A whole month in Cuba and
only two blogposts!! That’s not like me …
Cuba
is a complicated country, and I’ve much to write about. But today – and I’ve
only been home a couple of days so my brain is still somewhere over the
Atlantic, even though my body has made it back safely – today I’ll just explain
the blog silence, and leave my musings for another time.
Computer
access is limited in Cuba – the Cubans themselves can only use the internet if
they show they need it for business or educational reasons. They realise that
most of their visitors see things differently, and access is possible for
tourists, though it is slow and expensive, and almost always involves a queue. It
also involves buying a scratch card – which is fine, unless the scratch cards
have run out, in which case it’s unlikely anyone will have any idea when more
will appear.
(Wifi? – only in one or two, select hotels. The sort of place I only slink into to use
the toilets.)
Most
computers are flat-screened and look efficient, but many of the keyboards have
letters missing – which is fine for those used to writing but a problem for
anyone who needs to look at the keys. They have to resort to guesswork. I got
into a muddle the first time I met a bare keyboard – my precious
internet seconds ticked away and all I could write was gobblegook.
And
then sites can take so long to load you’ve finished your tea before they're done. Than there
seems to be some arbitrary decision-making regarding which sites are
acceptable. To begin with I could access this blog but not write on it. Then I
could write but not publish it. Then it published it, but wouldn’t let me check
what I’d published.
Email
access was equally random. On two occasions I was able to open my inbox, try to
reply – and everything was fine until I actually wanted to write a message. On
that occasion I put the message in the subject line, and sent it that way.
So
I decided to keep internet access to an absolute minimum. Nothing terrible
would happen – those I know and love had my phone number and everything else
could wait.
Now
I’m home, and the blog-ball will get rolling again before long. For Cuba has
given me much to write about – I’d hate you to think that it was nothing more
than internet randomness!
