had opposed her predecessors. I was watching history, the good kind , where people get reconciled. I remembered than that the sculpture of the chjildren of Lir is about transformation and that the mosaic in the memorial pond is of arms abandoned forever. Then they played our national anthem. I had been reared on the "seven hundred years of slavery", "the glories of 1916" and the "evils" of the British Crown and there, in front of my eyes was the English Queen standing for our national Anthem. It felt to me like a balm, a blessing and a resolution.

EVEN LE CORBUSIER NODS.

When I was in Primary School, there was one year when, due to renovations, the school day finished early.     Because my mother was working and there would be nobody at home, I went to an aunt's house until she was home from work.  

My cousin Colm had just started studying Architecture and he took it upon himself to instruct me on the wonders of modern design.    He told me all about Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Loyd Wright and Le Corbusier which made me feel terribly sophisticated.    I longed for an opportunity to show off my new-found knowledge but, ten-year old girls have little interest in whether function should dictate form or not.   It was many years before I had to chance to fling "Bauhaus" into a conversation in the hope of impressing people with my knowledge.

Colm showed me pictures in Architectural magazines of cutting-edge buildings including the Dominican Couvent de Saint Marie de la Tourette in Eveux in France, designed by Le Corbusier.   He'd said that Le Corbusier was one of the great geniuses of the twentieth century and I was more than happy to believe this.    So, recently, when we were in Lyon and La Tourette was nearby, I couldn't wait to visit it.

You take the train from Lyon to L'Arbresle and then walk up a hill and keep on walking.   The walk took  the best part of an hour but it was a lovely day, the views were delightful and we stopped frequently to admire the scenery... well that was my excuse.   Finally we got there and I couldn't believe my eyes.

It was hideous.   It is made entirely of concrete and concrete doesn't weather well.   The outside walls were badly stained and the bell tower looked as though a particularly clumsy child had stuck it on in the wrong place.   The entrance was puddled and muddy and they had put wooden boxes down to keep your feet dry but I still had high hopes for the interior.   I remembered photographs of light beaming down through coloured shafts.  

The interior is a huge, rectangular, concrete box with a high concrete ceiling.   The concrete is dirty and stained.  I kept thinking "gas chamber, gas chamber, gas chamber".   Yes, the light does come in through coloured shafts which are painted red and yellow and blue but the paint is cracked and bubbling, the windows are spiderwebbed and leaking and there is a terrible air of neglect.    Curiously though, some sections still photograph well.   The building induced a great sense of unease and agitation in me.   This is in contrast to the cathedral and basilica in Lyon, neither of which are particularly outstanding but both are peadceful, calm spaces.

The rest of the monastery buildings  have also worn badly and the entire complex had the air of a sink estate built in the sixties.    Having held the name of Le Corbusier in high esteem all my life I felt terribly let down and yet, and yet, I have to admit to a certain pleasurable schadenfreude.    Finally I had serious a word with myself and reminded myself that, geniuses too have their off days.