Where do they buy the food?

I think that part of the reason I liked Isla de la Juventud more is that it looked poor, there were no pretences about it, so it didn't bother me so much that everything was slow and (I hate this word) primitive. Havana, however, pretends to be a modern city, so the begging and the awful service and bureaucracy are all rather irritating.

Houses in Havana vary from colonial to new, from ramshackle to well-kept. Diane's house is beautiful, and a huge contrast to the houses elsewhere in the city with extensions cobbled together from corrugated iron. Harry was so proud of his roof terrace because it had been so hard to acquire the materials for it. These extensions require so much ingenuity to make something worthwhile from limited materials. All the houses Castro built in the 1960s are badly in need of maintenance now - polyfilla and a lick of paint would make a massive difference but where do you get them from?

In fact, I'm not quite sure where you get anything from. The mountains on Isla de la Juventud are made of marble, so there's plenty of that (so odd having what we consider to be a luxury material but no bricks), but we couldn't even find any cheese or meat or fruit yesterday. Well there had been fruitsellers on the street earlier in the day, but where do our hosts get meat? Surely they don't buy it on the street? At least I hope not.

Four Brothers is on TV. I'm finding it quite confusing because the screen is far away so everyone looks the same. Oh my goodness, the film has ended and been replaced with a large man with a big shiny red shirt, a flat cap and a big scary smile flapping his arms as he walks through a cartoon space background. Perhaps I've taken too many anti-histamines.