Things a “Cuban” from Miami Discovered during His First Trip to Cuba or What One Can Buy with $9 if He Spends Wisely
by Sundiata Ojeda
La Prensa de Minnesota
April 10, 2006
We had been sitting in the shadows of El Cristo de la Habana talking about many things on what was supposed to be my last night in Cuba. Located in Casablanca, just across the harbor from Old Havana, the enormous statue of Jesus commissioned by Mrs. Fulgencio Batista in late 1958 becomes an after-hours magnet for lovers wanting privacy that can not be had on the Cuban capital’s more famous Malecon. The passion that filled our evening, however, was not a romantic passion: Lisa and I kept coming back to Cuba. Every turn in our conversation kept coming back to our home, the only home she’d ever known and the home I was just visiting for the first time ever.
I am a Cuban, born and raised in Miami, who was making, at that time, his first visit to Cuba and I wanted to stay. I still do.
“Es muy duro,” she said of life in the last forbidden place for Yanquis to visit. “People don’t know hard it is.”
Lisa described having to scrimp and save for the most basic things that most middle-class people in the United States think absolutely nothing of, things whose existence in one’s kitchen or medicine cabinet or purse is so taken for granted in this country where our consumer driven skills at throwing away finds corporate America paying higher salaries to young scientists and engineers for developing disposable products than for developing recyclable ones.
Lisa, who works in the retail sector and whose clients are virtually all “turistas,” shares a house with her mother and her older sister, who has been a teacher for a decade now. The house they share is literally under construction and much of the family’s discretionary income goes to purchasing building supplies like sacks of cement. She expects to have the house, which they moved into because their old house in Old Havana was falling apart, ready by December.
In order to have it ready by then, her family devotes virtually of its free time to the kind of work that would make Bob Villa (whose own father left Cuba in the 1940’s to flee tyranny) either beam or cringe.
No one in Lisa’s household has any experience in construction but they do have experience in “inventando” – improvising. Lisa told me that people that come to Cuba for a few days or a few weeks or even a few months staying in nice hotels or even quaint casas particulares (the Cuban equivalent to North American bed and breakfasts) with rental cars and pocketfuls of cash that eclipse in quantity what most Cubans can earn in three or four months or five months do not know what it is to have to inventar just to make it from day to day.
According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s website, Cuba’s 2005 per capita income is $3,300 (compared to this country’s which is approaching $50,000). That works out to roughly $9 per day or what the average resident of Golden Valley or Anoka or Woodbury spends on just his or her first appetizer at Bennigan’s or Applebee’s.
A common sight in the few images we are allowed to have of Cuba in this country via either television or print media is of Cubans crowding into odd-shaped buses called camellos or camels because of their two “humps.” An even more common sight throughout all of Cuba for those that actually visit the real Cuba – city streets in El Cerro and Santo Saurez, rural roads in San Cristobal and Alto Songo – is people trying to catch a ride a la botella, or hitch-hiking. Everyone in Cuba, it appears, hitch-hikes – it is not uncommon to see to senior officers (the highest rank I noticed was that of a lieutenant colonel) in the Cuban Army trying to catch a lift.
It is important to note at this point, however, that not everything in Cuba and relating to Cuba is as it appears.
For example, seeing officers of an army that effectively represents, as historian Eduardo Galeano wrote, “a people in arms” standing alongside their neighbors and compatriots waiting for a lift seems to dispel notions held in the United States that Cuba is a militaristic dictatorship. After all, on my most fanciful days, I have had no success trying to picture even a low-ranking goon in Agusto Pinochet’s sadistic army in Chile not having his own car or at least motorcycle with which he could ride around Santiago or Valparaiso during Pinochet’s Kissinger-authorized glory days.
In other words, the important lesson to be learned here is that rhetoric of “all men are created equal” comes closer to fruition in Cuba than anywhere else I have visited in the world.
Another common misconception about Cuba is that most if not all Cubans spend every waking hour trying to escape to the United States. Of all of the people I spoke with in Cuba, only one was actually trying to get the United States. Most Cubans that expressed any opinion on the matter, in fact, communicated what amounted to a non-negotiable desire to stay at home – all while acknowledging the same realities that Lisa spoke of (Lisa, for her part, also expressed a determination not to leave Cuba).
Because of Cuba’s unprecedented commitment to free quality public education up to and including university studies (according to last year’s United Nations Human Development Report, Cuba was the world leader in terms of funds allocated to public education – 18.7% of GDP from 2000-2002 compared to the United States’ 5.7% for the same period), a visitor to the largest island in the West Indies that wants to engage in lively, informed, respectful dialogue about what is going on in the world does not have to look very far. Every Cuban I encountered – from off-duty cab drivers to waitresses, from construction workers to artists, from clerical professionals to the happily retired – was very well-informed about current events.
To whit, there is a spot out in plain view of most of the tourists in Cuba that captures perfectly this special manifestation of a very well-informed and therefore more politically sophisticated people. In Havana’s Parque Central, located in between landmarks such as the Hotel Inglaterra, the Hotel Parque Central, and El Capitolio, one can easily find La Esquina Caliente, the Hot Corner. There, under the shade of majestic banyan trees and the approving gaze of the statue of national hero José Martí (said statue made “infamous” by photographs of drunken U.S. sailors defecating on it during an all-too-common shore leave of disrespectful debauchery on Cuban soil during the neocolonial phase of Cuban history that many in Miami still think of as “the good ole days”), a large group of Cubans get together every day to talk – and talk very loudly – about everything and anything that comes to mind.
The only rule for participation in the discussions at La Esquina Caliente is that you participate in a well-informed and respectful manner (in the parlance of many communities in the Southern U.S. “don’t come in there talking mess out the side of your neck”). This is pure democracy and the wide-open nature of the discussions there would make ancient Athenians envious.
Also interesting is the fact the presence of a uniformed officer nearby did not tempt any of the Cuban Socrates or Platos to censor themselves in the least.
My first visit to La Esquina Caliente was marked by questions posed to me about U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, filmmaker Michael Moore, the USA Patriot Act, just to name but a few of the very many topics covered by myself and the, according to eyewitness accounts, one hundred or so people that wanted to spend time talking with another Cuban, this one from the United States.
This brings me to another hidden reality about Cuba: my long-held fears about being harassed or incarcerated in Cuba because my family fled the island to come to the United States were as fictitious as claims three years ago that Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction for the specific purpose of destroying the Mall of America. There is no intelligent basis for me as a Cuban born in the United States to be any more afraid of anything in Cuba than a Cuban who has lived his entire life in Cuba. In fact, there is no intelligent basis for any American to be any more afraid of anything in Cuba than a Cuban living in Cuba. While Cubans are certainly aware of their country’s history of being on the receiving end of North American abuses (which, as historical and contemporary accounts easily demonstrate, puts them in company with many nations throughout the developing world), an American is more likely to have someone from Canada heap scorn upon them because of his or her nationality than to have a Cuban do so.
Probably the easiest thing to find in Cuba is its greatest natural resource which is the unconditional humanity which Cubans so easily and generously offer to even the most remote strangers. There is a saying in Islam that Allah gives to mankind without measure. If emulating the Almighty is salvation, then Cubans recreate Heaven every moment of the day. Instances and examples of Cubans giving a lift, lending a hand, giving a warm hug, planting big kisses on one’s cheek, extending a heartfelt greeting, offering a kind word, breaking bread, gladly giving timely advice or directions, or flashing a bright, bright smile are too numerous to share in this one article. This genuine sense of community, the community of humanity, is so deeply-ingrained in life in Cuba today and is probably the single biggest reason why the many Cubans that told me they want to stay in Cuba choose to do so.
Returning to the question of Cubans that do and do not want to leave Cuba for the United States, many Cubans know that, by virtue of an act of Congress, the U.S. has 25,000 slots for Cuban immigrants open annually. An important first step in this immigration process is to stand in line – for hours at a time – at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. To submit an application, a Cuban must pay a non-refundable application fee of one hundred dollars to officials at the Interests Section – a considerable sum in a country where 27 Cuban pesos equals one U.S. dollar. Most applicants, by the way, are turned down flat by the U.S. government – after having paid the application fee.
When one takes this into account along with the undeniable influence of dreaming dreams based on stories from people in the United States and the images prevalent in North American movies, for example, and the natural human tendency to be convinced that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, is it any wonder that there are Cubans that try to come to this country? After all, most of the Cubans that left Cuba in hopes of landing at least one “dry foot” on U.S. soil interviewed and quoted for news stories in North American press cite motivations rooted in economic foundations to explain why they sought to become one of the teeming masses.
Of course, there are those – mostly in Miami and Washington and who have a lucrative vested interest in convincing us of the following – that insist that Cubans leave Cuba because they hate Fidel Castro the communist. Yet, more Mexicans opt to take the dangerous desert crossings where the climate, the topography, the flora & fauna, bandits, vigilantes, and the vastness of the American “Southwest” make survival anything but a certainty than Cubans that take the ninety mile crossing to the United States or the even shorter one to the Bahamas. Is Vicente Fox a communist? If so, does his patron in Crawford, Texas know about this?
Going past a quaint church in the town square of the picturesque town of Consolacion del Sur, Olivia, a very charming and very Catholic 20-something professional who was going back to school to learn English, proudly let me know that that church is where she was baptized and received her first communion. It was yet another reminder of Article VIII of the current Cuban constitution which guarantees religious freedom. Although I knew nothing of the existence of that particular constitutional provision until just before I left Cuba, I saw it manifest just about everywhere I ventured in Cuba almost from the first moment I arrived.
One of the biggest falsehoods concocted about Cuba in the United States I discovered was that religion and spirituality is grounds for state persecution.
In one twenty-four hour period, I participated with other Muslims in Friday prayers at a mosque just off the Plaza Mayor (one of the best outdoor book markets I’ve ever visited) in Old Havana and was present for a informal yet powerful cleansing ceremony at the home of, Gerardo, a humble Babalwo, or priest in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria, in the South Havana district of Parraga. None of the aforementioned was done in secrecy; in fact, on both occasions, two separate uniformed police officers helped me locate both places mentioned.
This revelation contrasted sharply with news of the “Cubans” in the United States that were exercising their freedom of religion via emails encouraging people to pray that the Cuban baseball team would lose in the World Baseball Classic.
As the spring night air grew cooler, Lisa and I talked about the universal healthcare for Cubans that I had been hearing so much about. She was due to go in the day after the following for a brief outpatient procedure at her local “policlinico” (which, like many clinics I saw, was within easy walking distance of her home). She mentioned that, although she was proud that Cuba was helping other countries with its visiting medical teams, the past three years or so had required a bit of an adjustment. When asked what sort of an adjustment, she said that now, instead of being able to walk in and see a doctor right away, walking in sometimes required waiting up to two or three hours.
I thought of telling her about what “walk-ins” usually encounter in the United States but then I thought differently. Cuba and its achievements in healthcare get a lot of attention internationally and with numbers like the following, it is not hard to wonder why:
Per Capita Spending on Health Care (2002)
ranked #1 - USA ($5,274 per person)
ranked #97 - Cuba ($236 per person)
Percentage of One-year-olds Immunized Against Measles (2003)
ranked #2(tied) - Cuba (99%)
ranked #70 - USA (93%)
(UN Human Development Report 2005)
Thus, according to the United Nations, Cuba is able to immunize more of its children than the United States which spends twenty-three times as much on health care as Cuba. Of course, anyone who has driven past any of the immense, shiny edifices that house just local offices of the HMO’s and PPO’s that, on average, are responsible for, according to the sponsors of House bill HR676, the average American family presently spending over $9,000 annually on healthcare premiums was probably already wondering where the money is really going anyway.
As we sat in the silence of the night, watching tugboats guide ships into their berths in the harbor beneath us, I thought of how much can be done with so little. After all, in a lifetime, Cuba has eradicated illiteracy (which was as high as forty percent during the “glamorous times” that are celebrated annually at Miami’s Cuba Nostalgia Convention) and has not only addressed medical care disparities within its own borders but also helped to augment medical resources in countries like Pakistan, Venezuela, Haiti, Malaysia, (68 countries in all as well as “1,800 doctors from 47 developing countries graduated [from medical school] in Cuba” in 2005 according to the BBC) all while being subjected to an economic blockade denounced as both inhumane and illegal in various circles.
I also thought of Cuba’s current per capita income, that $3,300 annually or nine bucks daily mentioned earlier. I then remembered a conference last September held in a conference room in the Humphrey Building at the University of Minnesota that talked about the billions of people on Earth having to “live” on less than two dollars a day.
According to the World Bank, 2.7 billion people are forced to try to survive on this two dollar per diem “budget.” With the current world population at just under six billion, that means that one out of every two human beings must be able to pay for food, housing, clothing on less than what the average Minnesotan has in the change container of his Ford Explorer.
I then thought about “Cubans” back home in Miami that say they want to take over Cuba again so that Cuba can catch up with the rest of the world. Looking at how Cuba’s nine bucks stacks up against “the rest of the world,” I really hope that they stay in Miami.
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