Economics With A Face

After lunch we headed back to our apartment and then from there back over to see Diana and Jose. They were happy to see us and were filling us up with coffee and cold water in no time. We began a long discussion that started very innocently, but towards the end had evolved into a passionate talk about the U.S. and Cuba.

They both saw Cuba in a much more positive light than many of the young people we met throughout Havana. We talked a good deal about how hard it was for Diana to go to the U.S. on a tourist visa to visit family. She had been rejected several times by the U.S. interest section that feared she would overstay her visa. She felt the dry land policy of the U.S. government was a ploy as it reinforces the image of Cubans risking their lives in order to reach Florida. Obviously there was no denying the fact that people in fact did risk their lives, but why the resistance to her visiting as a tourist then? She also said that the envelope she brought with proof of financial evidence that she would return to Cuba was never even opened.

We talked about Bush, whom they did not hold in high regard (no one we spoke with had). Jose mentioned that Bush always talked about liberty and democracy, but carefully leaves out independence and sovereignty. I tried to make the point that with true liberty and democracy, sovereignty and independence will naturally follow, regardless of whether Bush means it to or not, and that a sovereign nation is not necessarily free.

Emily directly asked them if ordinary Cubans could easily access international newspapers freely and access the internet. They said yes, that the constraints in Cuba were mostly of those of a developing nation whose people did not have the money to do such things. This was in direct contrast to what others had told us, and I found it hard to believe. They insisted it was true, that if a young Cuban had the money they were free to march up the steps of the Capitolio and access the internet. It would have been an interesting experiment to see if one of the young Cubans we met could have accompanied us to the use the computers because this seems to be the exact sort of thing that people were being stopped by the police for.

Diana also spoke of her job as a librarian in the National Library and that her job was to keep on file the best articles for investigators that she could find, no matter the source. While these articles were from more technical journals, she said that they were open to anyone who could use the national library system. Again, she stressed that the outside world thinks that Cubans are shut off intellectually, but it is not the case. Friends had computers and internet in their homes and could access whatever websites they would like.

You could tell she loved her former job, as she loved her current one of renting out their casa particular. At one point, when I was asking about the taxes they had to pay for their rental, she replied that while they were very high, she tried not to think about it. If she worried that in the U.S. or another country she could make a better living, then maybe she wouldn’t do it at all. But for her it was a way to stay active and to earn a better living, so it was worth it.

As we were leaving some friends of the family arrived, a doctor and his wife who was a nurse. We spoke of how much we had learned in our week in Cuba and the doctor told me that in order to really learn about a country you need to speak not to the high officials in the government, nor to the lower class that live in the cities, but to people like them in the middle who have a view of it all. Diana had said something similar earlier when she said that young poor people in the city often complain to foreigners about how bad things are, but never mention all that is good about Cuba.

Although I didn’t tell them directly, I prefer to talk to as many people as possible on many different levels of the economic scale and make my own decision. It was rather obvious that these families led comfortable lives and were of the generation that seems to have benefited the most from the revolution. It has shaped the way they see Cuba. Of course the views of those on the lower rung of the economic scale with fewer opportunities will see their country from a different perspective.

We said our goodbyes, and promised to stay in touch. I must stress what a wonderful couple they were and how much they helped us to see and explain a different side of Cuba than what we had previously experienced.

That night we had dinner at a place famous for its roasted chicken, and then it was off to bed as we had to catch a taxi at 5:30am in order to catch our flight back to Cancun.

(All the names of Cubans in these posts have been changed as a precautionary measure)