Cuba—in late November and early December I spent two weeks there to attend the International Permaculture Conference and Convergence and participate in the related tours. The IPC meets roughly every two years. In 2011 we were in Jordan, and the theme was drylands. In 2013, Cuba was the choice because Cuba turned to urban agriculture and permaculture after the Soviet Union fell and it lost both its major source of petroleum and its major markets. We gathered there to meet, to learn from other permaculturalists around the globe and to see some of the projects our Cuban friends have developed.
One of the beautiful old cars of Cuba!
Cuba—for so long it’s been one of those places you can’t go to, not legally, not if you are a US Citizen. But now the barriers have been loosened and you can go for educational or professional reasons. Like many others from the Bay Area, I booked with Global Exchange and the Eco-Cuba network who arranged the flights, the paperwork, guides, busses, etc. Without going into the boring details of the many travel glitches and logistical problems we encountered, let me just say that Global Exchange and Eco-Cuba Network folks were great. They coped with a thousand problems, swung with the punches and took fabulous care of us under great difficulties! I would highly recommend them if you are ever thinking of going on one of their Reality Tours to Cuba or elsewhere.
My ideas about Cuba were still stuck somewhere in the dusty images of earnest young radicals cutting cane on the Venceremos Brigade and beret-capped revolutionaries stalking through the jungle. Somehow I had not quite grasped that we were going to a lush, gorgeous tropical island with fabulous beaches that had become a major tourist destination for the rest of the world. Fortunately, I did pack a bathing suit!
But for the first few days, I didn’t have much opportunity to use it. We were in Havana, at a three-day conference packed with information and overwhelmed by more than 500 participants.
Some of the highlights: hearing from the Cubans how they survived the ‘Special Period” after the Soviet Union fell by growing food in and around their cities and shifting to organic agriculture. Meeting up with Robin Francis from Australia whose amazing permaculture site I’d visited ten years ago and hearing her present both the grim facts about climate change and the permaculture strategies. Reconnecting with Robin Clayfield from Crystal Waters in Australia who led an interactive session on social permaculture. Hearing Albert Bates from The Farm in Tennessee on biochar and Darren Dougherty’s presentation on keyline and grasslands.
And Cuba itself—vintage cars on the streets, waves spilling over the seafront walk on the Malecon, music everywhere. Great bands in our hotel, a little salsa dancing while waiting to go out to dinner, heading down to the old town for Flamenco and walking through cobbled streets lined by balconied buildings like a bit of old Spain.
After three days indoors, we were eager for our daylong tour of urban agriculture sites in and around Havana. We visited a working class neighborhood in the west where many people had developed small, urban permaculture gardens, ‘sistemas’, they call them, systems. I’m not so familiar with the tropical plants myself but my strategy was to stick close to John Valenzuela of the Rare Fruit Growers who hails from the North Bay and knows everything!
John Valenzuela.
Or if he doesn’t, Brock Dolman of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center does. And so does my dear friend Penny Livingstone-Stark of the Regenerative Design Institute.
Penny Livingston-Stark in her palm leaf hat!
Brock Dolman and John Valenzuela show a little leg!
We visited three small gardens in one of the suburbs of Havana. I admired what Blanca had done in a small space while caring for a son with developmental problems.
Bianca’s sistema.
Bianca’s little pond.
Another ‘sistema’, called, “My Dream” in Spanish, combined a lush, tropical food forest with raised beds. And finally we went to the home of the Sanchez family, who have turned their yard into a permaculture teaching site.
Banana trees and recycled hanging planters.
In the afternoon, we visited an agroponico, one of the urban farms where much of Cuba’s produce is grown. In the nineties, they were producing something like 70% of their food in and around their cities. But, as one of our guides admitted, they weren’t eating that much. Now, alas, they are back to importing something like 60%, but the urban farms remain.
Beds of lettuce at the agroponico.
And then we were on to the convergence, five more days of presentations, discussions, long talks in long lines waiting for food, interludes at the beach or the pool, and at night—dancing! My high point of the trip: Bianca told me I was a good dancer, and one of the Cuban men said I danced like a Cuban girl!
Bianca and me!
At the convergence: Robin Clayfield from Crystal Waters in Australia looking beautiful in blue!
Yoga on the beach at the convergence.
Pandora Thomas and I presented a session together on social permaculture and building diversity in the movement, which was well-received.
I also led a spiral dance, and immediately afterwards faced a line of Cuban women asking me for advice on how to energetically cleanse themselves and how to ground before sleeping. One thing I loved in Cuba is that Santeria is accepted there as a religion—with more followers than Catholicism. There’s a respect for spiritual and energetic forces that all the years of Communism hasn’t dented.
Santeria altar at the agroponico.
Then on to more tours. Matanzas, where a permaculture food forest is planted to protect amazing, crystalline underground caves! Sancti Spiritus, where Edith, one of the women I’d danced with, has turned a flower farm into a permaculture farm with the first earthen building in Cuba. We saw another site where they are building a model house/classroom out of recycled materials, and a permaculture car wash.
Edith at the flower farm converted to a permaculture center.
Mandala garden at Edith’s permaculture center.
At the permaculture car wash, water is cleaned and recycled.
On our final day, we were taken high up into the tropical rainforest for a tour of a preserve that focuses on medicinal plants, and a lively herb walk. At the end, a few of us shared a quiet, stolen moment in a cave where long ago slaves had hidded to celebrate their ceremonies. We took a moment to honor their spirits, then hurried back along a beautiful path by the stream to get back to our busses.
Bromeliads in the rainforest–anti-inflammatory, and also burn fat! Gotta get some!
Bromeliads and orchids!
I’m going to try to find more time to write up some of my thoughts from the conference. Overall, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to meet with so many amazing people from around the world, and to see the wonderful work Cuba has done with permaculture and with all the ways it takes care of its people.
Non-carbon transport!
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