Unplanned visit to a Cuban farm

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Front of farmhouse
 As I mentioned in a previous post our tour bus broke down on the way to Holguin City. Our perplexed tour guide came up with an impromptu plan. Why not visit a typical Cuban farm? Marcelo made a discrete inquiry with a local farm and within minutes took everybody off the bus to see what a typical small Cuban farm really looked like.

What made this so fascinating was the fact that it was a completely unplanned and un-staged.. All of us got to experience, however briefly, a genuine Cuban farm.

The first photo shows the modest farmhouse which had a small living area, one bedroom and a galley kitchen. This was likely the original farmhouse and it was surprisingly compact. We were informed later that this was not the main farmhouse and that a larger, more modern and better equipped home was located about 100 meters away on the same property
Crop of some kind of spice
This was a very small farm of about two hectares. I cannot remember the crop but it was some form of root spice. Farmers in Cuban are now able to sell part of their crops on the open market following a new entrepreneurial initiative by the Cuban government about two to three years ago.

RCA TV 
The farmhouse is very modest. The only power we saw went to a TV / VCR, an electric pressure cooker and a couple of lights.
Modest cooking facilities
Laundry day

Laundry the old fashioned way

The day we visited was laundry day and of course it was done the old fashioned way, by hand. The clothes were either hung on a line or draped on a thorny hedge. Simple but effective.
An old sow

Sergeant Cluck 

There were a couple of old sows which which were bred, I presume, to supply pork to the family. This "guard" turkey followed us where-ever we went on the farm and we all suspected that it probably had secret police training.
The lady of the house

Our tour passengers
The lady of the farm was doing her daily chores and seemed unfazed by the unplanned visit. Finally this was our group as we trundled through this very quaint Cuban farm. This impromptu tour certainly added value to our day at Holguin City.

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