Southside Pride

It’s never what you expected. It’s always late. And, somewhere in the background, you can hear laughter and the sound of music.

That’s one way to describe Cuba.

Most guide books talk about the exotic American cars. You can see cherry ’33 Ford coupes, 1955 Chevies, ’58 Pontiacs in mint condition. It’s a little like attending a collector’s convention, except these are all working cars used as taxis.

Or, they may talk about the music. It’s everywhere. The town moves to a Latin beat. You can’t eat, or walk along the Malecon (the wonderful sidewalk along the ocean), or shop on Obispo without someone trying to sing a song to you.

Or, you might read about the architecture in Old Havana. The tropics and Cuban enthusiasm push all things to extremes, so the baroque is more baroque than anything you’re used to and the neo-classical is more austere and grand than its European parents.

All of these things are unique, but the one thing that sets Cuba apart from anywhere else on earth is its unashamed and easy sexuality. And the men are, actually, more restrained and discreet than the women.

We arrived in the middle of the night on March 7. We wanted to be in Cuba for International Women’s Day on March 8. We had e-mailed our host, Daisy, that we wanted to attend a rally or demonstration in support of the struggles of women.
On the way in from the airport I kept seeing little Renaults passing us. The driver corrected me, those were not Renaults, but Ladas: “Chevrolet is best car, but Lada second.” The Lada was a Soviet car. I’d never seen one before.

The room at Daisy’s was very nice. Huge refrigerator, double bed, beautifully tiled private bathroom and shower, all with 20- foot ceilings. The high ceilings were probably an older form of cooling: the higher the ceiling the further the hot air would rise and the more cool air would remain at floor level. This was unnecessary in our room because it had a powerful air conditioner. The room cost $20 a night.
Breakfast was optional, but we ate it every morning. It was always the same: Three pieces of very fresh fruit, some so exotic I’d never tasted them before; Cuban coffee con leche with chocolate, strong and wonderfully addictive; and fresh bread and scrambled eggs.

Daisy’s place was a casa particular, a private home open to tourists that used no employees, only family members. The average government worker makes around 200 pesos a month, which amounts to about $10. A doctor makes 320 pesos ($16). It’s easy to see why so many Cubans want to work in the tourist industry where dollars are easier. The sign on the top of the door said it was also headquarters for the neighborhood Committee in Defense of the Revolution. This is a nationwide network of block clubs that formerly circulated public health and other government information. I saw no evidence of the heavy hand of the state while we were there, but I can appreciate that it would be easier to be licensed by the government as a casa particular if you were also part of a party agency. The two women who did most of the work at Daisy’s were probably not part of her biological family but rather “adopted” and living on the premises. This “creeping capitalism” was probably corrupting, but it was also the most efficient way to house tourists and get money directly into the pockets of the poor. It is probably creating a middle class, and that will probably eventually bite the hand (the Communist government) that created it.

We were in Central Havana, close to both Old Havana with its shops and restaurants and the university district. The neighborhood seemed poor. Many storefronts were abandoned, dingy and dirty, but some were being remodeled. In just the eight days we were there, two shops on the seven-block stretch of Old Neptuno, the main street near Daisy’s home, were completely renovated, stocked with new goods and opened to the public. In Cuba, all shops and all taxis are owned by the government, but there is considerable room for entrepreneurial slipping and sliding in their management and operation. This seemed to me a very optimistic phenomenon. It looked like Cuba was finally bouncing back from the Special Period when they lost their Soviet subsidies. During that time, people say, there were no cats in Havana. The people ate them. And, because cooking oil was too expensive and cars weren’t running anyway, they cooked them in motor oil. There is a considerable increase in the number of stomach cancer cases seen today as a result of those desperate times.

Peter Watson disagrees that the Cuban economy is improving as rapidly as might be assumed by the presence of more consumer goods. “They’re now getting credit from some of their neighbors. So, the infusion of credit and the dollars that American Cubans send home make it look like there’s an improvement, but I believe it’s continuing to deteriorate.” Watson has been to Cuba 65 times. He organizes trade missions and was responsible for Ventura’s highly publicized trip last fall.

He agrees that the U. S. trade embargo hurts the Cuban economy, but he believes the negative economic consequences are more than made up for by the very positive political benefits to Castro. “The embargo has a massive effect because it presents the U. S. as a tiger at the gates. Cubans are fiercely nationalistic. The Cuban Revolution was primarily a nationalist revolution. They do not want to become another Puerto Rico. Seventy percent of the population is under 40. They didn’t live through the revolution. They don’t remember the Bay of Pigs. The embargo lets Castro show young people how the U. S. is trying to destroy them. If there were no embargo, Castro would have to find another way to limit contact.”

The hurricane that went through Cuba last year wiped out almost all the grain and poultry, Watson said. “The U. S. said Americans could sell food to anyone in Cuba except the government. That was ridiculous because the government is the only entity that can make large purchases of food and consumer products. Fortunately, those rules have been modified.”

While we were in Cuba a boatload of chickens arrived from Minnesota.
Cuba has a population of 11.5 million and a total area of 44,000 square miles. Minnesota has a population of 3.8 million and a total area of 80,000 square miles. In other words, Cuba is about half as big as Minnesota with about three times the population. Havana and its immediate suburbs have a population of about 2.2 million, about the same as the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Cubans are very affectionate. They greet each other by kissing each other on both cheeks. As we were strangers, we weren’t greeted like that, but Daisy loved to put her arm around my wife and stroke her skin and hair and say how beautiful it was. Being from Minnesota our first reaction was, “This seems like Second Degree Sexual Assault.” We finally warmed to it, but, sadly, we never felt quite comfortable in a culture that welcomed touching and kissing.

Castro was once confronted by some members of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church about the unrestrained sexuality in Cuba. According to Peter Watson, Castro said, “Cuban women just seem to enjoy sex more than most people.”
For International Women’s Day, Daisy had arranged for us to double date and go to a concert at a building on the campus of the University of Havana. Her boyfriend was a young, good looking but stoic police officer, and Daisy seemed to spend the major part of the evening melting his ice.

The concert turned out to be an anti-war cabaret opposing the U. S. invasion of Iraq. There were performances by classical tenors, a jazz chanteuse, a Caribbean playwright and a popular comedian. We shared a table with a friendly and charming couple from the French Embassy.

As I said, music was everywhere in Havana. The next day we walked into the Gran Teatro de la Habana and discovered there was a performance of “La Traviata” that afternoon. We bought the most expensive tickets, $10, for seats in the third row. There were few seats sold at about 1 p.m., but the theater was filled at 5 for the performance—a few tour groups, but the audience was mostly Cuban. One can only assume that one hour before the performance the rush line got tickets for less than a dollar.

After the opera we went walking down Obispo to find a restaurant. On the way we passed a doorway opening to a small art gallery where three musicians were playing simple folk songs with two guitars and maracas. We stepped in to listen. I had a pick in my pocket. After a couple of songs I pulled out the pick, and the man playing the guitar offered me a turn. We played “Guantanamera”—simple enough chord pattern, G C D. I was struggling to keep up, trying not to be distracted by the beauty of the woman playing the other guitar when I noticed the strings on her guitar. It was a six string guitar, but strung in the manner of a twelve string. She had double strings for E, B and G. It’s called a tre’ and is unique to Cuba. It is a perfect instrument for rhythm guitar. I made up my mind, then, that when I got back to the states I would buy a guitar, make it into a tre’ and practice “Guantanamera” before I came back to Cuba. Anyways, the song collapsed, eventually; I gave the guitar back, tipped the group generously for indulging me, and we made our way out and back on the street.

We found an outdoor restaurant at the end of the street with an engaging band. The flute player was prominent. My wife plays flute so she was fascinated by his technique, which she thought was as good as Galway or Rampal. It didn’t hurt that he was cute and charming. When he soared on some numbers, it was as effortless and graceful as a bird in flight. He is Manuel Coya Bustamante, and he is the Musical Director of Raices Cubanas. We bought his CD (every band that plays outdoors seems to have a CD for sale), and now my wife drives around town with his music and memory every day.

We danced in the street until dark. The waiter was kind enough to compliment me on my moves, and we rode the two miles home in a beautifully restored 1954 Chevrolet Bel Aire for $3.