Ron Ridenour's Volunteer Farm Work in Cuba 1992-2006

Showing up for work!
1992-1993

At the crack of dawn one humid July morning, I mounted my trusty iron horse and pedaled off to La Julia in Batabano municipality, 50 kilometers south of my Havana residence. I was on my way to participate in what Che called that �special atmosphere� of collective volunteer labor.

�To build communism, you must build new man, as well as the economic base...the instrument for mobilizing the masses ... must be moral in character ... Work must cease being what it still is today, a compulsory social obligation, and be transformed into a social duty ... Our goal is that the individual feels the need to perform voluntary labor out of internal motivation, as well as because of the special atmosphere that exists.� (1)

A �Special Period� was declared by the State soon after the collapse of European state socialism. Cubans lost 63% of their foodstuffs, previously imported from Comecon trade partners. They also lost 85% of export income including oil-for-sugar barter trade.

Cuba�s leaders designated plan alimentario (food plan) as priority number one, alongside tourism. The state emphasizes becoming self-sufficient in many areas. Everybody�s belt had to be tightened.

After cycling without stop for two hours, a sign marked GIA-2 appeared on the flat horizon saturated with banana plants and vegetable crops. The camp looked like others I had just passed: white-painted, one-story concrete dormitory buildings neatly arranged in rows. Shrubs, flowers and garden vegetables grew between the buildings. In the distance, I could just make out the sea where I had sailed past Batabano on petroleum runs.

GIA-2�s director, Oscar Geerken, a handsome man in his mid-40s, led me to his cubicle where I�d be staying. It had four, two-tiered bunk beds, thin foam rubber mattresses and pillows. Two ventilators whirled overhead to cool the room and chase away persistent mosquitoes�Cuba�s only dangerous animal, Fidel was fond of saying.

�We built this camp ourselves with help from local constructors,� proudly proclaimed the mustachioed Oscar, �and we did it in just 29 days.�

Geerken was a chemistry teacher and school administrator, who had come here with the original 120 founders, in November 1990. He, like the others, would get his job back following two years of volunteer work, or even before if he quit earlier.

When I first arrived to work, in early 1992, there were 220 workers at Colonel Mambi Juan Delgado Contingent. Commonly called GIA-2, it received its official name after an officer who had rescued the cadaver of hero Antonio Maceo killed in battle, in 1896.

At Home in GIA-2

Cuban Sugar Cane Field (photo: voyages.com)

The cubicles are divided by gender. In the front of cubicles housing 50 women was a space used for the polyclinic attended by a permanent nurse or doctor. Most of the ailments are minor: machete cuts, colds, asthma and hypertension. A new sugar cane-based pharmaceutical pill, called PPG, is administered to regulate cholesterol for those with hypertension. Its �magical� properties include the purported side-effect of stimulating sexual drives, for which there is scant need in Cuba.

A recreation building across the courtyard is divided into two large rooms. One has two television sets at opposite ends so that viewers can choose between the nation�s two channels. The other room affords space for a ping-pong table and card tables for dominos, checkers and chess. These tables are cleared away for Saturday night dances. The recreation hall is brightly dotted with art works painted by volunteer worker-artists. Another building, quite long and divided by gender, contains toilets, wash basins and showers. Although the toilets are flushable, and even though there is a permanent cleaning staff, a putrid odor constantly lingers.

Corrugated laundry sinks are attached to the bathroom facilities. It is almost always the women who do the washing for male lovers or friends. Because they do the washing women go to the front of the chow line. The only complaint one hears about gender arrangements is that contingent policy makes it difficult to copulate because the sexes cannot be together in cubicles. Violators can be fired.

�We can�t afford to have domestic relations spill over into collective quarrels, or cause people to get up late for work. Some would object on moral grounds as well. But people find ways to link up,� Geerken smilingly explained from first-hand experience.

We entered the brightly decorated cafeteria and were handed metal trays heaped with moros y cristianos (beans and rice, named after dark-skinned Moors and white Christians), steaming bean soup, hot dogs, a sweet made from freshly picked egg plant, and soda. The menu on the wall announced cod fish for dinner. Cod is caught by Cuban fishermen in far away colder waters. Breakfast is usually the same: hot milk and coffee with a piece of hard bread. Breakfast and dinner are free of charge; lunch costs .50 centavos.

Goin' Bananas

Bananas and Plantains are one of Cuba's most important crops. (photo: Index Stock)

After a two-hour lunch break, Geerken introduced me to the head of finca 13, the 73-hectare banana plantation. Oscar Rodr�guez is a history and philosophy professor. The brigade assigned to initiate the banana plantation elected him their chief because he was the only man here raised on a farm who also had some knowledge of growing bananas.

Dripping sap stains clothes and the body. Yet the same plant produces a watery liquid that washes away body stains. At the day�s end, we dip our fingers in the liquid where trunk layers turn brown. These juices clean the sap stains.

Oxen, mud, critters and steel wheels: The cyclone had left the earth muddy and the oxen yoke got stuck in a dip, and the cart couldn�t budge. The driver was working Contrario and Asabache. He couldn�t convince them to budge despite using the flimsy whip. He called for Nelson. When the tall young man arrived, he set his jaws tight and struck one beast�s ticklish ribs with his fist. Contrario (obstinate) stepped sidewise. Nelson wanted him to step forward. He slapped Contrario�s rear with the flat of his machete and threw dirt into the animal�s mouth��To dry the foam and get rid of his agitation by giving him a new one,� Nelson explained. The beast plunged forward and with Asabache pulled the heavy cart out of the mud.

In the 1980s Cuba had more tractors per acre than California for food production. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union and under the heel of the U.S. embargo they lacked the petroleum to use them. Cuba heroically responded by growing crops with the use of oxen as part of their appropriate technology program. They had about 50,000 teams left in 1990. By the year 2000, they had over 400,000 teams of oxen plying the land. (photo: Oxcart, Holguin Province, Cuba, G. Friedman)

After we cut the marked bunches, our team was set to dig new holes for the chopos (pods of young plants). The rains had left the earth so muddy it was difficult to hoe. My clothes and body quickly caked with mud. It rained again and we slid and slipped. After a while the rain and mud didn�t matter but the biting insects did: mosquitoes, ants and gegen, a gnat-like fly that bites likes horseflies. Once the green plant is cut, the chopos smell like fresh rubber and attract a tiny black ant whose bite stings for minutes.

I walked alongside a yoke, careful not to get too close to the oxen�s thick hooves, catching the pods from a female worker, who threw them from the slow-moving cart. I placed the chopos on the earth two meters apart. After seeding a dozen rows, we hoed and topped the pods with loose soil.

Working with women can either slow down production, due to inevitable flirtation and different gender capacities, or sometimes speed it up, because the men like to show off and women often sing stimulating songs. Love songs and swinging hips induce faster work motions as a distraction to rising passions.

The next day, I sat beside a tractor driver. I was shocked to watch a dozen mature banana trees get rudely eliminated by the monster as its steel assortments ruined bunches or felled plants because of the driver�s reckless driving. This experience made it clear to me that using oxen and hand-work with machetes is more respectful of nature�s gifts, although perhaps not as economically efficient since hand-work is much slower than machinery.

I got off this mechanical brute and cut dried trunk leaves with the short-bladed machete. Once the inner sides are exposed, one can often find a tiny frog therein. It is a slimy but harmless, cute creature that incomprehensively frightens most Cuban women and some men.

Bounty and good banana health: Cuba still employs chemical sprays against plant diseases even under the special period limitations and with heightened ecological awareness. Sigatoka (sugar cane rust) spreads so rapidly and is so lethal to crops that airplanes are used to spray nauseating, imported chemicals. Fumigating new sprouts of weeds growing close to plants is a constant, tedious task of brigaders, who apply the Belgian-made Monsanto herbicide from a tank carried on their backs. The instructions call for extreme caution and use of goggles, though this is generally ignored.

Cuba's famous tobacco. In the U.S. covert war against Cuba in 1979 the Pentagon produced biological agents to use against Cuba's sugar cane and tobacco production. Other suspicious disease outbreaks include haemorraghic conjunctivitis, dengue fever, dysentery, ulcerative mammillitis, black sigatoka, and citric sapper blight, to name but a few. In 1977, CIA documents disclosed that the Agency "maintained a clandestine anti-crop warfare research program targeted during the 1960s at a number of countries throughout the world," according to the Washington Post.

The natural fungus, verticullium lecani, is used against the ruinous white fly, which attacks fronds, although many farmers still use the ancient method of mixing tobacco leaf leftovers with water as a harmless but time-consuming way of combating the white fly. Another fungus, trichoderma, is used effectively against injurious fungi in other crops. Even the lion ant is helpful against some plagues. It will be a long time, however, before biological methods will replace the need for the unfavorable chemicals to control farmers� many menaces.

Finca 13 is comprised of 150,000 �silk� banana trees surrounded by two rows of the protective, sturdy burro plants, whose squatty banana is cooked green in a variety of dishes: boiled, mashed, roasted and fried. The �silk� banana is eaten raw, as are other types. The special period�s food plan stresses planting a few types of bananas least susceptible to plagues.

Once the banana plant matures, it sprouts a large purple bud popularly known as a �tit�. The tit weighs half-a-kilo and is half-a-meter long. They droop heavily from pendulous stalks. Tit bracts easily roll back to expose a glossy silk-like lining. Beneath each bract lay overlapping rows of cream-colored, unisex flowers from which emanates a perfume fragrance. First to appear on the tit�s corded spike is several rows of female flowers, whose ovaries develop into �hands� of bananas.

�We used to cultivate only one crop a year,� Rodr�guez told me, �and our banana production was way under demand. There were so many plagues, so many resources and so much attention required that we never caught up with demand. With new technology and increased manpower we�ll soon have enough bananas to eat.

�Just imagine, if we�d been planting enough of our own food all along we wouldn�t have such significant economic problems now that the Comecon is gone. We made a grave error relying on foreign friends to feed us, but we're correcting that now.�

The new technology being employed includes the Israel-developed microjet irrigation system. Israel uses this for growing citrus fruits in deserts, and Cuba is importing the system from France for use in banana plantations as well as citrus crops. The microjet is one of Fidel�s pet projects, along with PPG pill production for export. He predicted that within a few years of installing the effective watering system yields would quadruple and bunches would produce a score of hands weighing up to 70 kilos. After two years of microjet usage, yields had increased and bunches had grown in size and weight but the objective was still off mark, and the system is expensive.

Another day I was cultivating vegetables with Gildy, a dynamic 22-year old former factory worker. She had suddenly found herself out of work when the radio assembly plant where she worked reduced its labor force. She went to the municipal labor office and they suggested she try the farm contingent.

�This is secure work and I get double my previous pay. The food is better than you get in the city on rations, and all the essentials are provided. And I feel useful, so it still appeals to me after a year,� Gildy told me.

�Because of our natural amiability, we have no real social problems here, other than a bit of jealousy from time to time. But that happens wherever men and women live and work together.�

Near quitting time workers rushed excitedly from the field shouting, �Fidel is coming! Fidel! Vive Fidel!� Three black Mercedes limosines sped by. A blue mini-van filled with armed security men drove at either end. Fidel didn�t stop this time; he had visited GIA-2 recently.

Down with Cuban Soul on Saturday Night!

Women had decorated the recreation hall and prepared snacks of salad, toasted bread and fried burro bananas. Some men had gone off to find �draught� rum at the state liquor counter-store. As expected, the store was out of the national alcohol. Tonight was special, so the men scurried about to find black market rum at double the price. Contingent Colonel Mambi Juan Delgado�s own band, the �Microjets�, was performing for the first time. Muscular banana workers dressed up in spick and span white clothing beat out sensual rhythms on congos, drums, trumpets, vibes, organ and clave sticks as other brigaders gyrated to salsa and humped to son (Cuban soul) music. The women were sexily decked out in revealing clothing and inexpensive but sparkling jewelry. Some of them could have been models or Tropicana dancers.

We listened to music and danced until past midnight. No matter the late hour or the amount of booze, everyone would be up at 05:50 AM. Awakened by music blaring out from the camp radio, we would all fall out for the morning assembly (matutino), partaking in participatory democracy before our labor began.

�A contingent without a matutino is not a contingent,� wrote the Cuban journalist, Clemente, who once worked there when I did.
The leadership informs workers at these daily assemblies what agricultural developments are taking place. The previous day�s work is quickly evaluated, and the current day�s tasks are outlined. The floor is then opened for questions and comments. At the end of this interchange, lasting between 15 and 30 minutes, the destacados (distinguished workers), chosen by all workers, are announced. Bonuses or vacations are awarded every few months to those most frequently chosen destacado.

At this matutino, Geerken explained that he�d been to the Ministry of Internal Commerce to see about sorely needed work clothing. Many workers had holes in their work shoes not to mention tattered shirts and pants. A few did not even have work shoes. Socks were a rarity.

�We know that most textile factories are shut down and the ministry has few reserves. They told me they�d soon be distributing some shoes but they couldn�t say when.�

A cloudy look fell over most faces yet no one spoke. They knew this was the truth and there was nothing that could be said. But Big Roberto spoke up after the general production chief, Jos� Ag�ero, said that Brigade 8 was behind in planting potatoes and would have to speed up. �Give us more hands,� Big Roberto retorted. �Finca 13 is overstaffed and we are undermanned.�

No one contradicted this assessment so Ag�ero shifted part of the banana personnel over to potatoes for a while. Someone held up a tooth brush and a towel. �Did anyone leave these in the bathroom?� A man raised his hand and gladly took the hard-to-replace items. It was time to go to work.

Scarcity and its Cousin Crime

Crime increases wherever food scarcity exists. Cuba is no different. With the generalized scracity of goods and special period cutbacks, morality becomes shaky.  Crime had soared so alarmingly that the Communist party took the issue up publicly. Stealing had become so common, especially food meant for common distribution, that stealing was not considered as such but simply seen as �resolving a problem�.

It had become customary for passer-byers to take what they could from the fields, and many farm workers did likewise. After the first year of the special period, the vice-minister of agriculture reported that an estimated two million chickens had been robbed from aviaries, double the number the previous year.

Guards were now posted in farm areas. In the beginning only two guards patrolled GIA-2 at night. After crops began to disappear and the first ox was slaughtered and carted away, the number of guards increased to 16. They took turns patrolling around the clock. Production was affected with this loss of 16 workers. At first, guards carried loaded rifles or shotguns but after the first thief was shot by a working guard, authorities took the bullets away. The shooting death occurred in another province and the local people believed it was unnecessary punishment. The fact that local and national authorities listened and responded in kind was an encouraging sign for democracy and humanistic tolerance about punishment.

Armed or not, guards could not keep banana bunches from disappearing from our plantation. Every once in a while, clothing and precious soap were taken too. The worst theft was that of a brand new Chinese bicycle. Pedro had left his bicycle in his cubicle without locking it. When he returned from working the tomato field it was missing. Geerken suspected someone and confronted that person. At first denying responsibility, the suspect admitted his deed after Geerken threatened to summon the police to check his family�s house where, in fact, he had stashed the bicycle. Our disciplinary committee voted unanimously for his expulsion. A report of his deed was written, which would follow him to his next place of employment. The committee voted not to recommend a trial, which could have resulted in a jail sentence.

Feeding Havana

Personnel turnover was another destabilizing problem. Of the original 120 founders, nearly 100 stuck out their two year commitment. But those who came after the initial period were not so consequential. Several hundred volunteers had come and gone in the second two-year period. Nevertheless, general performance and production levels were among the very best of these volunteer collectives. Ag�ero tried to make sense of this apparent contradiction.

�The majority leave simply because the work is too hard and the sun too hot. A few leave because they would prefer another task than the one they were assigned. Some leave because of illness or family troubles. Married couples split up because so much time away from one another is a drain on the relationship. My own marriage is on rocky terrain.�

�A few leave because they weren�t real volunteers,� Ag�ero continued. �Not many, but some have been encouraged to come because they had no other work or this was a condition for parole from prison. About 100 have been booted out because of bad behavior: excessive drunkedness leading to anti-social behavior; slapping women about and similar acts of violence; a couple cases of thievery, and a few for having sexual relations in cubicles. Leadership here is strict but not rigid or formalistic. We are strict enough to get the job done and win a few `best� awards.�

Batabano�s state vegetable and fruit farms are a microcosm of government-run collective farms the nation over. In an interview with the party-appointed municipal agricultural director, Aldolfo Montalvo, he told me frankly how farming had been developing.

�Before the special period and the food plan this agricultural zone was cultivated by 105 permanent farm workers, supplemented, like all other farms, by school children, who are hardly proficient. Now, we�ve got more hands than we ever dreamed. The permanent force is 150 and they have received a wage hike. They are re-enforced by about 2,000 volunteers who commit themselves for from 15 days to two years. These are mainly adults who come from cities. At peak times, we are sent soldiers as extra hands. Most soldiers assist in agricultural throughout the nation and the army has its own farms, which produce most of the soliders� food.

�Like all other areas we have received more fertilizers, herbicides, farm equipment, and oxen in substitute for less petroleum.�

The area�s 200 caballerias (8000 hectares) yield has doubled to 20,000 tons in this new period. GIA-2 with 900 hectares of land is more than ten percent of the land in use.

�There is no doubt that we are spending more money than is cost efficient for the increased production. Nor do I foresee a break-even point in the near future. However, right now we are most concerned about feeding the entire city and province of Havana.�

NOTES:

1. Excerpted from speeches Che gave to workers as the Minister of Industry, taken from �Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution�, seven volumes published in Havana by Editorial Ministerio de Az�car.

� Copyright 2007 by AxisofLogic.com

(Photos and related notes added by Axis editors)

Read the Biography and Additional Articles by Axis of Logic Columnist, Ron Ridenour. Also, in the near future read additional installments to this interesting series on Ron's volunteer farm work in Cuba.