The Cuba Chronicles
Part I
Sunday, May 6th 2007
TT$7=1 CUC (Cuban convertible peso)
1 CUC=24 pesos (moneda nacional)
The 8 a.m. Aeropostal flight from Port of Spain to Caracas was late and
half-empty. Two Venezuelan women came on board, one holding a toddler,
the other a tiny baby bundled up in a pink blanket. The baby's bag had a
"crew" tag. A flight attendant came over to chat with them. She stroked
the baby's head and asked how old she was. "Quinze dias," the fat one
replied. Fifteen days old. Either the mother was married to a Trini, or
she had flown in just to have it here.
The ultra-modern airport in Caracas, set against a backdrop of
mountains, was huge. TV screens showed off Venezuela's beautiful
beaches, mountains, wildlife, waterfalls and music. Chavez appeared from
time to time in his red shirt. At the departure gate the seats were
full: a Peruvian sports team, Venezuelan medical students, a few wealthy
families in designer clothes.
The big black fella next to me on the plane was kind of cute. He was
going home to Cuba to visit his family. He had studied gastronomia in
Spain, he said, and had worked in Canada and Mexico, before moving to
Venezuela five years ago. He said he wasn't married to a Venezuelan.
That probably meant he was on contract, since Cubans are only allowed to
leave the country if they marry a foreigner; if they receive a letter of
invitation to visit someone; or if they have been offered a contract, in
which case the government received part of their salary.
Then he asked the three questions that I would be asked by every Cuban I
encountered: What are Trinidad's resources? What is the size of the
population? What do I do? I would soon realise that the ordinary Cuban
understood economics better than most UWI graduates. They understand the
need for natural resources, their value on the world market, and the
difference between feeding 1.5 million and 11.5 million people.
By the time we began our descent into Jose Marti International, the chef
had deduced that life was a lot easier for Trinis than it was for
Venezuelans and Cubans, and was insisting that Oshun had put him in the
seat next to me (he believes in Santeria, the Cuban counterpart to our
Shango Baptists) because we were destined for each other.
The immigration officer asked only one
question (I was a regular, after all, after four visits): what would I
be studying? When I answered Spanish, she nodded, and typed something
into the computer. The screen was reflected in the glass behind her and
I could see myself on it. I glanced up. There was a camera above her head.
In Customs, the handlers were romping around with the sniffer dogs. They
didn't even glance in our direction. I passed through with my two bags
and laptop. Everyone seemed more relaxed than the previous times. The
team at the medical registration desk, a young fella and three women,
all in tight mini-skirts, were laughing, and I had almost walked past
before they saw me. They called me back and took my details. I knew the
drill: I would receive a card telling me to go to the neighbourhood
clinic to give a blood sample. I had no idea what would happen if any of
the tests came back positive.
La Habana looked the same, magnificent in its faded glory. Peeling
paint, crumbling walls, old women in faded clothes, withered skeletons
with puffs of white hair, who stared vacantly from their rocking chairs.
The air still stank of sulphur-laden gasoline, but people were looking
fatter, healthier and very trendy. Wedge heels and lime-green handbags
are the new rage, apparently.
My teacher, Adriana, was waiting on her porch. She had been e-mailing me
regularly since I left Cuba last August, sending lots of besos and
abrazos. She lived with her mother and her husband in one of the few
houses on her street painted in the last 50 years. She unlocked the
padlock on the gate and enveloped me in a warm hug. Her mother and her
husband did the same. Inside, there were knick-knacks everywhere-on the
walls, antique cabinets and sideboard. Her mother, a lively 80-year-old
with a shock of glossy white hair and gargantuan hips, had prepared a
lunch of rice, black beans and fried pork, chickpea soup, and tomato and
beetroot salad. When she opened the fridge to get the boiled water (I
had survived the "micro-organisms", aka parasites, in the tap water last
time, but they were playing it safe), it was full of meat, sausages and
pasta.
They were better off than most since her husband, a former colonel in
the Cuban navy, had landed a job as a waiter in a paladar, a
family-owned restaurant, and could earn tips in CUC. They had managed to
save 150 CUC to replace the 1920s washing machine in the garage, but a
new one cost 250 CUC. God knows how they had managed to do this since
Adriana, who is studying for her Master's in education, earns 450 pesos
(TT$131) a month. In the meantime, their antique washer would have to be
slapped and cajoled into a few more washes.
They kept the padlock on the front gate locked at all times. I had
thought Cuba safe, but apparently crime was on the rise. None of it was
reported in Granma, the only national newspaper, or on the state
channels, but incidents of robbery were increasing, Adriana warned. I
shouldn't go out alone at night.
Most houses had burglar-proofing on the windows. Across the street, I
could see straight into another family's upstairs apartment. Inside was
almost bare, with only an old bicycle in the patio. On that one street
the gap between those who received remittances from family abroad, and
those who didn't was obvious.
I had made a link-up to rent a room illegally. According to Cuban law,
every foreigner must stay in a hotel or a legally approved casa
particular, usually a room in someone's house, or an annex, which is
cheaper than a hotel. But these cost between CUC 25 and 35 a night,
especially in Playa, an upscale area populated with embassies and
diplomats' residences.
From the window of the small room which contained a bed, a nightstand
and a toilet that wouldn't accept toilet paper, I could see the top of
the road, and the fence of the sprawling, off-limits zona militar. On
the first day of my last visit, I had gone for a walk after lunch. After
an hour, I came upon the military zone, which seemed to stretch for
miles in every direction. Unwilling to turn back, I looked for a hole in
the wall. There was none.
Four teenagers walked up and began scaling it. I followed suit. I got
stuck at the top and two of them helped me over. When I thanked them,
one realised I was a foreigner. He smiled and asked where I was from, if
I was a student, what school I was going to, if I wanted to buy CUCs. I
shook my head regretfully. He promptly lost interest and ran off. The
military zone looked more like a huge vegetable plot, with rows of
plants running all the way down to a runway. Not a soldier was to be
seen; just a few bored teenagers sitting on the ground, chatting.
From the apartment next to mine came the sound of a computer shutting
down. My neighbour was the granddaughter of the owner, who lived
downstairs with her husband. Her son lived in the States, which
explained the computer and the small hatchback out front in the street.
At 76, my landlady moved with the speed of a 40-year-old. She spoke
perfect English with an American accent, having lived in the States for
ten years. "Here, I feel happy," she said. "Life is hard but I can say
this is my country. My country is big. If I don't like how things are, I
can say, I don't like it."
But a few minutes later, she admitted, "I'm tired. My husband, he is a
Fidelista. I love Fidel too. But I'm tired. So tired. Sometimes, after I
have a hot bath, I just want to fall asleep and never wake up." Her
husband was 86, but he looked healthy, fit and alert. He was always
smiling and trying to make conversation. His English wasn't bad either.
He had a bad knee, and shuffled slowly from his bed to the rocking chair
on the porch. I didn't realise he couldn't see me until two weeks later
when he went to the hospital for a battery of pre-operation eye
tests."He's a wonderful man," his wife said. "He didn't have money but
he was the best. Just because somebody doesn't have money means they are
the worst."
A 1950s motorcycle with a sidecar backfired as the driver jumped on the
starter. A group of boys, some white, the others black and brown,
shouted as they kicked a busted football in the street. A sausage dog,
used to the noise, continued his nonchalant waddle through the mayhem. A
skinny, once-pretty mulatta with unkempt hair and wild eyes called out
at the gate downstairs. My landlady said something to her, then shooed
her inside the house and poured her two shots of the Havana Club she
sold for five pesos. The mulatta was a regular who drank from dawn till
dusk.
As the sun set, the temperature dropped dramatically. It was still
winter, my landlady explained, and a cold front was passing over the
island. There was no hot water; for ten CUC a night I couldn't really
expect any. I showered
-Next Sunday: Part II of the Cuba Chronicles: "Eat little and live long"
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article?id=161142150
No comments:
Post a Comment