Permaculture in Cuba: Urban Agriculture in Havana
Photos from the first permaculture courses in Cuba, 1994
In late 1994 the first permaculture courses were taught in Cuba.
This one was a five day course with 15 participants.
Compost heaps (under the straw)
On the left, Dimitri Papademitriou, Australian trainer.
Beside him, Fernando Funes, teaching this class on compost.
Big worm farms.
Class on ferment and food preservation.
Azucar == (Levadura) => Alcohol + CO2 + H2O
Sugar == (yeast)
This lesson will come in handy later.
The practical part(y) of this class was to make beer.
Building the first mandala garden in Cuba.
This circle garden in Santa Fe, a suburb of Havana, is 20 metres wide,
and is covered in a layer
of freshly cut long grass, serving as mulch. See how red the soil is.
There is pumpkin and sweet potato ("calabaza" and "boniato")
growing on the verges on the right. And a cassava ("yuca") fence behind.
And banana trees on the right, too.
The first mandala garden in Cuba.
A typical bunch of Cubans
- the course participants are standing behind the mandala garden,
at Cinco Palmas, Santa Fe, a far Eastern suburb of Havana,
a hundred metres from the sea.
Look at how dry the soil is!
The mulch they put on before has rotted away in the tropical climate of Cuba.
- without the mulch, it'll be so much work and use lots of water to keep it moist,
and the soil will be damaged by the sun, and washed away when it does rain.
Roberto Perez, editor of Se Puede magazine, is third from the right.
Permaculture Course, Cuba Style - having a break
A typical bunch of Cubans
- the course participants - 16 people, cups in hand. a dog. 2 behind still working.
In front of bananas tree, crushed oil drum & wooden frame in foreground.
Olguita Suarez (ex-ICIODI, ex-GOPF, ex-FNH, still the best)
and Roberto Seiveright (of ICAP) squatting.
Learning about mandala gardens in the classroom.
This is in fact the course evaluation session.
The course particiapants rated the course between 1 and 5 by:
Ambiente, Contenido, Profesores, Metodo, Participacion.
(ie. Feeling, Content, Teachers, Method, Participation).
See the little boy who's listening in.
The party after the course
- an essential part of Cuban culture
- drinking beer (made during the course) and rum
and dancing to Merengue, Son and Salsa music.
Those are chicken and bird cages behind them
Luis Sanchez, of Santa Fe, has his arms up.
Luis is the local urban agriculture extension officer employed by the Ministry of Agriculture.
Luis toured Australia later in 1994 - brought by the Cuba Green Team.
The Cuba Green Team is the support group and management committee for the ACF Cuba Program.