This week my “internship” with the Centro de Trabajadores Cubanos (Cuban Workers’ Center) began after being put off for the past few weeks. El Centro de Trabajadores Cubanos (CTC) is essentially the national umbrella union of all other workers’ unions. The “internship” consists of going to different factories, businesses, or places of labor and speaking with the workers and the managers about what they do and how their union is organized. This week, the three of us who are doing the internship went to a workshop that provides both mentally and physically disabled people with jobs assembling different products such as matchboxes or chessboards. Unfortunately when we arrived there was a problem with transportation so the products they were to assemble that day never came, thus everyone was sitting at their tables talking and listening to the radio. The space was plain and modest sized with air conditioning and a television, which was immediately pointed out to us. On the walls hung a few photos of Fidel in golden sequined frames and at one point a giant cake was carried through the room although I don’t know what ended up happening to it.
We spoke with the managers and they took a lot of time to answer our questions and made sure we understood that the people who worked at the workshop received the same wages as any other person doing labor of the same nature. They also explained to us their systems of “ monetary incentives” of which they have three, but every year the workers vote to decide which one they want to use. They said that there are over 100 workshops such as this one all over Cuba and in more rural places materials will be dropped off in peoples’ homes so they can work from there. They continued to explain that each worker was expected to do as much as physically or mentally possible but there was no set rate of production and that 70% of the people in the workshop including secretaries, accountants, and trainers were disabled in some way.
I thought the workshop was very interesting but I wondered how people could keep themselves stimulated by making matchbooks eight hours a day. Certainly Cubans have been very resourceful in keeping their workers entertained. I remember in the cigar factory, everyday the news would be read over a microphone to all the workers, then a selection from the “classics,” followed by a popular novel, and maybe even poetry. I thought this was rather ingenious but I imagine there still is much to be wanted. It’s difficult because the government is trying to employ everyone and trying to make the right to earn wages equal but in doing so there are a lot of unstimulating or sometimes even unnecessary jobs and motivation becomes an issue. I was disappointed we didn’t have a chance to talk to any of the workers but when we asked the mangers what the main problems that came up during the union meetings were they all agreed it had to do with stimulation.

On to a completely different subject, I am currently reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. I mention this because I would probably never had read it had I not come to Cuba where any novel in English is eagerly snatched up by any one of us girls on the trip. Never have I been surrounded by such insatiable readers and the transfer of books in the house has become quite a political situation. Already there are people lined up to read Ana’s copy of 100 Years of Solitude or Aidan’s copy of The Motorcycle Diaries, both of which I have already been lucky enough to get my hands on. In addition “book etiquette” has come into question and issues such as one person wanting to share a book but the other person wanting to read it solely on their own has been a topic of debate. It’s funny how desperate we’re finding ourselves in our quest for literature. Last night I started reading a horrible book aloud to Aidan that we found in the house yet we both are enjoying it immensely and it’s nice to read aloud and I suppose it’s nice to be read aloud to as well. I think for most of us this is the first time in a number of years we’ve found ourselves with enough leisure time to actually read for fun and we’re all trying to take advantage of it. For awhile we were functioning under the hopeful idea that our families could send us small packages with a few books but when we found that to be impossible we all became more persistent and far more organized in our rotation of literature. Robinson Crusoe more or less fell into my lap because my friend who works at the residence has a collection of a few novels in English and he agreed to loan me something to read, well actually he agreed to loan Aidan something but Aidan snatched up one of the books Amanda brought once she finished it so I got to read Robinson Crusoe since all other books are being read right now. Needless to say, I’m enjoying it a lot and am trying to read it quickly so that Aidan and I will finish our books at the same time and then we can swap.

Now, to end this already incredible blog I will tell the story of how I almost died in a rainstorm. On Wednesday I experienced my first authentic Cuban aguacero while coming home from my Cuban film history class. We have a driver, Abel, who comes and picks up Tiana, Ana, and I from our residence and then our professor from his work. This is necessary because the class is late in the evening and also about 25-30 minutes away. Abel then comes and picks us up after the class and drives us all home. Today when he came to pick us up the electricity had gone out where we have our class so we were all standing in the dark and a wall of rain separated us from the car. We all ran and jumped in and as we started driving we immediately realized that there was no way to see anything more than 5 feet in front of us due to the rain and constant fogging of the windows. Abel continued driving and our professor tried to make us talk about the movie we watched in order to distract us from what appeared to be our looming death.
After blindly driving for about 15 minutes Abel stopped the car only because the water was high enough that his tiny hatchback was desperately struggling. We waited until the rain let up a bit but in the time we waited the water rose about 6 inches. When we finally started again the tires were almost completely submerged and Abel begin to desperately search for higher ground. In his search though, the water rose higher and higher until it started flooding the inside of the car and we all had to sit with our feet hovering over the pool of water.
At one point we found ourselves stuck behind two other cars that had broken down and when we tried to go around them an ancient Plymouth without lights had the same idea. Abel was unable to see the Plymouth and our shouts were too late so he ran the front tail light of his car right into the side of the Plymouth. The Plymouth continued on since those cars are built like tanks but Abel cursed while our professor tried to calm him. We ended up having to turn around and continue searching for higher ground since we were still very far from home. We found what seemed to be a decent road with little water but we found that at almost every intersection the water collected and at it’s deepest it was probably about 2 feet.
I’ve really never seen anything like it before. You couldn’t tell where sidewalks started and roads ended and people were out in their rain boots trying to sweep the water away from their house. Our professor, who lives at one of the lowest points in Habana told us that he has a boat in his house that he has used on multiple occasions and since we were dropped off first I have no idea how he and Abel managed to get him to his home. Really though, the whole experience was unbelievable. People were walking through the streets with water to their knees and countless cars were stranded. All through the city you could hear the howling of sirens and the rumbling of thunder with occasional flashes of lightening that turned the sky purple. Somehow Abel’s car made it through even the deepest parts and even though my feet got soaked and a little pruned it still certainly was an experience, I just hope his car is ok and no one suffered too much damage.