Mr Hemingway's children
As you may recall, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) recently broadcast an item on the “desperate” need for funds by the Castro regime to preserve the villa outside Havana that used to belong to Ernest Hemingway.
… and how those nasty Americans are refusing to come to the rescue of what is now a government-owned museum.
Now there is an excellent if thoroughly depressing account of what’s going on at Finca Vigia (what's going on in Cuba!), from Adrian McKinty, an Irish writer who was recently in Havana.
In an article published in The Times under the headline, “Any book in Hemingway’s library for $200”, McKinty reveals how during his visit one of a "secret policeman" at the villa attempted to sell him books and other artifacts from the collection.
It seems such offers are not uncommon, with tourists also being charged USD10.00 for having their photographs taken sitting at Hemingway’s desk or browsing through the library, which is said to contain hundreds of rare and highly valuable tomes.
Whether these under-the-counter offers to visiting foreigners are known or encouraged by others higher up the Communist Party pecking order is not clear.
As McKinty points out in his lengthy piece, it could be a case of poorly-paid policeman trying to make ends meet in Fidel Castro’s island paradise, a place the Irish visitor describes with considerable sorrow as both sad and sordid.
In particular, he is shaken by the parade of older European and Canadian men who openly flaunt around Havana their latest Cuban sexual “conquests”: black and mulato girls and boys aged as young as 14.
“Apologists for the Castro brothers talk about Cubans uncomplicated attitudes towards sex and money. Why not get paid for a night with a stranger when both parties gain from the experience? We Westerners, they say, are so hung up on morality that we are suspicious of the free-spirited, lusty Cubans,” McKinty writes.
“It’s nonsense of course. It’s nothing to do with Latin expansiveness and Western repression. It’s about a mis-managed economy, the embargo, endemic corruption, poverty and desperation.”
H/T: Babalu; Picture: Enrique de la Osa, Reuters
… and how those nasty Americans are refusing to come to the rescue of what is now a government-owned museum.
Now there is an excellent if thoroughly depressing account of what’s going on at Finca Vigia (what's going on in Cuba!), from Adrian McKinty, an Irish writer who was recently in Havana.
In an article published in The Times under the headline, “Any book in Hemingway’s library for $200”, McKinty reveals how during his visit one of a "secret policeman" at the villa attempted to sell him books and other artifacts from the collection.
It seems such offers are not uncommon, with tourists also being charged USD10.00 for having their photographs taken sitting at Hemingway’s desk or browsing through the library, which is said to contain hundreds of rare and highly valuable tomes.
Whether these under-the-counter offers to visiting foreigners are known or encouraged by others higher up the Communist Party pecking order is not clear.
As McKinty points out in his lengthy piece, it could be a case of poorly-paid policeman trying to make ends meet in Fidel Castro’s island paradise, a place the Irish visitor describes with considerable sorrow as both sad and sordid.
In particular, he is shaken by the parade of older European and Canadian men who openly flaunt around Havana their latest Cuban sexual “conquests”: black and mulato girls and boys aged as young as 14.
“Apologists for the Castro brothers talk about Cubans uncomplicated attitudes towards sex and money. Why not get paid for a night with a stranger when both parties gain from the experience? We Westerners, they say, are so hung up on morality that we are suspicious of the free-spirited, lusty Cubans,” McKinty writes.
“It’s nonsense of course. It’s nothing to do with Latin expansiveness and Western repression. It’s about a mis-managed economy, the embargo, endemic corruption, poverty and desperation.”
H/T: Babalu; Picture: Enrique de la Osa, Reuters
posted by Luis M Garcia at 2:49 pm
1 Comments:
Luis, it's good to see that you're posting on a daily basis, back in 2007 when I paid my first visit to your blog I noticed that you did not post often, but when you did....YOU DID, your more frequent pieces and essays have not affected the quality of your work and that is refreshing.
"...McKinty reveals how during his visit one of a "secret policeman" at the villa attempted to sell him books and other artifacts from the collection...."
So much for either, the failure of the tyranny's secret police to remain secret, or Mr. McKinty's ability to take certain liberty(ies) with his imagination, I find it worthy of note, that the author seems to not posses the slightest bit of concern for the fate of the alleged perpetrators and their families at the hands of the regime's system of torture and human rights violations which are well documented and certainly must be known to someone in his position. It seems that as long as the proverbial shaft is given to a Cuban either in Cuba or in exile, there need be no concern whatsoever by any of the direct or indirect culprits of the negative consequences that befall us Cubans, we are the new Jews and Roma people.
"...In particular, he is shaken by the parade of older European and Canadian men who openly flaunt around Havana their latest Cuban sexual “conquests”: black and mulato girls and boys aged as young as 14..." . At this stage he manages to show a part of his humanity, there is still hope for us all, I have not been able to figure out the apparent fascination with our black and mulatto girls and boys by characters the likes of those that McKinty mentions. What is wrong with these creatures? My opinion of the regime that allows this behavior by the foreigners to flourish, is one that I am sure is shared by all Cubans who long for the freedom of our enslaved people.
My favorite part of the piece with its subliminal message follows: "The secret policeman was wrong, I’m not Scottish, I’m Irish, and unlike our dour cousins over the water we have a weakness for sentiment and pathos.
Tears filled my eyes.
After a while I picked up the journal again.
“I pissed in Hemingway’s loo,” I wrote, “and I don’t feel good about it at all.”
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