Cuba Si, Yankee…Also Sees

In December of 2001, I received a telephone call from Barbera Bennett, a friend who had been involved with other Department of Labor personnel in establishing  “English as a Second Language” programs in Eastern Europe (Primarily Poland, I believe). She said that the group wanted to open a similar program in Cuba. Someone had procured a permit that would allow about 20 people to enter Cuba to convince the Cuban government that an English as a second language program would benefit its citizens.  ( 🙂 ) Barbara said that fewer people had volunteered to take part in the venture than there were slots in the permit, and for a small sum, I could be folded into the group. Of course, I said something like, “When do we leave?” I never figured out if the permission was from Cuba, the US State Department, or both. I didn’t really care. It was otherwise illegal for US citizens to travel to Cuba, and it was unlikely I’d ever get another chance to see the country. Barbara said that she thought of me because I had already had plenty of experience exploring other countries and probably wouldn’t complain too much if the accommodations were a little rough. ( They weren’t). Once in Cuba, I learned that I was also invited along to meet one of Barbara’s friends who had just broken up with her boyfriend, a New York City firefighter. Her major complaint about him was that he was only happy when sailing his boat from place to place and never wanted to stay at any destination, no matter how comfortable it was there. I think I understood him better than I understood her, and there were two young women at our second hotel who were on vacation from their jobs at Yahoo, who I found to be much more interesting. I also spent as much time as I could away from the group to nose around Havana and didn’t socialize much if I didn’t have to. While we had Communist Party minders who herded us around the scheduled events, no one seemed to follow me or even care when I took off. Native Cubans didn’t appear to be so lucky.

Most of us flew out of Toronto, though a few flew in from Jamaica. Canadians had built a new Air Terminal in Havana. It was a typical modern structure, but I could see the old, romantic terminal across the tarmac. It was small and looked like it wouldn’t be out of place in an old Humphrey Bogart black and white movie. I would have preferred to disembark there. Our group leader told us to ask the inspector to stamp a separate piece of paper and not our passports at the immigration kiosk. The inspector nodded knowingly and passed me on through. I wondered, “Didn’t we have US government permission to be here?” I had my suspicions, but I still didn’t care. I was in Cuba! Our guides transported us to our first hotel, where we had a group meal and were forced to engage in some sort of square dance by a Russian lady. It was all a bit embarrassing and off-putting, but I felt it was a small price to pay to be able to photograph Havana.

As soon as I could desert the group, I went for a jog with my camera. I first encountered a couple of small coves where fishermen kept their boats. Most of the boats were small and worn out. The government probably owned the boats like it did nearly all businesses – even the restaurants we ate at, as I would soon learn.

We were told to bring small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, or small bars of soap that are part of the free toiletries hotels give away in the United States, not because the Cuban hotels didn’t provide these (they didn’t), but because you used these as “tips” for your servers and other service personnel. Since the government owned all the hotels and restaurants, any cash tips went directly to the government. Small toiletries were just too much of a hassle for the government to collect and redistribute, so they let staff keep them. They appreciated these types of tips greatly. Cubans traditionally value cleanliness a great deal (one Cuban told me that the thing they most disliked about the Russians was that “They come from a cold climate and don’t know how to keep clean here”). During the time I was there, the shampoo and other toiletries they needed to stay clean and fresh were hard to come by. As I jogged through the streets, it was obvious that Cuba’s economic system left much to be desired. The roads were potholed, houses were falling apart, and there wasn’t much traffic on the streets.

I reminded myself, however, that all economic systems contain unwoven holes made up of original defects or of former advantages that had now worn through. These flaws are no reason to ignore any remaining advantages of these systems. Cubans received free education, housing, and health care and did not have to suffer the kind of social indignity and inequality the poor often experience in Capitalist countries. I was also aware that some of Cuba’s lowered standard of living was due to the economic sanctions the United States had placed on the country and to the fall of the Soviet Union, which had resulted in a loss of the aid Cuba had formerly received from it. Paradoxically the loss of this aid sometimes resulted in a few unexpected positive consequences, though most of the time, they were as harmful as one would expect. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, it sent Cuba a large amount of food to feed the Cuban population (mostly canned vegetables and canned meat). When this aid stopped, the Cuban government was forced to establish public food gardens in the cities and throughout the country to keep its citizens from going hungry. These gardens weren’t very productive at first because the government didn’t have the hard currency to buy fertilizer or pesticides from other countries. It had no choice but to require its scientists to research organic gardening methods. As a result, at the time of my visit, Cuba had successfully cultivated the largest amount of organically managed acreage in the world. Rather unexpectedly, Cubans had a much healthier diet after losing the Soviet food aid than they did before.

Despite the hardships Cubans were experiencing, life went on in much the same fashion as it did in wealthier countries. I didn’t see much doom and gloom on the streets. I found more cheerfulness than I expected.

The next day I stayed with the group as it was escorted around central Havana. There were few tourists but a lot to see. I think I had stumbled into one of the best times for a tourist to visit Havana. One of the first locations we visited was a plaza where booksellers were selling used books. The government was beginning to loosen up on its restrictions on non-government-controlled businesses. Crafters could set up businesses on the sidewalk to sell hand-made crafts for hard currency. People could sell meals in their homes if their customers numbered less than three or four at a time. The government wasn’t exhibiting a change of philosophy about private enterprise. It just needed to gather as much hard currency as possible to purchase gasoline, food, and other necessities. The crafters were paid in dollars, euros, or pounds by tourists and used these hard currencies to purchase products not otherwise available from government-operated hard currency stores. These stores were originally set up for tourists to buy items they might run out of during a vacation but soon became popular with Cubans who had the wherewithal to purchase the otherwise scarce products sold there. As a result, those who had access to hard currency were developing a higher standard of living than those who did not. The government wasn’t happy about this societal change but needed to look the other way to avoid weakening the economy even more than it already was. I’m not sure if the booksellers were working for themselves or were government employees. They were set up in a high-traffic area (despite what the pictures might indicate), and I suspect that the government would want to have some control over the sale of books. Whatever the case, booksellers were an important part of the street scene in downtown Havanna.

We then traveled into the “old town” central plaza that had been restored to lure in tourists. Unfortunately for Cuba, the tourists had not yet arrived. I was struck by the contrast of activity here and what I had previously seen in European central squares. (See the previous chapter, “Recordando Italia,” if you have not already done so.

In the afternoon, we were transported to a college of fine arts outside of Havanna. It had been an exclusive country club during the pre-revolution years, and since it had been well maintained, it sharply contrasted the dilapidation of Downtown Havanna. There we saw students practicing their musical instruments in its courtyards and visited an art studio.

My sense that the College was meant to be a showpiece for tourists was reinforced when the group “happened upon” a student who spoke excellent English and who described how her accomplished instructors had helped her perfect her art and how many graduates of the school went on to professional success both in and outside Cuba. I recognized her as someone I had met on the New York City subway two years before. We had chatted at that time, and she told me that she was a Venezualian whose father was a college professor. She didn’t actually tell the group that she was a Cuban student, so I didn’t call her on it. I still don’t know how or why she was at the college for arts, but I’m sure it would be an interesting story. 🙂 Later that day, we stopped at a hard currency soda fountain. The sundaes and milkshakes cost around $3.00 each. Our guide said that Cubans have always loved ice cream and that the government managed several dairies that provide the raw materials used for its continued production. When I asked how Cubans could afford $3.00 milkshakes, she said that the government set up a couple of ice cream stands on Havanna’s streets, selling ice cream for about a nickel a scoop. She said we would pass one of those stands on our way to the next stop. We did pass the stand, where we saw people lined up for three blocks waiting for their nickel ice cream. I guess Cubans really do love their ice cream! We also visited the Christopher Colon cemetery that day. The cemetery was a veritable “city of the dead,” with streets separating mausoleums as big as buildings.

Many of the movers and shakers from Cuba’s past were buried here, though “buried” is a misnomer. Most of the bodies lie at ground level. This didn’t seem like a very good idea to me, given the hot climate. Although the lids seemed pretty tight and secure, I didn’t ask our guide why dead people remained above ground because I didn’t want us to linger there any more than we had to. That night I snuck out and found a ramshackle bar down the road from our hotel. I had a couple of beers there while listening to a group of young people conduct a jam session. The core of the group consisted of a young man on an old saxophone, a girl with a violin patched up with tape, two guys on bongoes, and a boy on trumpet. Several people with guitars and maracas joined and left the group as the night flowed on. Everyone, the musicians, the audience, the bartender had one hell of a good time. As I walked home, I concluded that I enjoyed being around Havana’s living much more than I did its dead. I joined the group again the next day as it began to visit elementary and high schools in its quest to establish an English as a second language program. I took a few pictures of the schools but spent most of my time looking for American cars from the 1950s that Cubans had been driving since that time because new cars were unaffordable for the average Cuban. They developed ingenious methods to keep them running, often machining new parts or modifying salvaged parts from other models. They had to resort to these tactics because they could not otherwise purchase parts from the US due to the trade embargo. Seeing so many old cars on the road caused me to experience brief flashbacks of my 1950s childhood: very brief ones. The bodies of these old-timers were often in pretty good shape due to the lack of snow and salt on the roads in Cuba. Cubans also took good care of cars that might be the last they could ever own. By 2001 this situation was changing. The government and Cubans who had gathered enough hard currency were beginning to import new cars. None from the United States, of course, but I did see new Toyotas and Volkswagons on the streets. I was glad to have been able to visit Cuba before the end of the 1950s car era.

This doesn’t mean that many individual Cubans owned cars. New cars cost as much as what most Cubans would earn over a lifetime (doctors were paid the equivalent of $25 per month), and gasoline was very expensive. Cars were so rare that Cuba was the only place in the world where the government encouraged hitch-hiking, as far as I know. In the rural countryside, you would often see gaggles of people waiting for rides. In fact, if a Cuban wanted to drive around alone and refuse to pick up riders, he could be fined for this selfish act. In between school visits, we stopped by the Hotel Nacional de Cuba for a few minutes. It is the most famous hotel in Cuba and the site of much history. It was shot up in 1933 when Cuban army officers revolting against Fulgencio Batista barricaded themselves inside while non-commissioned officers loyal to Batista attacked them. It was also the site of the “Havana Conference” called by Lucky Luciano, where he made himself “capo di tutti capi” of the Mafia (See Godfather part II). Later Meyer Lansky took over one wing of the hotel to operate its famous bar/nightclub/casino. The hotel’s guest list includes Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Mickey Mantle, Rocky Marciano, John Wayne, Marlena Dietrich, Marlon Brando, and Johnny Weismuller, to name a few. Castro closed down the casino, but even after the revolution, notables such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were guests at the hotel. We, on the other hand, were not allowed in. 🙂

The group’s mission to establish English as a second language was starting to fall apart. The group’s leaders had meetings with Cubans who may or may not have had the authority to approve such a program. We visited schools, observed classes, and witnessed folk dances by embarrassed students that had been staged for us. None of this mattered. Neither the schools nor the government demonstrated any interest in allowing a bunch of strangers from the US to set up an English as a second language program. Why would they? The US was continuing to strangle Cuba economically with its economic sanctions. Such a program could open up new avenues for the US to gather more intelligence information about Cuba or undermine the government’s message that the US was actively trying to weaken the Cuban economy.

At this time, the group moved or was moved to a beach resort area about 35 miles east of Havana. Our bus driver made the mistake of pulling into the driveway of a large, recently built hotel across the street from the 1950s era motel where we ended up. The group’s leader then proceeded to waste an hour arguing with our minders and the motel staff that we were supposed to stay in the new hotel. I believed that she was trying to save face in front of a group of people whose expectations had been raised by the glitzy facade of the new hotel. While the group leader was shouting and stamping her feet, I looked at the girl behind the desk and smiled. We both knew that this loud nonsense was going to end with us staying at the motel. She slipped me my room key while we watched American diplomacy unfold. 🙂 After this point, the group’s only purpose as far as Cuba was concerned was to spend hard currency on Cuban-made products like any other tourist. I signed up for a guided tour of Ernest Hemingway’s hose for which I can find no photos. I remember our guide arguing with the lady who normally would take money at the gate. I think she said we couldn’t take pictures because she didn’t collect the money we paid for the tour. I did, however, step onto Hemingway’s boat “The Pilar” and looked at the titles in his library. I also took a more interesting day trip to the south-western end of the island, where our first stop was a factory for hand-rolled cigars. The factory resembled many of the old glove and leather good sweatshops in my hometown of Gloversville, New York. I didn’t see any fire extinguishers or easy exits if there were a fire. The workers were scrambling to make the number of cigars they needed to make their piece-rate while busloads of tourists passed by gawking at their labor.

The tour unsurprisingly ended in the factory store where we were given an eternity to view and purchase cigars. I don’t smoke, so I fled to the street outside the factory to take more interesting photographs.

After we finally left the factory, the tour took us to the Vinales valley, a true photographic delight. The valley contains dozens of “mogales,” limestone mounds created when tectonic forces pushed the shell-covered seafloor upward, and rain weathered the resulting soft limestone into its current shape.

Our tour of the Vinales valley ended with a stop at a mural painted by a local youth group on the side of one of the mogales. It depicted the evolution of life on earth, or more accurately, it “referred to” the evolution of life on earth. The mural was a bit rough but was colorful and stood out from the green hillsides.

The rest of our time in Cuba was spent in and around the beach area. I took a number of long walks up and down the beach, looking for something unusual to photograph. The beaches were uncrowded. Some were completely empty.

One day I walked about two miles down the road from our motel to a hard currency restaurant where I had lunch. The restaurant had a doorman with a revolver on his hip checking out the new arrivals. I wondered then and continue to do so today why the restaurant felt an armed guard was necessary. I decided to walk back on the beach back from the restaurant. At one point, I saw a group of young people lying on the top of the dunes that lined the beach. They were laughing and pointing at the sunbathers below. I looked around and saw that all the sunbathers were young men, many in speedos. There were no families, not even any women. I suddenly realized that this was a gay beach. This was worth a picture. Who knew Cuba had gay beaches? I pulled my camera off my shoulder and removed the lens cap. I know, I know. Photographing these guys was a shabby thing to do. I was intruding on their privacy and probably making them feel uncomfortable. Still, their privacy was already being violated by the youth on top of the dune, and..alright, that’s not a good reason either. Be assured that I was punished for my impropriety. As I raised my camera to my eye, three soldiers with rifles ran down from the scrub at the top of the dunes waving their hands and shouting, “No pictures. No pictures”. The first soldier who reached me held out his hand to take my camera. He then opened it up and pulled out all the film. He gave the camera back to me, but I had lost all the photos I had taken earlier that day. It was an appropriate lesson in manners that I won’t soon forget.

The rest of my time in Cuba progressed without any interesting incidents. However, one ironic moment did occur at the airport when one of our minders who had been disseminating the government story about how comfortable everyone was in Cuba gave our group leader some letters for her to mail once she got back to the United States. The flight to Toronto was normal in every way, but once we landed there, everything changed. US Customs agents were operating at the Toronto airport! They were checking selected people’s luggage to ensure they would not bring cigars or Cuban rum into the United States. This was a huge surprise for some of the group’s members. I didn’t worry because I don’t smoke and believe that Bacardi rum was just as good, if not better than Havana Club. The only Cuban product I brought back to the US was a wood carving I bought from a sidewalk hawker.No one seemed interested in it. Immigration pulled aside two of the group’s least suspicious members for questioning: a retired New York City school teacher and her husband, who had retired from a job at the United Nations. They were both in their 70s. I still have no idea what that was all about. I’ll probably never get to go back to Cuba, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to see it, particularly at that point in time. I hope you found my trip as interesting as I did.