Hello from Cuba (14) - Field Trips and Interviews
Hotel Habana Libre, Thursday, April 14, 2005, 3:38 pm
During the past close to 2 weeks, I have really been trying to
understand Cuba, its politics, its economy, its people, its
mentality. I have been talking to as many locals as I could, and
every night before I go to bed, I have been reading books about
Cuba in addition to having purchased some local Cuban books
which are going to give me more insight about this unique,
contradictory place.
Yesterday I had a chance to talk to a TV journalist, who is a
specialist in economics and he explained a few things to me. I
only have a passing degree of familiarity with Communism, mostly
from my time back home in Austria, when the Soviet Block still
existed. It's so hard for me to believe that virtually all
business activity here is state-owned and state-run. The
journalist explained to me that there are 140 occupations (e.g.
private small restaurants / "Paladares", private bed and
breakfasts or "Casas Particulares", taxi drivers, carpenters,
plumbers, artisans and other tradespeople, that are allowed to
practice private enterprise while all the stores, service
providers and industry are nationalized.
Not surprisingly, the quality of service is very low and people
steal incredible amounts of goods and merchandise from the State
to resell them privately on the street. I asked the journalist
what he thinks the percentage of theft is in comparison to the
total gross national product, but he played pretty dumb and said
he couldn't give me an answer to that question. Apparently the
huge amount of theft and resulting private enterprise is not
officially discussed in Cuban political circles.
At noon today I went for a walk with a local Cuban woman from
the university and we tried to grab a simple lunch. We tried 4
restaurants, all of them were closed (some apparently due to a
shortage of water) and the ones that were open, only had a
couple of the items that were listed on the menu. We finally
ended up eating a pizza at one of the big hotels. Long lineups
and shortages are a theme that repeats itself daily several
times.
Earlier today my language class (the professor and 4 students)
went on a field trip to the "Center Felix Varela", a
non-governmental organization, funded by Swiss, Belgian and
Canadian contributors, that concerns itself with 4 main topics:
sustainable development, conditions for peace, local community
development and environmental education. From what I understand,
they provide workshops, seminars and conference for academics
and political decision makers in these 4 categories of topics
and they have more than 100 volunteers who go out into society
to apply some of these principles.
Again, this is one of the idiosynracies of Cuba: it's a third
world country with major economic problems, often lacking the
basic necessities. But on the other hand, there are
organizations that concern themselves with advanced societal
issues such as sustainable development, the environment, etc.
Admittedly Cuba is not doing very well yet in these regards.
Environmental conscience is in its infancy, recycling doesn't
exist and people freely toss garbage into the street or the
ocean. Sewage treatment does not exist either and Havana's waste
water is apparently discharged without treatment into Havana
Bay. On the other hand, there are organizations that want to
promote the use of alternative energy in Cuba, particularly of
solar energy.
Agriculture in itself is for the most part "organic" since Cuba
doesn't have the money for agricultural machinery, fertilizers
or other chemicals. In many cases fields are still cultivated
with oxens and ploughed manually, which obviously affects
efficiency, but on the other hand provides a healthy natural
crop. Again, one of the many idiosyncracies of this fascinating
country.
I can't help but be mesmerized by this country, which on one
hand is so strangely advanced (in terms of medicine, literacy,
infant mortality, life expectancy, education, etc.), but on the
other it is so immensely backward. Sometimes it is truly hard to
process all the various impressions that at first glance don't
make sense, but after a while you start to realize that life in
Cuba has its own very very strange and unique characteristics.