Cuba

“No es facil” (It isn’t easy) is a common refrain in Cuba. More so than any other country I have visited, Cuba throws up unanswered questions and forces you to look within, at your own belief system. A closet socialist and an admirer of Cuba’s determined stance against the bullying, destabilizing tactics of its powerful neighbor, I came here prepared to fall in love with the country and its people. However, the more I saw, the more, the realization dawned that this system was simply not working. It’s not like me to be pessimistic and in my admittedly short visits to places I tend to focus on the positive. So what was it about Cuba that churned me up so?
Cuba certainly has more than its fair share of the positives. The country is a photographer’s delight and one can be trigger happy here, looking at life through colorful frame after frame. It’s all undeniably beguiling, especially with a Mojito or Cuba Libre (made with good Cuban Ron) in hand.
The humor, pride, and the sheer physical beauty of its people are one of its biggest assets. Cubans, who range in color from blue-black to café con leche to milky white, seem truly racially integrated in a way that few countries achieve. Cuba provides its citizens with free medical benefits, housing and a monthly food ration. The state provides free education and there is about 97% literacy. One fact among many jumped out at me: There are over 400 million illiterate women worldwide and not one of them is Cuban. No slouch in the natural beauty department, Cuba has the feel of a Caribbean island with its famed coastline of soft white sand, azure waters and lush tropical vegetation. And just when one tires of plains dotted with sugar cane and tobacco fields, there are cool mountains to escape to, like the Sierra Maestra range that sheltered guerillas during the revolution.
Cuba is infused with music. It blares out of radios from every house and bands, good, bad, indifferent play in bars and restaurants every where. Major towns have a Casa de la Musica and a Casa de la Trova which play traditional music (Son, Trova and Afro Cuban) to packed audiences. Towns have colonial buildings, huge parks, open plazas and cobbled streets where folks gather to gossip while kids play improvised games of baseball, with nothing more than a stick and a bottle cap. Soccer, chess and marbles are popular too, and we often saw groups of men aggressively slamming tiles in hotly contested games of dominoes.
It was fiesta time in June when the three of us arrived and alcohol flowed in the streets of Trinidad and Camaguey with strangers happily sharing swigs of beer with us. Beer was sold in trucks bearing huge vats and people scrambled over each other in their eagerness to fill jerry cans and bottles with this inexpensive, golden elixir. Pigs roasted whole, stared beadily at us even while being shredded into sandwiches. Pizzas, pork, rice and black beans and ice cream were imbibed in staggeringly huge quantities. At night the plazas came alive with scantily clad teens moving their bodies to latin pop and salsa. We joined revelers in Congo processions down the streets and gawked at floats and bands in the parades. On one very special night, we witnessed the rueda, aka the Casino, which is the infinitely complicated and very beautiful salsa, danced in circles. Another magical afternoon in Santiago, by sheer luck, we chanced upon energetic rehearsals of Cutumba, a world famous Afro-Cuban folkloric dance group.
Cubans seem born with the ability to move with grace and rhythm and it’s a common sight to have people just get up and dance in restaurants when the mood strikes. And no matter how much we tried, we failed to achieve the skill that enabled them to shake from head to toe in the frenzied manner of a person electrocuted.
As one can imagine, people are pretty relaxed about sex too and the official age of consent for girls is 14. In a parody of their mothers, even little girls of 3 and 4 strut around dressed provocatively and kids couple up from 9 or 10 onwards. Machismo rules and men leer and make suggestive comments at all women who pass by. It reached a point, when our lone male had to claim both us women as his own to avoid more unwelcome attention.
Religion is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Cuban culture. The state relaxed its stance on atheism in 1992 and believers were allowed to join the ranks of the communist party. Every house we visited had a picture of Christ or the Virgin and the Pope’s visit in 1998 seemed to have been a cataclysmic event in this predominantly Catholic nation. It was strangely moving to visit the serene shrine of the patron saint of Cuba, La Virgen de la Caridad in the mining town of El Cobre. In a little room, believers had provided offerings like metal sculptures of body parts, golden statues of guerrillas (apparently Castro’s mother had made one for the safety of her son), degree certificates, a TV, a balsa wood raft sculpture (our guide book surmised that the person made it safely across the straits of Florida) and even an Olympic medal. There was also a poster with a map praying for the release of prisoners of conscience held in locations all over Cuba.
The nation has a young history which seems alive in a way that’s alien to those of us from older civilizations. The poster boy of the revolution is of course, Che Guevara and he is everywhere, on murals, postcards, posters, propaganda hoardings and on the red 3 peso notes that hustlers sell on street corners. Ironically, the Marxist icon has become a consumer product. Children in schools are exhorted to “Be Like Che” but I suspect our hero’s rakish good looks and early death have contributed to the legend. With his fundamental honesty, I am convinced that even Comandante Che would have been terribly disillusioned with the state of Cuba today.
The airport in Habana was modern despite painfully slow immigration procedures. Officials did not stamp our passports and we were issued tourist cards instead. The airport was festooned with flags of different nationalities and there was even one of the US (I checked!). There were visa only ATMs and modern Korean air-conditioned taxis. The drive to Centro Habana started to reveal more. Hundreds of people wait in queues for two humped buses called Camellos that arrive already filled past capacity. Tourists have their own special buses and are thankfully exempt from the ordeal of using public transport. Vintage Corvettes and Chevys ply the streets. Dilapidated old colonial buildings looking dangerously shaky assault the senses. In the city center, run down restaurants serve up meager fare and vegetables like tomatoes and potatoes ubiquitous everywhere else, seem a rarity. But it’s the raw need you see in every face that gets to you. Children, men and women in the street are desperately trying to sell you something or asking for money and goods. This is what proud Cubans have been reduced to.
During the “special period” in 1990 after the fall of the USSR, Cuba went through times of great economic hardship. When the government decided to open its doors to tourism as a means of filling empty state coffers, it set in motion the double economy that both plagues and sustains Cuba today. Almost all hotels and restaurants are owned and operated by the state, which explains the terrible service everywhere. Not having enough state owned hotels and restaurants to cope with the tourist influx, the state has reluctantly allowed for some private enterprise. Casa particulars (B& B’s) and private restaurants (paladares) have sprung up everywhere and in spite of crippling taxes and restrictions, there’s fierce competition for tourist dollars. Paladares operate out of residences, are not allowed to have more than 12 tables, can’t employ people other than family members and are unable to serve shrimp, lobster or beef. And we had wondered why hamburgers sold in these places were made solely of ham!
Cuba has a dual currency system where tourists use CUCs or Cuban Convertible Pesos (8 CUCs = 10 UD$) and the general population uses local pesos called Moneda National (about 26 local pesos= 1 CUC). Our outdated guidebooks were wrong and US dollars were not in circulation at all. Government monthly salaries are capped in the range of about 45 CUCs and people have to try and supplement this income. As we paid about 15-25 CUC per night for a room, casa particular owners are earning several times what their compatriots are and this has created a dual economy. Homes we stayed at were plush, with air conditioners, televisions, camcorders, washing machines, fridges and often servants too. Our hosts lived well and provided tables laden with foods like lobster and shrimp for us. We saw for ourselves in supermarkets that consumer goods and foods were available in Cuba, but only some could afford to buy them. People without access to tourist money are forced to beg or supplement their income illegally. The dual economy has created a class system, something the revolution fought so hard against. On the positive side, prices of many goods and services are regulated and have been the same for years. A trip to the famed ice cream parlor, Copelia, in Santiago was an eye-opener as we saw even skinny waifs tucking away 8 scoops of ice cream with ease. All this gluttony cost only a few local pesos.
Inefficiency is rampant, in government offices everywhere. For every job, there are several personnel, who do little other than sit around and chat. The only efficient business we saw was that of the Partagas cigar factory. Cigar rolling is a serious, skilled business and workers have to pass exams and tests to qualify. Every Thursday, workers are entertained by performers, but contrary to popular rumor, cigars are not rolled on the thighs of virgin mulatto beauties. Like everywhere else in Cuba, workers in the factory were obsessed with the results of the World Cup (Copa Mundial) and Brazil was a hot favorite.
Back on the road, plush casa particulars coexist with glorified shanties on the same street. We were curious about homes and how they had been allotted and were told that families stayed on in homes they owned prior to the revolution. Cubans are not able to buy or sell their homes and so growing families are forced to share living spaces. Many attribute the high divorce rate to cramped living conditions. People can trade homes, but a great deal of money passes hands illegally during such transactions. Poor people are forced into living in unhygienic and often unsafe homes because these are not exchangeable. Cubans are also restricted from moving towns without government permission. Just a few streets away from the beautifully renovated city center in Old Havana, are old apartment blocks that collapse with frightening regularity. A trip to rundown China town made even us, hardened veterans of poverty (from India!), blanch. Rural areas seem better off somehow. There are also tourist areas and beaches that are out of bounds for Cubans and these are supposedly hotspots of luxury.
We, like many other tourists, stuck to casa particulars recommended in our guide books or those recommended to us by these casa owners. It was annoying to be solicited so strongly by hustlers (jineteros) and we had started to ignore people who approached us in streets as we knew there was invariably a catch. The guidebooks recommended various strategies that we tried, but with little success. Later, we were shamed by some of well spoken educated jineteros who told us how hard it was to break into the market and how much they were harassed by local police. And so we talked to everybody, rebuffed some (especially offers of kisses!) and took other people up on offers to eat meals illegally at their homes. We were sometimes ripped off, but it was worth it. A strike for free enterprise and entrepreneurship!
While healthcare is free, medicines are very hard to come by and the monthly ration is woefully inadequate. People may be highly educated, but jobs are few. We met engineers who drove taxis and chartered accountants and professors who solicited us in the streets. Internet access is hard to get and international calling rates are among the highest I have ever seen. Corruption is endemic….even in the Capitolio National, the former seat of the government, the lady in the cloakroom openly asked for tips and then attempted to sell us 3 peso Che notes. In restrooms too you need to pay the attendants before you can get toilet paper or soap.
The wily Fidel Castro has always managed to turn things to his advantage, but politically Cuba seems poised on the brink of disaster. The daily struggle for survival is taking its toll. Everybody knows things will change after Castro (he is 80 after all) but nobody knows what direction this will take. They seem resigned to wait it out and while many openly criticize Castro, there is no doubt that he is also admired.
It’s hard to separate out how much suffering in Cuba is due to the US embargo and how much is due to a failure in governance. Both I suspect have played a role. And so the questions keep coming…What should good governance look like? Which political system works best? How socialist should a government be in order to protect those who need it? When and how much violence is justified in a revolution? Is violence justifiable at all?
But days later, back home as I walk around Singapore looking at its grim, unsmiling prosperous citizens, I can’t help but compare it to the love of life we saw reflected in hundreds of smiling, generous Cuban faces. So many we met who were willing to share their lives with us, like chain smoking Migdalia of midnight feasts and video games, Caridad mother of all tourists, the chess master of Santiago, hosts Humberto and Cari, serenading musician Eddy Mendoza, bicitaxi drivers, lusty taxi drivers and wily jineteros. I believe, the world has lessons in grace to learn from Cuba on how life is meant to be lived when things “no es facile”.