Day 10 – 11 Havana

   Havana, La Habana is the capital city, the largest, a major port, and the leading commercial center of Cuba.  The city has a population of 2.2 million making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean Sea. It was founded in 1515. Cubans talk about Cuba either before or after 1959, the Castro revolution.  Castro is considered the Robin Hood of Cuba – rob the rich and give to the poor. When he took over I have mentioned that Havana was a very wealthy city run by the mob and the houses that people lived in were truly mansions while the rest of Cuba struggled under extreme poverty. Castro took 90% of your wealth and gave it to the poor.  You could take 10% or leave and take nothing. That is what the Miami Cubans did. Cubans in Cuba call them the “Angry Cubans.” One can see why they are angry, but the poverty stricken Cubans certainly felt revolution was necessary. 

    Yesterday’s guide was very interesting and quite the rebel. Many of the Cuban people one talks to, says, “Ask me any question you want.” So someone asks a question, then you get the answer the government tells them to say, or an “I don’t know.” Not yesterday. He started out with a scary quote from Paul Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minster.  “If you tell a lie a thousand times, it becomes the truth!” So he said that Cubans are told they are not a communist country but a socialist’s country with private enterprise on the rise. Partly that is what we saw and partly a definite lie. He also felt it would take some 50 years before Cuba would have enough free enterprise to raise the standard of living. Some other truths about Cuba! For the most part Cuba cannot buy food from the US. Only 6% of the food in Cuba comes from the US. They can buy chicken, flour, and corn, but must pay cash in advance of it being shipped. The US fines any country that sells anything to Cuba. The only two countries that don’t care about the fines we impose are Russia and China especially China. He said that if any part of the Chinese bus we were riding in came from the US, Cuba could not have the bus.  Cuba and the Cuban people have learned to barter under the table. Example before the collapse of Venezuela, Cuba imported oil from Venezuela, but did not have the money for it. So, Venezuela sent oil and Cuba sent doctors which Venezuela desperately needed.  When Cuba asks for things from China, for the most part China asks for nothing or very little in return for the right to build hotels and shipping terminals in Cuba.  China is currently building a huge shipping terminal in Mariel Bay, 25 miles west of Havana. The Havana bay is very shallow due to the tunnel under the bay which is not very deep so huge ships cannot come into Havana Bay. The port in Mariel Bay will be a very large duty free port. China is taking over Cuba.

     Cubans live mainly on rice and beans and actually eat more rice per person than in China or Japan. The Cuban government does subsidize the people as I mentioned but it only covers about ten to twelve days’ worth of food. When Russia took care of Cuba, enough food was given for the month. Russia even paid for large weddings for people including the beer and wine for the reception. Not anymore. One of the high death rates in Cuba is from diabetes, due to lack of insulin. No country will sell insulin to Cuba because of the American embargo.  With all the starchy foods they eat diabetes is rampant.

     Today’s guide was even more outspoken.  He says however he does not plan to stay in Cuba. He considers himself lucky because he has family in Spain, so he will be able to leave. He is an engineer, but right now is making more money as a tour guide so his plan is to save and then leave Cuba in five years. He says by the time the Cuba economy is stable he will be 70 and he isn’t going to wait for that. All of our tour guides have been doctors, lawyers or engineers.

    Here are some pros to a communist/socialist country. After you serve in the military and can pass the test to go to university for free, you do not have to take 101 classes. You go right into what you want to study. If you want to be a doctor, it takes 10 years but you only study medicine. That sounds interesting. 

    Now some facts about living in a government run country. There are no homeless, none. If a person is found homeless that person is put in jail or an institution. There is little or no crime. If you create a problem, you just disappear. Here is an example of how the police work here. No one argues with the police. When we returned from our show last night at The Tropicana at12:30am, very tired, we all just wanted off the bus and go to the ship. We were bus two and bus one was unloading at the terminal entrance. Now the side walk was plenty wide for us to disembark as well. No, we had to wait and believe me that bus driver was not moving until the police said it was ok. Today when we returned from our tour, bus two again, we all knew you just wait until the police say okay. Our guide said “Now you are Cubans because you know to wait for the police to give their okay.”

     Lunch proved why we are called “ugly Americans.” It was a Spanish run restaurant and lunch was paella, a rice dish from Spain. Your choices were mixed seafood, lobster, or meat Paellas. Before we were served, the chef took these huge pans of paellas to each table for us to photograph. They were beautiful.  You could tell how proud they were of it. The group next to us at our table ordered mixed seafood. When it came it had one piece of meat on it. I think “get over it push the meat to the side.” No, she wants them take it back but one couple we like, also sitting at our table, said he would take it. It was loaded with shrimp and clams. He loved it and had no problem eating the one piece of meat. So now theirs comes but it has very few shrimp if any and no clams. I think they were served the left overs. The waitress this time just sort of walks away. The woman and her friend make a huge stink and finally when the poor waitress returns, the woman says, “There are no clams.” So the waitress brings them a dish of about five clams. Now they complain the clams are too dry. We have been served so much food on this ship we should be ashamed. One of our meals is more than most Cubans eat in a week.

    Many of our guides tried to tell us how wonderful Cuba is but I think that is one of those lies they are trying desperately to make true. This story tells the truth. Before our ship was allowed to leave, it had to be searched for stowaways.

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

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Tom and Holly