CUBA
New line of work in Cuba: begging
Once, panhandlers were a rare sight in Cuba. But within the country's
ailing economy, begging tourists is relatively lucrative.
By MIAMI HERALD STAFF REPORT
cuba@MiamiHerald.com
HAVANA - Daniel Avila's source of income is irregular, subject to
weather conditions, and offers no paid holidays or vacations.
But as a full-time beggar on Havana's famed seaside avenue, Avila can
make in two days what the rest of his countrymen earn in two weeks:
about $8.
Avila, disabled from a bike wreck 10 years ago, waits until the new
tourist buses park along the Malecón in Old Havana and drop off dozens
of foreign tourists for an afternoon of crafts-shopping, then hobbles up
and down the street asking for money, a metal brace in each hand.
''Five years ago, you didn't see as many people doing this,'' he said,
lamenting that day's competition: a rail-thin young mother toting an
infant baby. ``Five years ago you could get by in Cuba. Now you see a
lot of elderly and handicapped out here asking for money. The pension
they give us just isn't enough.''
Avila is not alone. Anyone strolling through Cuba's tourist spots like
Old Havana is likely to encounter a number of panhandlers, from the
disabled like Avila and the elderly like Cecilia in the Plaza de Armas,
to those struggling with mental illness such as Irma Castillo at the
Parque Central.
One neatly dressed middle-aged woman walks up and down the Prado, a main
thoroughfare in central Havana, showing a well-healed scar on her back,
explaining that she had surgery and needs money.
Along the cobblestone streets of the tourist city of Trinidad, a young
pregnant woman lifts her shirt to expose her swelling belly, hoping to
tear at tourists' hearts and pockets. Another middle-aged woman there
trails tourists at the craft fair, asking for spare clothing or even a pen.
They share a common idea: in Cuba, it's far more lucrative to beg from
tourists than to work full-time.
Many Latin American nations have large numbers of poor who live in
shantytowns and beg to survive, and of course the United States has its
share of panhandlers. But begging was virtually unheard of in Cuba
before its economy crashed with the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Cuban government has long extolled socialism's superiority over
capitalism, precisely because of the lack of indigents on the street in
Cuba.
''Without socialism, we could not have a society without beggars
wandering the streets, without children going barefoot or begging, or
absent from school because they need to work for a living, . . . things
that are so common in other parts of the world, including the United
States,'' Fidel Castro said in a 2001 speech commemorating the 40th
anniversary of his switch to socialism.
As the Cuban government publicly grapples with a lack of ''efficiency''
by workers and a disinterest in the 40-hour workweek, it has yet to find
an answer to address the root of that apathy: low wages. The socialist
government provides a number of benefits, from housing and free
education to medical care, but one month worth of rationed food lasts
only 1 ½ weeks and salaries hover around $15 a month.
For a few, that means hopping on a bus to their favorite panhandling spot.
''I don't like to beg,'' said Castillo, 48. ``But lots of people do it.
They do it all the time because times are tough. I've only been doing it
for two months. Foreigners have been kind to me.''
She said mental illness keeps her from working, and her government
pension is just $10 a month. Sometimes, she said, she can get that much
from a single tourist. Dressed in rags as much indicative of her mental
deterioration as her poverty, she showed her worn down flip-flops and
rotting toenails.
''Look at the shoes I wear,'' she said. ``Don't you have $10 to give me?
How about a pair of shoes? You didn't bring any clothes to give away?''
These are not like inner city homeless Americans in need of a drug fix.
They come from all walks of life, all races and ages. Several
interviewed were elderly or appeared to be mentally ill people who seem
to have slipped through the holes in Cuba's social service net.
Experts say the beggars are yet another sign of the strategies -- part
survival, part hustle -- that some Cubans turn to when their income
cannot meet their needs.
''The government is basically in denial of poverty,'' said Daniel
Erikson of the InterAmerican Dialogue think tank in Washington.
He said Cuban panhandling is quite different from other parts of Latin
America.
''The Cubans that are out there asking for money go home to their
houses,'' Erikson said. ``They are not people living on the street like
the rest of Latin America.''
Still, for other Cubans, begging is an embarrassment.
''I have gotten to the point where I don't go to the town square. I'm
too embarrassed,'' said Odelia, a retired grandmother in Trinidad. ``I'm
ashamed to see people -- people who just don't want to work -- asking
tourists for money. I would sooner do whatever it took -- clean, iron
clothes -- before asking anybody for anything.''
Avila said he turned to begging a year ago. He claims he makes 50 Cuban
pesos a month on disability -- about $3 -- and said he takes care of a
sick mother.
''I live off foreigners who help me,'' he said. ``I come about 11 in the
morning and stay until 4.''
He shunned other beggars on the malecón as frauds.
''Some people aren't needy; they just don't want to work,'' he said.
``We have a free education and health care in the country, but what good
is it if everyone is really bad off?''
Offered lunch, Avila declined, saying what he really needed was cash.
The Miami Herald withheld the name of the correspondent who filed this
report because the author lacked the Cuban journalist visa required to
work on the island.
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