Economics With A Face

We took our time and went through our Lonely Planet guide to figure out our plan for the day. The first priority was to get some food. We located our hotel on the map and then a paladar (a private restaurant run out of someone’s home) that was only a few doors down from the hotel. We headed down to the lobby and out the front door. There are no advertisements for these private restaurants and the description read “Head through the unmarked door” at the address listed. But before we knew it we had gone too far and needed to turn back as even the address was difficult to see.

A young man approached us an asked if we were looking for the paladar above. We answered we were, but he informed us it was closed as their gas line was broken. We both were a little skeptical but to my surprise, Emily, who is usually the more cautious in these situations, decided it was worth a shot.

The young man, Raul, led us off the main street and around a corner. Next we entered a building which was probably the last place you would expect to find a restaurant. We made our way up two flights of stairs, and then down a narrow, roofless hallway lined by apartments. Next it was up a spiraled staircase to the paladar. There was no way we would have found this place on our own. As we entered the small apartment whose doorways were so low that I needed to duck to enter, our guide informed the various people in the apartment that he had found two customers.

Another young man took down the chairs that were up on the table in the tiny room. Our guide asked if we wanted some drinks, and we gave him a few convertibles to go and buy us two cans of TuCola. Before he left I asked if I could give him anything for helping us to find the restaurant, as I assumed he wasn’t doing this out of the kindness of his heart. He replied instead of money, maybe we could treat him to a mojito after the lunch. That was fine by us.

Inside the paladar was the young man who had taken down the chairs, a younger woman who was actually the owner of the place, an older woman who did the cooking, and an 8-year old girl who sat on the couch next to us. After taking our order and a little small talk, the adults talked amongst themselves, while Emily and I tried to make conversation with the shy girl seated on the couch next to us.

Soon our guide was back with the drinks and before long we were at the table with fried chicken, fried sweet potatoes, and a mixture of black beans and rice (in Spanish “congri”) in front of us. We began to eat and those around us began to talk. We entered the conversation when I noticed that there were bay leaves in the congri for flavor and I mentioned that these grew naturally around my parents’ house.

“Here they are very expensive” replied the young man, who we learned was a enfermero (nurse) in Havana. And then the conversation really began. Things are bad here they made clear, and not only because of the poverty. “The tourists stay in the hotels and don’t know how we really live,” they stressed.

Twice during the lunch strangers entered the paladar. The owner, who was now posted outside the room, would make conversation with them as they approached and our conversation would quiet. Each time someone entered there seemed to be an awkward feeling in the room, but soon they would start talking amongst themselves and soon the conversation had returned to normal.

They told us their salaries. Our guide, who had remained relatively quiet during the conversation, occasionally translating words or phrases we might miss, made $10 convertibles a month cleaning offices; the same cost as our lunch. The enfermero made $14. “You can’t live off this salary,” they said.

An older man who had entered the restaurant started up a conversation with the others about three young girls in one of the apartments below. Their mother was currently in jail for crime of approaching a tourist at the beach and asking for money. The man said “Fidel says there are millions of children in the world homeless and going hungry, but not one resides in Cuba. Yet look, there are three one floor below.” This reminded me of an acquaintance who had used Fidel’s same line years ago when we were debating the merits of Communism.

They talked about how while the medical care was free, no one could afford the medicine, and thus, what good was it? When I asked what would happen if we were to have this conversation on the street the enfermero told me he would be labeled as a counter-revolutionary and thrown in jail. They talked about how in the countryside the people had it worse, yet these were the same people that cheered Fidel and loved him the most. When I asked why they said it was something psychological, that they have nothing and he gives them something. In the capital, like in any capital in the world, people have more exposure to the outside world, and with this came more discontent.

It continued. They talked about how they thought the children were not getting enough to eat, how it was illegal to eat beef, and that people could be thrown in prison for owning and slaughtering a cow. “We’re like India,” the enfermero told me, “but without the religion.” “Young boys need protein,” he said, and he thought kids were not growing as they should be.

Some talked of relatives in the U.S. and how much better life was there. When I asked if they had the money and wanted to use the internet, could they? They said no. When I said that some people in the U.S. think Castro does many things well they scoffed loudly with looks of disgust on their face and simply said that these people don’t understand how life really is in Cuba.

I don’t remember every bit of the conversation but the message was clear: things are bad here, we’re denied rights the tourists have, and the outside world doesn’t know how we are really living. At one point the enfermero looked me in the eyes and spoke slowly to make sure I understood: “Your system is not perfect,” he told me “but our system is much worse.” That summed up the conversation.

After the hour and a half lunch and conversation we headed back down to the street with our guide. He asked if we were interested in staying in a casa particular, which we were. He led us to one right around the corner from the hotel. We met the owner who seemed like a nice guy, and it looked like a clean place. We had another night at the hotel that we had already paid for but after that we said we would stay with him. Outside his front door, people were tossing down bricks and rubble from the roof, preparing some kind of remodel. He yelled up for them to stop as we exited the building and we made our way past the huge pile that now covered the street.

From here we went off to buy our guide his mojito which we thought was well earned. I was nervous walking with him as I knew that legally he was not supposed to be with us. We followed him a few steps back and eventually into a bar a few blocks down. We had a mojito and he told us how to get to La Habana Vieja which we wanted to go see. He asked if we would like to meet him for drinks later on in the evening. Although he kept stressing our newfound friendship, clearly, as tourists we were a way for him to get luxuries, like mojitos, that he could otherwise not afford. But he seemed like a nice enough guy and it a pretty cheap fee to get a guide for a city we knew nothing about. We agreed to meet him outside our hotel at 8:00.

Old Havana was interesting. Parts were a little more plush as there were certain hotels that had been refurbished, but the city was still falling apart. By the time we got there we were dying of thirst and stopped at a touristy but beautiful hotel courtyard to get some water. From there we headed to the top of another hotel to get a bird’s eye view of the city. Finally, we ended up at Plaza de Armas where I talked to a Cuban who, after trying to sell me cigars, informed me he had lived in the U.S. for 20 years (he had the accent to prove it) and had only been back in Cuba for 4 after being deported (I didn’t ask for what).

“We have no freedom here,” he complained as he scouted for police as we talked. He had a brother in London who was trying to save $10,000 so he could escape to the U.S. via speedboat. He said that the world needed to stop all tourist dollars from coming to the island so the government would collapse, yet in the next breath was complaining that fewer and fewer Americans were coming to the island and it was harder and harder for him to make a living selling cigars on the side. He wished me luck and was on his way.

Down the street I had an Anne Applebaum moment as a group of four European tourists passed us decked out in their just purchased berets, complete with Communist stars and portraits of Che. They clearly were having a different experience on the island than Emily and myself.

We finally made it back to the hotel and after a short nap headed down for dinner as it was getting late and we needed to meet Raul at 8:00. We sat down at the restaurant connected to our hotel which looked to have a reasonable selection of food at pretty good prices. Pizzas, pork, steak, fish and much more. But when we attempted to order all that was available was chicken and fish according to the waiter… so we both took fish.

Meanwhile, we got our first glimpse of Castro who was making an appearance on TV with a meteorologist about the first hurricane of the season. Fidel piped up every once in a while to make a comment or ask “Porque?¨” Finally, he went on a long rant about the climate, which lasted more than thirty minutes.

At this same time we noticed that three Cuban men about our age were handing over their IDs to a policeman directly outside the restaurant. They looked scared as they were being searched by the policeman. Three undercover cops, who had helped to arrest them chatted amongst themselves and occasionally helped with the interrogation. One of the policeman even had a video camera like he was a tourist, so I suspected that they had approached him. We watched in a depressed and helpless state as a grey van pulled up and put the three young men in and pulled off. The other patrons of the restaurant watched in shock, but no one could do anything.

Five minutes before they were hauled off, our guide from earlier in the day came to the window of the restaurant as they were about to give us our bill. We made eye contact, he gave us a quick nod, and then walked off. A few minutes after the van left and the police had left the corner we walked out onto the street. Our guide and another young man were outside. After another quick glance they started off about 20 yards in front of us. We followed for 2 blocks and headed west off the main street. As we followed, I told Em to just look up at the buildings as if we were just tourists exploring off the beaten track. She replied that it felt as if we were taking part in a drug deal. It did… only the illegal activity we were trying to conceal was going to have a drink with two Cubans our own age.

Eventually, our guide Raul stopped and as we caught up he introduced us to his friend Mario, who was very outspoken against the government. Raul just sped ahead leading us through alleys and dilapidated building until we finally came upon a bar where we were to have a few cuba libres. As we toasted the first drink Mario said “Espero que una dia Cuba esta Libre”. Emily and I agreed. As I asked about the arrests, being visibly disturbed by the experience, Raul said that this was Cuba, and suggested we talk about something else and just enjoy the sunset.

After the first round, and a few pictures, Raul suggested that we buy a bottle after one more round and head across the street. It sounded good to us but it was getting clearer and clearer that we were their one and only source for drinks, but we just decided to just float with it as we watched the beautiful sunset. As we finished the round another friend of Raul’s showed up, Samuel, and we soon proceeded across the street. But before we left, and as we closed the tab, Raul was insistent that I not leave a tip. “These people have good jobs, they don’t need it” he persisted. Finally, they headed off to for a bottle of rum and Coke while we waited. Soon they returned and we were again sipping cuba libres and watching a picturesque sunset.

As Raul finished his first drink I noticed a change. From the beginning he struck me as someone who was trying to be a good person in a bad situation. He had explained he didn’t want to view tourists as money as many of his country men did, but instead as an opportunity to meet people from across the world and to make friends. Probably easier said than done. As he finished off his second drink he looked depressed to me.

In the back of my mind I was sure that it was because he knew he and his friends were “using” us for a luxury that they could never afford on their government salaries. Personally, I knew that Emily and I wouldn’t start forking over our limited cash to anybody who would ask, but these young men were giving us a Cuban experience we otherwise would not have had so it was worth it to us. I decided to attempt to explain this to Raul but before I could he and Mario excused themselves to go get some food. They crossed the street, while Samuel, who was on his first drink ran after them, only shortly to return.

“They are too drunk, they need some food” he explained. I suddenly realized that the 28 year old married couple was making these mid-20 Cubans look like lightweights for the simple reason that these drinks were not an every day… or even weekly occurrence for them. They had absolutely no tolerance, which was evident in Samuel as well as we continued to drink.

We continued to talk with Samuel about Cuba, about how his father fled to the US in 1994, and his family life in Cuba. All of a sudden Samuel was nervous and Emily nudged me about a person sitting a few feet down from her. “If you would like to walk away from us we understand” Emily said to Samuel as it appeared that the person next to us could be a undercover policeman. Samuel struck up a quick conversation with him though, just as another friend of theirs approached who introduced himself as Carlos.

The young man next to us said he was in the military, which is mandatory, and was just trying to listen in so he could practice his English. Samuel came back to me and said that he didn’t trust military people. Do you want to get out of here I asked. Yes he said, so we said goodbye to the young man and made our way down to another bar a few blocks down without Raul or Mario. I figured they would find us.

Once we reached the bar we had a round of beers but at this point it was getting late. We had just met these two young guys and we treated them to one more beer but both Em and I passed. It was a strange scene facing the Florida Straights where thousands have died fleeing Cuba. After we caught a cab to the hotel both Em and I stayed up and recounted all that had passed during the day. I wanted to make sure to get this down on paper but right now it’s 3:00am and I’m calling it a night.

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