Monthly Archives: February, 2014

THE CUBAN DIARY… WHERE THE REVOLUCIÓN STARTED!

By tedstrutz on | 7 Comments
at fidels''''

The Foreign Correspondent and her Mother

WHERE THE REVOLUCIÓN STARTED!

The Comandancia in the Sierra Maestra, near Bayamo

 I hike on the orange path, climbing over large rocks embedded in the dirt. I am almost wading through the slick mud. The weather is cool, refreshing to hike in. The view from the edge of the path is breathtaking, I could spend the whole hike just looking over the side into the valley below.
jungle
After about an hour of walking we reach a flat space that the guide says is a place for the helicopters to land. We walk past the helipad and get to a small wooden building, our guide opens the doors and we walk inside. It is dark inside, until our guide flings open the windows and grey light begins to fill the small room. As my eyes adjust to the dim light, I see that it is some sort of museum. There are old typewriters and a sewing machine. In the middle of the floor is a 3-D map of the Sierra Maestra. On the map there is a miniature flag, not the  Cuban flag, but the flag of the revolution, red and black, with 26 de Julio (26 of July) on it, marking the spot where the Comandancia is. 
cross
By the wall, is the memorial plaque for a soldier who died before the revolution ended. The memorial is a simple cross made of what looks like driftwood, with his name and the date he died engraved in Spanish on a tin plate that was probably his.  
fidels house
When we leave the museum our guide closes the windows and doors enveloping the room in darkness again. We continue on, and soon the guide stops and points to a place where there is no grass and there are rose bushes and says that it’s the grave of the man whose memorial we saw in the museum. We move on and come to the house of the secretary, it’s empty except for some shelves built-in to the walls. After this we reach steps made of the trunks of small trees stripped of their bark. We traverse these steps carefully as they are wet and slippery. After about ten minutes we reach another building, this one the guide also had to open, inside there is a kitchen and a bedroom, our guide explains that this was Fidel’s house.  We all got our picture taken with it, but we couldn’t go inside. We leave the house and pass a small building which the guide identifies as Fidel’s outhouse, so of course my papa has to get his picture taken with it.
outhouse
We move on and reach a building with the letters ACTL above the door, they stand for Administracion Central de la Tierra Libre (Central Administration of the Free Land), the former headquarters of the Revolution is now an old structure on the verge of collapse, it seemed amazing it had stood this long. After this we leave the Comandancia. It’s another long hike back to the car that brought us to the trail head, interrupted only by a short coffee break on the way down.
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Our Foreign Correspondent, Ula Grace, reports on her visit to Cuba with her parents Krista and Steve.
To see other stories… THE CUBAN DIARY
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For my friends on the Moonshine Grid

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THE CUBAN DIARY… LEAVING CUBA

By tedstrutz on | 3 Comments

Ua with Che

NOTEBOOK ~ LEAVING CUBA

As I leave Cuba, I think about these past few weeks and how amazing they have been. I think about all the dives we went on, the two wreck dives and seeing the ships loom out of the darkness perched on their underwater precipice. Horseback riding through fields of tobacco, trotting on the red muddy cart track, surrounded by cliffs of a reddish hue. Lounging in the sun on the white beaches of Varadero by the sparkling turquoise water. Walking through the sweltering streets of Havana, marveling at the crumbling façade on colonial buildings. The plane wheels are spinning faster and faster as we speed down the runway, the nose of the plane tips up and I sit with my body pressed against the seat, the seatbelt tight in my lap. We’re in the air flying at incredible speed, to me this is as normal as walking, I was flying soon after I could walk and then I learned to swim. I look down on the ocean and see the green spit of land that is Cuba recede from view and blue gradually became the only color in sight.

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Ula Grace

※  ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※

TedBook’s Foreign Correspondent, is on her way home, her mind filled with stories to tell.  She sends this dispatch as her plane takes off heading north.  More to come…

Ula’s earlier stories are here…

ULA GRACE… Foreign Correspondent

THE CUBAN DIARY… The Canvas

THE CUBAN DIARY… The Dance

THE CUBAN DIARY… Author Photo

Posted in: Ula Grace | Tagged: , , , ,

Weekly Photo Challenge: SELFIE

By tedstrutz on | 17 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: SELFIE

To join in, here is the prompt for the week:

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/weekly-photo-challenge-selfie/

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I just noticed… this is my 200th Post on WordPress…

I also have a PhotoBlog…  TedBook’s DAILY PICS  Although it has not been to ‘daily’ of late… I hope to get back on a daily basis soon…

Posted in: Photography | Tagged: , , , , ,

THE CUBAN DIARY… AUTHOR PHOTO

By tedstrutz on | 5 Comments

photo (2)

Foreign Correspondent Ula Grace

Finally news from Cuba!  TedBook’s Foreign Correspondent and Travel Editor, following in the footsteps of another author that spent time in Cuba and liked cats, here Ula is trying out Cuba’s most famous export.  We anxiously await her next post.

Guest Photographer… Krista Strutz

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Ula’s earlier stories are here…

ULA GRACE… Foreign Correspondent

THE CUBAN DIARY… The Canvas

THE CUBAN DIARY… The Dance

Posted in: Ula Grace | Tagged: , , , , ,

Friday Fictioneers: THIS OLD HOUSE

By tedstrutz on | 35 Comments

Lamps

THIS OLD HOUSE… a Drabble for Fri Fic

“Peter, get in here! This Old House is on, and they’re showing how to do siding.” The screen door banged shut.
The last thing Peter wanted to do was do siding. Maybe if he stalled they would be done doing siding by the time he got in the house.
“I know what you’re doing, I’m taping it.”
‘Shit! Time for Plan B’.

“Well, that doesn’t look too hard, maybe Jerry can help me.”
“No, Jerry can’t help you. Remember the antenna?”
“We had a little trouble.”
“You two were drunk!
‘Shit, Plan C.’ “Maybe you can help me.”
“Okay.”
‘Shit!’

✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥

friday-fictioneers

This week’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt courtesy of Dawn M. Miller.   “Write a one hundred word story that has a beginning, middle and end.”

 

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The Ending is here!

By tedstrutz on | 2 Comments

One of my favorite Canadian writers is writing a novel!  Check it out, and tell her I sent you!  Ted

Apoplectic Apostrophes

Coralie

My dear readers, today I’m writing a different kind of post.

I have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to help me raise the money to finish writing my novel, The Ending. Those of you who have been following my blog for a while may have already met some of the characters. For everyone else, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the four main characters in my novel:

You can also find a link to an excerpt from the book on my Kickstarter page.

There are some cool perks for the people who contribute, including an acknowledgment on my blog (and in the book when it’s published), a copy of one of my other books (both of which you can find here), a special, limited edition hard copy of the four character sketches above, and a chance to immortalize…

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