Cuba - some reflections

I wrote the following in Cuba in September. Lack of internet access prevented me from posting them there. Lack of time prevented me at home. So here I am, posting about Cuba travel in Ukraine.

Growing up in the Midwest in the 1980s, Cuba was pretty close to the top of the list of places that I never expected to visit. The land of Fidel Castro, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and such things just seemed a stretch too far, despite its relative proximity. This is actually my third attempt to visit the island, the first two being scuttled by logistical challenges.

So many things I’ve read about travel in Cuba stress the creeping-back-from-decrepitude beauty of the architecture of Habana Vieja (Old Havana) and the fascinating symbol of 1940s and 1950s US-made cars still in use. The architecture is amazing. While that which has been restored to its turn-of-the-last-century glory is a marvel to behold, those buildings that remain in their “state of nature” also have a certain elegance as they seem to tell the story of this place more fully. And the cars are there, although I suspect in decreasing numbers as zippy new ones begin to fill the streets. Seeing the rounded bodies of Chevys from the 1940s and the dramatic fins of cars from the 1950s are here and there. They remain a testament to the resourcefulness of the Cuban people. They also remind that there are a few places on earth that have not yet fully adopted the culture of disposability.

Cuba fascinates this student of the Soviet Union. With the exception of the palm trees and tropical flowers, some of Havana’s and Santiago’s wide avenues could be plucked directly from some southern Russian or Ukrainian city. Driving into the city, one sees many buildings that could easily be found on the outskirts of St. Petersburg or Kyiv. The Revolution Square, with its soaring tower, reminds me of the Victory Square in St. Petersburg. Clearly, the Soviet aesthetic had heavy influence on the newer parts of the city.

But entering the centro historico, Cuba is its own. Starting with a few blocks of tattered art deco buildings and building toward fabulous nineteenth century commercial buildings and homes, the historic center begins to take shape. What I originally took to be Habana Vieja was in fact many blocks short, despite the presence of stunning, if slightly decrepit, architecture. The capitolio nacional looms large over the city center, seemingly modeled at least in part on the US capitol building in Washington, yet with a romantic European flare that adds drama to the otherwise Grecian lines. Going further in, the heart of Old Havana begins to take shape, with beautifully restored buildings dating from many centuries converging on the port. The Plaza de San Francisco seems to be the center of it all, fronted on one side by the elegant nineteenth century buildings of the port house and by an ancient soaring church on the other.

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Heat.  It is not the kind of heat that you notice immediately. It is not the kind of heat we have in the US Midwest where it hits you in the face the second you step out of the air-conditioned space (perhaps I don’t notice it as much here since there is less air conditioning and it is not as dramatic or as cold as it usually is in the US). It is the kind of heat you do not even notice amidst the cool sea breezes and in the shade of buildings or trees. But then suddenly the sun finds you and you feel it well up inside of you. The sweat begins and does not cease until it has soaked your shirt. Although you do not have to go far to find a nice sea breeze, the heat somehow sticks with you even then, beating down upon your head. I can see why Cubans wear hats.

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There are two cities here, although there is not boundary visible between them. They live together symbiotically, distrusting one another yet fully dependent on one another, like a bitter old married couple. The first city is marked by hotels filled with tourists from Europe, Asia, Canada, and a surprising number from the United States. These hotels have all the markings of the globalized world, from the subtle lighting to the piped-in American, European, and Asian television stations and an abundance of food of every sort. This is the world of the convertible peso (CUC) which allows foreigners to pay prices that meet the global norm, providing the government with much needed hard currency. This city speaks, for the most part, English tinged with German, Chinese, and Japanese, tinged with the accent of progress and individual autonomy.

The second city dwells here too in symbiosis with the first. It is a world of tall carved wooden doors and grilled windows that reveal old ladies in house coats, shirtless old men, and curious children simultaneously watching television and the flow of life on the street outside. It seems that Cubans would find it difficult to live with the typical American floorplan that places the family’s main living space at the rear of the home. Rather their norm seems to be something akin to the front-porch culture that some older American neighborhoods retain, but with an even less defined line between the personal and the private life. This is a world that speaks a lispy Cuban Spanish, ranging from high literary forms of university professors to the dialects tinged with African tongues. This world lives on the national peso, accessible only to Cubans, that allows them to buy goods at a highly subsidized rate, far below global market costs. A family in Santiago, Cuba’s second city, can live a fairly comfortable life on US$100 per month. Yet it also limits their purchasing power to goods made available by the government. Such essential as salt, oil, coffee (yes, and essential in Cuba!) are often unavailable. In a conversation over lunch in Santiago, I asked if fried plantains were a daily part of the Cuban diet in the home. The answer surprised me. “No, we rarely ever have them.” This surprised me, since plantains seem to be an easy and cheap form of starch for stretching the diet. “We would prefer to, but we cannot obtain the oil necessary to fry them.” This second world is fueled and transported by the antique Fords and Chevy of the 1940s and 1950s that have been continually remade both inside and out. Cubans, it seems, are masterfully resourceful in recycling and retrofitting just about anything. This is not a skill of choice, but rather a skill of survival.

These two worlds meet, perhaps, in the thriving tourist trade. In the tiny restaurants that locals tell me are the only place in Cuba where you can get “real Cuban food,” since they have access through the government to ingredients that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Worlds meet in tiny galleries selling everything from tourist kitsch to high art. I spent 40 minutes today in a small gallery on a tiny street in Old Havana. The store sold lithographs made by a lady who ran the shop. I watched her work on one for a while and we talked a bit in broken Spanish about her work, Cuba, etc. I ended up buying one lithograph that she said showed the hidden nature of the city. I liked it. The Cubans, it seems to me, are an exceptionally gifted people in terms of aesthetics, with a keen sense both for the beautiful of the traditional and the possibilities of the avant-garde. Worlds meet in bicycle and motor taxis, in tiny cafes and coffee shops where locals and foreigners mingle.