3/8/16

Martes 3/8/16

On Tuesdays the fumigators come through our neighborhood. Before class we need to be sure that all of our food is stowed away in boxes, hidden in the cupboard beneath our sink with all the dishes. A couple guys meander house to house, dressed in olive green uniforms, adorning their short brimmed canvas caps to match—a look signifying they are state workers, a uniform design that probably hasn’t changed since the early days of the Revolution. When they show up, you must leave the house, regardless of what you are doing. They have shown up at la casa de Charleston during class, another time when we were home after class making lunch, and last week it was while we were at the market, so upon returning we found out we were barred from entering. They run on a strictly Cuban schedule, which means that they come when they come. The Cubans whose days are interrupted don’t seem to mind either—they run on the same go-with-the-flow Cuban schedules as well. So Rachel and I, in order to cope with the uncertainty, have elected to make Tuesdays our wifi-adventure days (the day I get to post all of these blurbs). For now, that just means about a mile and a half walk up Avenida Cinco to Palco Hotel, where we can buy an hour of internet for 4.50CUC, and a Mohito for another 1CUC (we pronounce CUC ‘kook’, or spell it out in Spanish, pronouncing it something like ‘seh-oo-seh’).

So, while I am sitting comfortably in the lounge of a hotel, down the road in Nautico these men dressed in solid green fatigues are entering our houses with giant contraptions that look like archaic leaf blowers, that leave behind a pungent gasoline-based chemical smell. The windows and doors of the houses they enter should stay boarded up for 40 minutes to an hour after they leave. When you return later, airing everything out and wiping everything down is a must. Poor Simba, Angie’s little “teenager” dog (about 3 or 4 years old) spends the rest of the day cowering in fear because of the smell that lingers. However bad the fumes they cloud the house with are, everyone in our home is healthy and happy, Denga and Zika free.