By David Adams, Times Latin America Correspondent
In print: Saturday, December 27, 2008
HAVANA — My first impression of Havana, after I arrived on a Soviet jet
from war-torn Nicaragua in December 1988, was distinctly gray — drab
streets of faded mansions and a population hunkered down in the midst of
the Cold War.
The island was celebrating the 30th anniversary of the revolution that
brought Fidel Castro to power. Fidel was only 62 and still in his prime.
As usual he made one of his stem-winding two and a half hour speeches
about the virtues of the revolution and socialism. "Those who dream that
the revolution will someday be defeated are fooling themselves," he said.
This Jan. 1, Cuba's 50th anniversary, has a different feel. While Cuba's
history over the last half century is often depicted as a country stuck
in a communist time warp, I find myself focusing on how much has
actually changed.
Castro's 30th anniversary speech was one of the last times he would be
able to bask in past triumphs. Within months, the revolution was facing
its biggest threat since the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989 seemed to signal the death knell for Cuban
communism. A year later, Castro's anniversary speech was all about
"rectification" of past mistakes, the need to raise milk production and
build a tourist industry.
One of my main recollections from that first visit was the way Cubans in
the street were questioned by police if they were seen talking to
foreigners. I remember a young Cuban man telling me not to worry when a
policeman approached us. He flicked open his wallet revealing a
prominently displayed photo of Fidel. That was his ruse to avoid
suspicion. He later spent several hours explaining to me the essential
survival code, what Cubans call the doble cara, or literally the
"two-faces" they wear: one a pro-revolutionary disguise for dealing with
the state, another for friends and family.
In those days there were barely any tourists, except for visitors from
the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Cubans craved contact with the
outside world. An economic embargo — still in place today — kept
American tourists away.
A young dancer, who lived only a few steps from the University of Havana
where Fidel launched his political career, begged me to marry her so she
could emigrate. I declined. A while later I learned she was living in
Scotland.
Back then hotels were very simple and food was dull. I stayed at the
Havana Libre hotel in the Vedado district (the former Hilton) where even
the fruit juice served at breakfast was imported. I wondered why such a
fertile country had such trouble growing its own food.
The fall of the Soviet Union shook Cuba to the core. In a matter of
months Cuba's economy shrunk 35 percent. It seemed impossible that Cuba
could resist a tropical version of perestroika's bold economic reforms.
A joke at the time told how Fidel's favorite barber one day asked the
Cuban leader for his opinion on perestroika. Castro rebuffed him. On
Fidel's next visit, the barber asked again and Fidel still refused to
answer. The next time he asked, Fidel grew angry and demanded an
explanation. "When I ask about perestroika your hair stands on end, and
it's so much easier to cut," the barber replied.
Like many others, I underestimated Cuba's capacity to resist outside
economic and political pressures. In order to survive the 1990s Cuba
entered what it called a Special Period, involving massive
belt-tightening. The much-vaunted public health and education systems
were severely tested but held firm.
It was during those years that I acquired a god-daughter in Havana. As
Iris has grown over the years — she is now 13 — the changes in her life,
and that of her parents, have been the yardstick by which I measured
Cuba's progress. They have had their ups and downs, struggling through
the Special Period on state rations and often forced to scrounge on
Cuba's rampant black market. They barely scrape by today, living in a
three-room home in the back of a falling-down apartment building in Old
Havana. They recently were provided with a new state-subsidized Chinese
fridge and pressure cooker. I keep them supplied with multivitamins for
Iris, who leads an active life, including daily martial arts training
For a time Cuba did loosen up a bit, allowing some private sector small
businesses, including family restaurants, bed and breakfasts, barbers,
tire changers and vegetable markets. One woodcarver, who has a stall
around the corner from the Havana Libre, happily told me he now lives 10
times better than before. He's one of the few contented Cubans I know.
But as soon as the economy began to improve in the late 1990s the
private enterprise licenses got scarcer, and the island reverted to
Fidel's preferred centralized socialist state model.
Ironically, the most enduring changes have come from a long-range plan
to upgrade Cuba's crumbling old hotels and build new five-star luxury
beach resorts to snare the foreign currency of visitors from the
capitalist world. These days the police don't bother them, and Cuba has
a deserved reputation as one of the safest tourist destinations in the
world.
It took a while for tourism to take hold, but Cuba now receives up to
2-million tourists annually. The Varadero beach hotel strip is
especially popular with Canadians. Last week I met members of a
36-strong Canadian wedding party. They had a hard time understanding why
there were no Americans. "I know there's an embargo, but can't they just
sneak in?" one of the Canadians asked me.
Much of the colonial heart of the city has been restored, complete with
all of Ernest Hemingway's old haunts. Work has even begun to restore
Sloppy Joe's, the famous bar near Havana's Central Park a few blocks
from the old office of the Bacardi rum company.
On the other hand, Cuba's housing stock remains in a decrepit state, and
on each visit I lament the absence, like missing teeth, of buildings
that have collapsed from neglect.
Today Cuba still depends on foreign imports for much of its food, but
there is far more variety available in hotels and on the street. The
Havana Libre, where I still opt to stay, offers excellent omelets for
breakfast. Now the juice comes from oranges and grapefruit grown in Cuba.
But the diet of ordinary Cubans has not gotten any better. If anything
it has worsened, due to the perennial scarcity of milk and other
essential food items.
At least Cubans now have a far better idea of the rest of the world.
Cuban state TV bears no resemblance to the 1980s, and now features a
daily diet of Hollywood movies, from Jean-Claude Van Damme to Jimmy Stewart.
Tourism has also forced Cuba to reacquaint itself with capitalist ways,
and an economy where some — those with the best jobs — are more equal
than others.
The 1998 election of a left-leaning former military officer, Hugo
Chavez, as president of Venezuela, gave Cuba a new lifeline. Another
Soviet-style barter trade deal — this time doctors and physical trainers
in return for oil — injects billions into the Cuban economy, more than
covering a $6.2-billion foreign trade deficit.
Like most reporters I have occasionally fallen afoul of the Cuban
government's idea of media objectivity. My main sin, I was told, was
being too eager to predict the end of the revolution after the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
I was blacklisted in the 1990s for several years and was even deported
on one visit in 1998. But I was eventually welcomed back, and this year
I made four trips to the island, equalling my annual record.
Occasionally I get reminders of the revolution's old habits. A friend
last week told me that our relationship had not gone unnoticed by a
state security official who lives in his building. Didn't he know that
American reporters were "the enemy," my friend was asked.
While that kind of Cold War mentality may still exist, I can't help
feeling it's on the wane. Illness has obliged Fidel to take a back seat,
and his more pragmatic brother, Raul Castro, is now in charge. As Cuba's
communist leaders await another U.S. president — the 11th since 1959 —
there is for the first time in decades a real air of expectation of
improved relations across the Florida Straits, and an end perhaps to
Washington's 46-year-old embargo.
Some older Cubans I know find themselves pondering the sacrifices of 50
years of standing up to the United States. Manuel Barrios, a retired
lawyer I met in Pinar del Rio last week, told me of how he met Fidel at
the university and joined the revolution in the 1950s. Now 85, he runs a
small two-room bed and breakfast with his wife and enjoys conversing
with foreigners.
"I will go to my grave committed to the revolution," he said.
Today Barrios walks with a cane and is losing his sight. "You should
have seen me back in the old days. I was very radical," he chuckled.
But times change and as his generation fades, he expects Cuba will
likely change, too.
"I don't have a problem with that," he said softly.
David Adams can be reached at dadams@sptimes.com.
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