Granma had been totally decorated in honour of Fidels Speech with slogans littering the houses and the streets thanking Fidel for his work and vive-ing the revolution. Apparently he hasnt given a speech in Granma for 20 years so people were pretty excited about seeing him. our luck had come in yet again after a mess up with the casa particulars but we managed to stay in a not so legal casa particular with yet another lovely kind Cuban (who could get into a lot of trouble). The anniversary was another great reason for the Cubans to hold a fiesta.
We got up at 5am and went with a Cuban woman and her daughter to the Plaza de la Revolution. The daughter was wearing the socialist red like everyone else but I couldnt help notice the Adidas trainers and Nike socialist top. We were all given flags to wave. It was pretty dam exciting that we were getting the chance to see Fidel, even if it meant that the speech may go on for several hours ( I heard Fidel has the world record for a speech at something like 8+ hours), anyway we had a picnic no problem. My history is a little shady but Granma is an important place in Cuba as its where Fidel and his comrades landed a ship and set up a base leading to the fall of the Batista regime and the beginning of socialism in Cuba.
I was really interested to see peoples´ reactions to Fidel as over he last few weeks so many people had told us about the difficulties and poverty in Cuba but there was enthusiasm to see the man. Cubans are pretty flamboyant, at the ceremony that was lots of on-que flag waving and giggles about the length of the speech.
Fidel spoke for nearly 3 hours, those of us with spanglish tried to keep up with the endles figures being listed and the promises to lower the price of fridges but if there was something more substantial im afraid I didnt understand it... and me and Moniek fell asleep...and so did some of the Cubans..well it was hot! When fidel cracked a joke and promised only 20mins more we all woke and began flag waving again.
Despite having a sore thorat he seemed to be going pretty strong, but a week later it was announced he had been taken into hospital for an operation and it was serious, Fidel was handing over power temporarily to his brother Raul. There was endless announcements on the TV and radio and people were even made to pledge their allegiance to the continuation of the revolution before getting on a ferry I took back to the mainland. In Havana some people were crying as they were scared of what would happen with the promised invasion by the U.S once Fidel was out of the way and Raul deosnt seem to be too popular either. The lastest news i´ve heard that Fidel is recovering from his operation.
