Enterprising Cubans buck the system
Scraping to survive, some Cubans feel compelled to defy the Government to eke out an existence. Robert Dominguez reports from Havana for the New York Daily News.
THIS is definitely not what Fidel pictured.
Sixty years after Castro overthrew Cuba’s notoriously corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista, one of the world’s last remaining Communist strongholds has become a hotbed of capitalism.
In Havana, where crumbling Colonialera buildings stand in nearruin alongside shiny new hotels and restaurants owned by private citizens — and where American cars from the 1950s are now tourist taxis that use the Plaza de la Revolucion as a parking lot — longsuffering Cubans have been forced to become crafty capitalists in order to survive under the Socialist state’s eternally ineffective economy.
It is lunchtime on a sunny day on La Rampa, Havana’s busiest street in the city’s Vedado district, and Frank is doing brisk business selling his homemade pastries to Cubans looking for a cheap, sweet dessert.
Sitting on a low wall outside an office building with an open cardboard box on his lap,
Frank offers hungry Habaneros a concoction made with dried fruit topped with custard icing for about NZ30c.
Frank, who bakes the pastries at home with the help of a friend, says he can sell anywhere from 50 to 75 pastries on a good day — $NZ15 to $NZ22, not a bad haul by Cuba’s standards.
‘‘There are good days and bad days, but I make a decent living, so I’m out here every day,’’ said Frank, who lives with his elderly mother.
Like any small independent businessman, he worries about the means of production, especially under an economy known for constant shortages, not to mention quality control.
Flour for baking is in short supply, and the kind available on the black market makes his pastries too crumbly.
Like other selfemployed entrepreneurs working without a licence, Frank has to constantly deal with state inspectors looking to crack down on street vendors.
However, he does have a unique way of avoiding fines.
‘‘They know me, and they know I refuse to pay,’’ he said.
‘‘So they usually don’t bother me.’’
Taxi driver Miguel, a Havana native who does not have a licence to use his car as a taxi, makes a living proudly defying the state’s strict controls on the industry, which he calls ridiculous, corrupt and just another way to steal more money from the people.
‘‘Why should I give [the Government] anything more than I have to?’’ he tells a foreign fare in the back seat of his car while driving along Havana’s narrow streets.
‘‘Life here is hard enough.’’
As Havana’s bus service is notoriously undependable, many Cubans opt for inexpensive, privatelyowned licensed taxis to get around town, called almendrones, in which they share rides with strangers for about US50c (NZ74c).
Tourists usually see the sights in staterun yellow cabs or the ubiquitous, classic American cars from the ’50s that can cost up $US50 an hour.
Drivers like Miguel, who owns a mid1980s Russian Lada left over from when Cuba was a Soviet satellite, provide a cheaper option. Hanging around near the hotels, they will mostly ferry tourists, which is illegal without a licence and can cost him a hefty $US40 fine, or about a month and ahalf’s salary for the average Cuban.
But driving what is essentially a Havanastyle gypsy cab lets Miguel avoid paying licence fees and taxes, as well as having to buy expensive fuel at stateowned gas stations, like licensed drivers are supposed to do.
Petrol has long been one of the more popular commodities sold on the black market. But government workers who drive official vehicles like trucks, buses or even ambulances have long made money on the side by stealing gas from their allocated quotas and selling it to taxi drivers, licensed or not, and private car owners.
Besides, being his own boss is a way of sticking it to a government Miguel says is as crooked as any black marketeer.
‘‘What I don’t understand is how we have let these people stay in power,’’ he said, his voice rising.
‘‘We are 11 million and we cannot defeat a few hundred?’’
When boyhood pals Mario Echevarria and Nelson Labrada decided to leave steady jobs in construction in their hometown of Holguin and move more than 644km away to start over in Havana, their families thought they were making a mistake.
Nobody, they said, should put much faith in the Cuban economy, especially when both men were in their early 40s.
But when the friends said their plan was to become professional artists, everyone thought they were crazy.
Three years later, it looks like Echevarria and Labrada got the last laugh.
The men, who had worked at a variety of jobs including as carpenters and locksmiths, had always been talented artists. They were lucky to move to Havana just as the tourist boom, helped by the normalisation of relations with the US under former President Barack Obama, hit the city like a Caribbean storm.
Suddenly, the paintings they sold from the tiny room they rented by day — an eating area in a cramped apartment overlooking a narrow street in Old Havana — were in hot demand by tourists looking for a relatively inexpensive piece of authentic Cuban art.
‘‘People like it,’’ said
Labrada of their artwork, which is mostly colourful, cliched images of classic cars, rural vistas and scenes along the Malecon, Havana’s famed seawall.
The paintings, all on soft canvas and some done with small metal palettes rather than brushes, come in various sizes and sell for $US10 to $US200.
‘‘After we pay for rent, taxes, our pensions and licences, we are able to make a decent living,’’ Echevarria said.
But the artists do face some risks. Good art materials are in short supply in Cuba, especially oil and acrylic paints, and the men refuse to lower their standards and use house paint as some other artists do.
Then there is the cyclical lack of customers — tourism tends to drag during the summer months and the early autumn.
‘‘We were able to save a little money for a while, but right now it’s a little tough,’’ Echevarria said.
‘‘We’re waiting for things to pick up with the tourists — Cubans, unfortunately, don’t buy art.’’
With her bleached blond hair, tight stylish jeans and cellphone jammed in her rear pocket, she could be a student, an officer worker or just one of the many seemingly careless teens ambling along the Malecon on a hot Havana afternoon.
Except Lara represents Cuba’s dirty little secret. Decades after Castro vowed to stamp out the rampant prostitution of the bad old Batista days when Havana was America’s adultsonly playground, the world’s oldest profession is still going strong.
While streetwalkers are rare in Havana, or at least not out in the open, Lara is what is known as a jinitera — women young and old, single and married, who sell their bodies for a quick buck just to survive in Cuba’s harsh economy.
Or in some cases, lucky enough to latch on to a tourist for the duration of his stay and enjoy gifts, free meals and cash in exchange for the jinitera’s company.
‘‘I feel like I’ve been doing this my whole life,’’ Lara, who claims to be 18, said.
‘‘I do it because there’s nothing else I can do. I didn’t go to school and I don’t have a job, so this is it.’’
Lara, who blames an alcoholic mother and an absent father for drifting into the life, said she made up to $US50 for a quick trick, usually tourists she solicits along the Malecon.
‘‘A lot of my friends do this,’’ she said in a soft voice.
Most nights, Lara will troll Havana’s many discos and clubs for tourists looking for a good time, who she can hopefully charge a lot more for overnight stays.
With a worldweariness that belies her age, she is resigned to the fact that despite the harsh penalties for prostitutes — prison terms are not uncommon — she sees no way out right now.
‘‘This is Cuba,’’ she said quietly.
‘‘You do what you can.’’ — TCA
❛
Why should I give [the Government] anything more than I
have to?