The Deadly Boredom of Havana

The Deadly Boredom of Havana / Victor Ariel Gonzalez
Posted on November 2, 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org – While most young people have
virtually no place to go, others go to clubs where the entry fee alone
is more than the weekly wage of the average Cuban. The price, actually,
is nothing special, but we know that in Cuba 5 CUC is a sum of money
that few pockets would be willing to pay to get into a halfway decent
establishment.

Havana is a city that has not died, but languishes. On weekends, most of
its inhabitants dedicate themselves to wandering around to overcome some
collective boredom. People are gather in a few places in the city, like
Paseo de G or Coppelia, or they wander around with nothing to do along
the well-known streets of the city like 23rd or the Malecon.

The most common diversion is sharing from a bottle, can or carton the
alcohol that can be acquired on any park or on any corner for a little
party. This, far from representing some collective happiness that many
tourists relate delightedly when they return to their own countries, is
a distinctive feature of the decadence that more and more marks recent
generations of Cubans.

You have to have enough money to entertain yourself and have a really
good time in the capital. Some girls — and also boys — prostitute
themselves just to have the privilege of entering what are considered
the "luxury" venues within a short circuit of nocturnal Havana: cabarets
for foreigners and discotheques in hotels which, in any great city in
the would pass for second-rate, except that here sex-for-hire is
infinitely cheaper. The number of Cubans who go to these places is tiny.

Meanwhile, in the streets, amid apparently immobility and the lack of
alternatives, the most destructive forms of entertainment flourish,
forms that have been criticized lately in the government's own media,
with its continuous calls to public order and the "fight" against "the
improper behavior of a people like ours."

Some teenagers engage in all kinds of dangerous games, damaging the
urban environment and even assaulting other passersby. They hang onto
the buses from their bikes, or, on rainy days, do it barefoot sliding
along the pavement; they break the garbage bins and write vulgar signs,
abuse vehicles, shout, insult, push and cause all kinds of annoyances.
The deadly boredom of Havana reaches a crescendo each year with the
annual carnivals, which have a far from comforting quota of deaths and
injuries in riotous quarrels or knife fights.

The government, instead of promoting healthy options, exerts itself in
punishing the undisciplined. It doesn't seek to create appropriate
environments, stimulate the market of services targeted to Cubans,
repair the occasional damage in a timely fashion, or provide abetter
education in the schools.

Of course, no child of the famous residents in the most exclusive
neighborhoods inhabited by the super-exclusive caste of the country's
leaders looks in on these commoners' parties: nor will they favor them
with their presence, because, for their families, the already most
"generous" result is having converted one of the most prosperous and
active cities in the Caribbean into a dark and silenced sun helmet.

Victor Ariel Gonzalez, Cubanet, 2 October 2013

Source: "The Deadly Boredom of Havana / Victor Ariel Gonzalez |
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