15/3/13 – Havana

This morning we walked around old Havana with Luis and learned something of the history, the people, the architecture and the economy. Given what we had been told to expect about communist propaganda we were surprised by the openness of our guide and the information and opinion he was happy to share.

It soon became evident that the government (which owns most of the businesses here – including our hotel and restaurant) is very keen to extract as much money as possible from wealthy tourists like us in order to keep the economy afloat. I was shocked to learn how tough most locals are finding life in this ‘socialist paradise’. Luis told us that, on average, Cubans who reside in cities live on about 50 cucs a month (15cucs of which is given to them by the government – the rest they find a variety of ways to earn). This meant that, with the exchange rate at approximately 1:1 in just our first night in Cuba we had managed to sleep and eat our way through the equivalent of 10 months income!

And don’t even ask me to explain how we felt when we learned (and were soon to actually see for ourselves) how the people struggle to sustain life in the rural areas through subsistence farming and the barter system. And yet in the face of such hardship the people have a strong sense of community and look upon their problems with a ‘glass half full’ attitude. In all our dealings with the locals we were consistently surprised and impressed by their sincere and genuine nature.

Old Havana is filled with magnificent 18th /19th century Spanish architecture but unfortunately the combination of torrential tropical rain and humid conditions in the summer has, over such a long period of time, led to a dramatic deterioration in most of the buildings. This together with the lack of funds to maintain let alone restore them sees many of them today in a sad and often dangerous state but in many cases, despite their unsafe and unsanitary condition, they still remain the home of several families.   

 

Cuba had been a colonial possession of Spain since the early 1500s and its economy during that time was therefore directed towards the production of sugar, cigars and rum to meet the needs of its colonial overlords. The people threw off the Spanish yoke in the Cuban War of Independence (1896-1898), led by Presidente Jose Marti, but once they did so they lost access to Spanish markets and merchandise. So they soon found it a struggle to meet their domestic needs.

And so from 1898-1902, in order to feed their people and travel on the path to democracy, the Cubans accepted the support of the United States. This proved to be a big mistake. The US became their new ‘master’ and their domestic production was again limited to these export products. A series of governments in Cuba from 1902 – 1959, not all of whom were popularly elected, then ruled over Cuba.

The infamous dictator Fulgencio Batista was actually properly elected as President in 1940 and installed a constitution that was considered very ‘progressive’ for its time in 1940. But he was defeated and kicked out of office in 1944 and fled to the US. In 1952 he returned to Cuba and seized power in a military coup (with financial backing from wealthy US citizens with a need to protect their economic interests in Cuba). Thereafter his brutally repressive regime crushed and exploited the local people continually until it was eventually overthrown, after a two year struggle with Fidel Castro’s July 26^th Movement. The final and decisive battle in Castro’s ‘revolutionary war’ took place on 1^st January in 1959 when rebel forces led by Commandante Che Guevara crushed the last remaining government resistance in the famous Battle of Santa Clara.

After coming to power Castro nationalised all foreign business interests, a move which was (predictably enough) not popular with US business, which by then controlled the lion’s share of the Cuban economy. In response the US Government, through the CIA, funded and trained up a counter revolutionary invasion at the ‘Bay of Pigs’ and, when that failed, it imposed a financial and economic blockade on Cuba.

This action offered Cuba little choice but to trade with the Soviet Union who, as the enemy of the US and at the height of the Cold War, was more than happy to supply the Cuban people with everything they needed at no cost. All the USSR asked in exchange was a launching place for several nuclear weapons that were to be directed at key US targets.

To Fidel and Che, who had consistently sought to free their people from imperialist oppression and whose communist manifesto was focussed on the health and welfare of their people, this was a perfectly acceptable arrangement.

I will not go into the details of how the so called ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ was eventually resolved because the story is very well known. Suffice it to say that the Soviet missiles were withdrawn in exchange for a US promise not to actually invade Cuba. The US blockade stayed in place but Soviet assistance to Cuba continued for the next 30 years until the fall of communism in the USSR in 1991. It is difficult to imagine the chaos that ensued when this happened.

The Cuban people had been kept cut off from world news and affairs throughout this period and had no idea of how much the Soviet system was struggling until suddenly they found themselves with no food on the shelves. Their ‘mighty ally’ had been reduced to a state of internal turmoil and was no longer in a position to provide any material support to Cuba.  

Today, thanks to the recent influx of tourist cash, things in Cuba are not as difficult as they were in the early 1990’s. But they are still pretty tough! Cuba’s 11 million people are still provided with free education, medical care and ration books in order to receive the basics of life (8 eggs, plus meagre rations of sugar, beans and coffee) once a month.

All Cubans receive a basic wage (they are all paid the same, no matter whether they are a teacher, a farmer, a musician or a doctor) is $200 - 250 CUC per month. Cuban bank transactions are all deposits in cash and there are no lines of credit available.

Under the leadership of Raoul (Fidel’s brother) government controls have been relaxed and the people can now own homes and some shops/businesses are privately owned. Only in the last year can foreign made goods, including shoes and clothing, be brought into Cuba through ‘mules’ or relatives. Cuba’s greatest income is generated from the exporting of doctors to Venezuela. Our guide told us that the 20,000 Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela bring in $US 8 billion worth of oil.

Currently the relationship with Venezuela is strong but with the passing of Hugo Chavez on March 5^th many are nervous about the future. Urgent effort is being directed towards the tourism industry which, with visitors coming mostly from Canada, England and Germany, currently bring in $US2.5 billion annually. An additional $US2 billion comes into Cuba each year from relatives in residing in the US, mainly in Florida.

As a result, Cubans now are managing (just) to get by. But things are still very tight for the ordinary worker here, especially if they do not have ready access to CUCs and instead have to survive on the much less valuable CUP currency.

   

With regards to the architectural heritage, the government now has a program where it works on a 50:50 partnership with overseas investors to restore the buildings and the business in and around Old Havana and so, in a classic example of the ‘law of unintended Consequences’ many of the most stunning buildings are now being left to run down in order to achieve the degree of decrepitude required to attract funding. But the ones that have been restored are magnificent including the stunning Bacardi building.

And some Bacardi rum (which is interestingly not available in Cuba) was exactly what Peter and Hans needed for lunch if they were to perform well at their Salsa lesson in the afternoon under the guidance of our teacher Umberto. Needless to say both boys were hopeless students (whereas Sue and I, with our natural sense of rhythm were fabulous!).

But we laughed a lot and Umberto couldn’t understand why, if the boys were shown something once, they couldn’t just pick it up immediately and move on to the spins and more complicated moves. By the end of the lesson one of the students was still looking at his feet and counting to three!

After lunch we hopped in a car and drove around New Havana with Luis providing a running commentary on the main sights. Our first stop was the US Special Interests Section (where Cubans queue for hours every day to get visas to visit the United States) and the adjacent ‘Anti-Imperialist Square’ where one can see the statue of Elian Gonzales, the seven year old boy at the centre of the 2000 controversy between Cuba and the US as to where he should stay after his mother was drowned in an attempted crossing to get them to family in the US.

We visited the famous Malecon (the sea wall protecting the city from the lashing Atlantic Ocean), the huge and ornate colonial Hotel Nacional, the massive University of Havana (it has over 100,000 enrolled students) and the ‘posh’ residential and diplomatic districts each side of the garden lined and beautifully maintained and manicured Fifth Avenue. Next on the tour was Plaza de la Revolution where hundreds of thousands of loyal followers would stand and listen to Castro's speeches, some of which lasted up to 5 hours.

 

On several of the government buildings that surround the square there are huge iron caricatures of the revolution’s heroes including Che Guevara. His immortalised motto ‘Hasta la victoria siempre’ (forwards to victory always) is posted next to a humungous Cuban flag. The flag’s three blue stripes represent the three provinces, the white stripes for peace and purity, the red triangle for the blood spilt and the white star for victory of the people.

Eventually, after a very full and interesting day, we returned to old Havana and, as the sun went down we sat in a bar overlooking the Cathedral Square with Luis and sampled two local delicacies, the famous Cuban Mojito (a rum and lime based cocktail) and a toffee coated coconut meat sweet that tasted unbelievably good. Overall this was a great (and very informative) day but we were not finished yet!

We listened to Cuban jazz and danced the night away (well Sue did) at Cafe Benny Mores with the old men who are the remaining members of Ry Cooder’s ‘Buena Vista Social Club’.