Hello everyone this is Marjory Wildcraft
and today I am sending you a video from
Havana, Cuba.
Why Cuba?
Well, in 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed,
Cuba basically lost like 70 percent of its imports of oil.
It lost all its pesticide imports and chemicals,
tractors, tractor parts,
almost everything else,
and most especially food.
Almost everything else
that a modern society needs in order to survive.
Cuba, like many other countries in the world,
had sacrificed its own local food production
for large scale mono crop cultures of agriculture
for their main product which was sugar
which they exported out.
Right after the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the loss of all those imports,
to make things worse,
the United States in 1992 tightened its embargo.
We did not send any help.
We made things worse for them.
And their main export crop which was sugar;
the price of sugar on the world markets has been falling steadily
as the use of high fructose corn syrup
and other artificial sweeteners
has taken its place.
So the Cuban people were between a rock and a hard place
and there was very little help
from the international community.
Want to talk about a scenario
that may possibly happen in the United States?
You know if the US undergoes economic collapse,
who is going to come in
and help the United States?
So there are a lot of parallels here
that we need to look at.
I’ve been --
As a result, by the way, of this economic crisis,
Cuba has come out on the other end
and they are now, by necessity, but they are
the undisputed world leader in sustainable urban agriculture.
They currently feed about half --
Half of their country is fed from local food production
and the vast majority of that comes from very small plots;
either backyard gardens,
or small local cooperatives,
or small state run farms --
and they have various set ups
for how they do that.
And I’ve been visiting those farms,
and visiting those backyard gardens,
and talking to these Cubans to see --
One thing that has struck me universally
as I’ve been touring around is:
you know we talk about reuse, recycle;
and these people have really taken it.
One of the first things
when you come into Havana
that’s going to strike you immediately is after 1959,
they really didn’t have a lot of imports of cars.
And you’ve got
a bunch of American cars here
from the 50s and the 40s,
even the 30s and the 20s,
still running.
A lot of Cubans themselves even admit
it’s a minor miracle.
And I have to say that I did see a lot
of them being repaired.
You see that classic thing that I used to see a lot as a young girl,
is a couple of guys
underneath the hood of a car.
And the Cubans themselves
they have a wonderful sense of humor.
They say when you open the hood of one of these things
it’s no longer the original American engine.
It looks like the United Nations.
There is Japanese parts, European parts, Chinese parts,
bailing wire and duct tape in there
fixing those cars; but they still run.
It’s almost a miracle.
Another thing that I saw over and over again,
very simple things you wouldn’t think of here,
for example are some bottles.
Look at that that’s an old Corona beer bottle.
They are reusing those over and over again.
This in particular at this farm at this cooperative,
they were filling these up with their tomato sauce that they made.
And yes, the hygiene that they use,
they are very careful with this
and they are very conscious about hygiene.
They’re very careful with that type of thing.
Here’s another funny --
This is using old Winnebago windows for windows,
and they incorporated these into a building here.
And yes, you know when you don’t have tractor parts
you just don’t use tractors anymore.
And horses and oxen are used extensively,
not only in the rural areas,
but also in the city.
Almost every one of the urban cooperatives
that we went to
that was of a large size
of more than a few acres
had either a horse or an ox
that they were using
for doing their plowing and tilling.
And because even today getting tractor parts and tractors
is very very difficult.
There also is some horse transportation.
I saw some here in the city of Havana.
Of course, out in the countryside
it was much more common
to have a cart and a horse and a rig setup,
or people just riding simply around on horseback.
And there's so many examples --
One final one,
which I just love the Cuban sense of humor,
is here is the official national newspaper,
The Granma.
And the Cuban people say, "Yes we use this,
we crumple it up,
and we use it for toilet paper."
And they say that
Cuban bottoms are the most highly educated bottoms in the world.
So I'll be having a whole series of videos for you on this country.
It's so rich
and my experiences here have been incredible.
I've got several interviews,
deep involved interviews,
with Cubans that talk about the special period
that they went through;
and actually they're not really out of it
at this point in time.
And for those interviews,
I'll have them posted up here for you
coming up very shortly,
but you know some of them are very poignant.
Can you imagine being a parent
and having small children
and not being able to feed your children?
They'll be talking about those kind of experiences.
Cuba in the summertime,
very hot and humid climate;
can you imagine what a very dense urban population
that doesn't have basic necessities such as soap
to wash their bodies or clothes,
and what is that like?
So they'll be talking about some of the hardships
that they went through
and how they overcame it.
And I've always asked them
what advice they would have for US citizens, Americans,
in the event that we should undergo such a difficult journey.
I’m Marjory Wildcraft.
Subscribe to the channel;
you'll be the first one to know when the next videos come out.
I look forward to seeing you on the next segment.