Catching up with Cuba (July 2013)

Text by Vanessa Lea (UNICAMP), images by Julia Lea de Toledo1

Original version, incorporating changes made in the Portuguese version: “A revolução

cubana atinge a terceira idade”, published in the online Journal Proa: Revista de

Antropologia e Arte, n0 5, vol 1. 2015, issn 2175-6015.

“The number of possible views is infinite. Indeed, when interpretation is imagined as taking a view, then incompleteness is made manifest by the interpretive exercise itself”. “The interpreting subject appears, then, always positioned to act from a point of view, to take a perspective on events that is never exactly reciprocated by another”.Marilyn Strathern. The Ethnographic Effect II (1999): pages 235 & 237.

INTRODUCTION

1972 was the year of my first attempt to visit Cuba (from England); however, the visa

was not forthcoming, due to the fact that a Cuban diplomat had just been expelled

from Britain, accused of spying. I was to study post revolutionary Cuban literature at

Essex University, as an undergraduate. The third term of the undergraduate course in

Latin American Studies, in 1971, was dedicated to the study of revolution in Cuba,

and in the USSR.2

The opportunity to visit Cuba arose again in 2013, allowing me to celebrate

my sixtieth birthday in Havana, on the 60th anniversary of the revolution, personally

embodying the time span of the revolution, as I was born on the day of the storming

of the Moncada barracks – July 26th, 1953. Those examining my passport in Cuba

always looked at me with bemused curiosity, acknowledging the coincidence between

post-revolutionary Cuba and my person. This text transpired as an attempt to digest

my experience of Cuba and the ideological impact that immersion in that country had

on me, in contrast to the impressions acquired as an undergraduate.

For three weeks my daughter Julia and I, together with her boyfriend, travelled

some 2.000 km by car around the Western portion of Cuba.3 Julia is partner of the

joint venture that gave rise to this experimental essay. She registered her visual

impressions of the country, a selection being available on her website

(http://julialdt.wix.com/julialea#!cuba/co6b). Even on holiday, an anthropologist has

difficulty in abdicating observation of the details of every situation that she or he finds

her/himself in. This text is a tribute to the relentless energy and ingeniousness of the

Cuban population in the face of so much adversity.

WORDS VERSUS IMAGES: THEFRONTIER BETWEEN THE VISUAL FIELD AND TEXT

My undergraduate readings included Oscar Lewis (1959), Five Families:

Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. It left a lasting impression as it

enabled me to visualize what was being described, contrary to other authors read at

that time, such as Talcott Parsons. It was not the theory that was of interest, but rather

the vivid descriptions that Lewis transmitted to his readers.

In 2011, a discussion of Les lances du crépuscule. Relations Jivaros, Haute-

Amazonie (1993),4 Philippe Descola’s book relating his experience of anthropological

fieldwork in Ecuador, instigated thought provoking reactions from my postgraduate

students at UNICAMP concerning the frontier between ethnography and literature,

science and fiction. Descola stresses that he does not regard himself as having the

imagination of a literary figure; he merely wished to narrow the gap between the

endogamic circle of anthropologists and non-academic readers, noting that historians

have tended to achieve this far better than anthropologists.

When reading contemporary literary authors, for example, Caryl Phillips’s 5

(2011) collection of essays on migration and belonging, I was left yearning for an

anthropological grounding and reflexivity concerning notions such as identity and

culture, which this author seems to envisage as relatively self-evident and

unproblematic concepts, despite being the object of much soul searching. In other

words, if anthropologists tend to be excessively academic and arcane, writers of

literature seem to take the social context for granted.

While writing these lines, I happened upon an interview with Silvia Baron

Supervielle (on TV5), concerning her book Lettres à des photographies, published in

2013. Checking out the book I came across an article by Olivier Beuvelet on Internet,

from which comes the following quotation.

For a normally informed spectator, the photographic presence is (presents itself cognitively as…) the presence of the origin of the image itself, that is to say an actual presence of the past presence of that which was « imprinted upon » the sensible surface.6

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This explains why people are more readily attracted to images than to words,

and why most people prefer films to audio books. Nevertheless, it can be argued that

despite a possible overlap between the communicability of words and images, some

subject matter is more appropriate to words, such as the logic of kinship

terminologies, whilst phenomena such as painting – either on the body or on canvas,

can only be fully apprehended visually.7 This question is brought up in order to clarify

that this experimental exercise in the complementarity of words and images is not

posited as a mutual dialogue between this text and the co-author’s images, rather its

aim is to create parallel perspectives simultaneously. The parallelism is not reducible

merely to the use of words versus images, but also to the different perspectives of the

authors, on account of generational distance, besides differential life trajectories.8 I

purposefully avoided looking at Julia’s images, until having finished writing the text,

to avoid the temptation of writing to explain them, and suggested that my co-author

should also avoid trying to illustrate the text with her images. The two approaches are

autonomous, despite the fact that I did request that certain images be taken in Cuba.

Recalling the game of snakes and ladders: the non-anthropologist may prefer a ladder direct to the next

section

THE ONTOLOGICAL TURN IN ANTHROPOLOGY9

Social Anthropology has practically abandoned the notion of relativism

because, amongst other reasons, it fails to mediate socio-cultural conflicts. In the last

few years, anthropologists inspired by philosophers have appropriated the term

ontology, and the notion of the coexistence of multiple ontologies. Culture, the

‘invention’ of Social Anthropology (Tylor, 1871) has been vastly overused.10 Lévi-

Strauss (1962) recommended abandoning the concept of totemism because it had

become so eclectic as to render it unintelligible; nowadays it is used mainly in a

metaphorical sense. The Political Right in Europe has appropriated the notion of

culture as a tool for discriminating against immigrants, accused of tainting the purity

of French and British culture, to name but two countries.11 In Brazil, culture has

recently been used in inverted commas (Carneiro da Cunha, 2009), in the attempt to

deal with its reification.12 With the increase in the availability of services on the world

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stage, especially tourism, as an economic alternative to the production and

consumption of material goods, culture is gradually acquiring the status of a

commodity. The ongoing boom in legislating on the world heritage of immaterial

property is a further incentive for each country to maximize what is recognized as

culture - material and immaterial, in order to promote tourism.

Anthropology, on the whole, seems to be lacking theoretical resources to deal

with power struggles. Almeida (2009), inspired by the Brazilian philosopher Newton

da Costa, talks of “ontological warfare”,13 mediated by pragmatic stances and

solutions. It is this focus on conflict (Almeida 2013) that I consider useful in order to

overcome the impasses of relativism.14 Holbraad (2007), in his study of an afrocuban

cult, uses ontology to fathom the internal logic of the cult, but to my mind, he

transforms it into a sui generis phenomenon, harking back to nominalism (a

philosophical question that is beyond the scope of this essay).

The apparent detour from the reality of Cuba is due to the fact that this country

provides fertile ground for expounding upon ontological conflicts. There are three

interacting worlds, or mindsets, that share the same space but cannot be merged

together: the government, advocating “sustainable” socialism; the common people,

living a different reality, an adaptation for dealing with the State and the economic

crisis; and thirdly, the foreign tourists with their own experiences and view points.15

The latter are often oblivious to the ruminations of either the government or the

common people. They are largely contented with sun, fun, good food, drink, music, a

comfortable place to stay, besides photographs to take home or to post on Facebook.

And Cuba fills all these criteria.

After having justified the adoption of the idea of conflicting ontologies to

reflect upon Cuba, the relevance of Marilyn Strathern’s neologism “merographic”

forced itself upon me. This author attempts to explain the term (1992: 204-5) in a long

footnote (n0 21). It incorporates the Greek word meros ‘part’ or ‘share’. In my

opinion, the following quotations (from two of her works) make this clearer:

“We might imagine two persons each inhabiting the other´s visual field. The merographic connection thus works through turning aside from one vantage point to see things from ‘a whole’ new perspective” 1999: 247. “The elucidation of numerous different systems or domains, each with their own logical principles, each affording a particular perspective on something, only exemplifies the impossibility of imagining a totality” 1992: 131.16

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The apparently cumbersome term “merographic” can be seen as a forerunner

to perspectivism, as developed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, from 1996 onwards, in

opposition to animism as formulated by Descola (1986, passim). As noted by Almeida

(2013), the ontological turn in Anthropology is related to perspectivism in terms of

the dislocation of the subject proposed by the latter approach. Some of the most

innovatory research in this area is currently being undertaken by linguists,

psychologists, and linguistic anthropologists, rather than by social anthropologists.

This is admirably exemplified by Nicholas Evans’s book (2010) Dying Words:

Endangered Languages and What They Have To Tell Us – an introduction to world

languages, with an up to date discussion of linguistic relativism. This author

describes, for example (and simplifying), how an Australian aborigine may locate

something in a supermarket in terms of the cardinal directions, and not in terms of the

speaker him-/herself. 17

Increasingly common in a globalized world, is the daily experience of living

cheek by jowl with ontologies that one does not share. Their practitioners deem them

to be rational, though they approximate religious faith in terms of their irrefutability.

The hegemonic model of perpetual economic growth is just one example among

many.

Christianity appropriated the Winter solstice (December 21st) in the pagan

calendar in Europe, substituting it with Christmas.18 Nowadays it has become a

modern analogy of the North American Indian (First Peoples’s) potlatch, in as much

as people materialize relationships through the circulation of presents. Canada has

even invented a site for swapping unwanted gifts over the Internet, according to two

distinct categories – unwanted versus duplicate presents. In Brazil, shopping malls

now reserve the week following Christmas for people to take back presents that are

unwanted, or the wrong size. In Cuba respite is possible, if only temporarily, from this

world of rampant consumerism.

CUBA: INTRODUCTION

Cubans have to be extremely resourceful in order to make ends meet. They are

very polite and extremely patient, the latter quality recognized by Cubans as an

indispensable ingredient of life in Cuba. They have had to learn to live with queuing

for everything and surviving on next to nothing. A Brazilian friend (the late Bel

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Baltar) told me over a decade ago that Cubans are very similar in temperament to

Brazilians, an observation equally valid today. They are exuberant, outgoing and

expansive. Like Brazilians they are very musical and love to party.

Undoubtedly the most noteworthy and outrageous aspect of Cuba is the

economic blockade, imposing the country’s relative isolation from the rest of the

world since 1958. Repudiation of the embargo and its negative consequences is

perhaps the only consensus among Cubans who have remained on the island. Cuba

exemplifies the possibility of coexisting ontologies due to its economic ‘apartheid’

separating nationals from tourists.19 It is noteworthy the extent to which Cubans and

tourists inhabit different worlds within the same physical space, something

exacerbated when the tourists are unable to speak Spanish, impeding verbal

communication, as few Cubans speak more than a smattering of English. Until

recently, one had to fill out a form before being allowed through customs control,

informing which hotel one was staying at upon arrival. Tourists must stay either at

hotels or in private homes registered with the State.

Cubans earn and use pesos, whereas the tourists pay for everything in pesos

convertibles. The latter are also known as divisa, and officially as cucs, but generally

referred to simply as cus.20 Paying for lunch with Cuban pesos one piles up the notes,

whereas the number of notes decreases considerably in thickness if paying in cucs,

materializing before one’s eyes the discrepancy in the relative value of the two

currencies.

The bygone days of alliance with the ex-Soviet Union are generally regarded

with nostalgia, as a time of plenty and of economic dynamism. One offshoot of the

trade embargo is the figure of the “innovator”, a term used to describe an engineer

who manages to make a piece of machinery that is unavailable due to the blockade.

One such man who we conversed with, now in his sixties, works for eight hours or

more in a factory, after officially having retired, just to make ends meet, despite

walking with a limp because of his osteoporosis. In Soviet times he visited the USSR

with his wife, and Switzerland to hone his skills, as an exemplary worker,

incentivizing others to follow suite. He now lives with his wife and child in a two

room flat, above his mother-in-law’s flat. To a certain extent all Cubans have to be

innovators in order to get by. We saw one house with its walls made entirely of metal

Coca Cola billboards, rusty with age.

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The collapse of the Soviet Union heralded what is referred to as the “período

especial” (special period) when people actually lost weight from hunger. To a certain

extent, China has now stepped in as a communist ally. It has partly replaced the

decaying buses, though apparently it has refused to honour guarantees for mending

them unless the government improves the roads, full of potholes. Chinese cars are

now available for tourists to hire, and cash machines, still displaying the original

characters, are imported from China. It is somewhat surreal to see public buses with

the sign “Écoliers” at the back of them; these have come from French speaking

Canada. That country has started to send truckloads of goods to Cuba, such as second

hand clothes and old computers. One Cuban documentary maker complained that the

government had recently spent more money on food and accommodation for these

evangelical do-gooders than if it had purchased new clothes and computers for its

citizens.

FOOD

Most Cubans have to content themselves with very basic and bland food;

spices are generally unavailable, and salad dressing is reduced to soya bean oil and

vinegar. Poorer people actually go hungry, despite ration books still being in

existence.21 Rations used to include soap for the body and for clothes, and even

tobacco, but since 1991, the beginning of the “special period”, the list of items has

gradually diminished to basics such as rice, black beans, soya oil, sugar and coffee.

These can be bought cheaply from the State, paid in Cuban pesos, but per person one

only gets enough to survive on for a week or a fortnight, according to the varying

calculations people mentioned. Despite being a coffee growing country, the coffee

sold to Cubans tastes awful to outsiders. It is apparently mixed with chickpea skins to

eek it out. Some food has to be imported due to the outdated means of cultivation.

Currently the government imports items like rice from Brazil and even from as far

afield as Vietnam.

It is possible to obtain a ration of bread in pesos that is very light and non-

nutritious; other options are available only in cucs. Butter and even margarine tend to

be ruled out, unless you are a tourist or occupy the higher social echelons. There is

some variation in the rations from one region to another. In Havana one has the right

to ten eggs per person, per month, whereas in Oriente (Eastern Cuba) one gets only

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two. It is supposed by the State that one keeps hens there, whether or not one manages

to do so, as one man complained whose mother lives there and has no space for

raising chickens. The State tries to curb migration from Oriente to Havana, and

internal migrants find it difficult to install themselves there, and are discriminated

against.

The average Cuban cannot eat beef; it is being reserved for pregnant women,

and others deemed to have special needs. Tourists can consume it at will. Cubans

mainly consume pork, chicken and spam, when available at an affordable price.

Despite living on an island surrounded by water, Cubans rarely get to eat fish or

shrimps. These also are reserved for tourists and, together with lobster, are available

on all tourist menus.

People typically keep one pig to be fattened up, and it can be heard squealing

and snorting in the houses round about. In Havana it may be kept in a closed pen, next

to the house, whereas the pig in the home we stayed at in Viñales, in the countryside,

foraged outside during the day and was only led off to its pen at night. President Raul

Castro has considered the idea of banning the rearing of domestic pigs as they can

cause cholera through water contamination. During our stay this proposal failed to

materialize and would probably ignite a revolt if it did. Cubans raise pigs to be sold

for convertible currency, not to eat pork. They then buy back small portions for their

consumption, also in convertible currency.

THE ECONOMY

Theft occurs at each link in the chain; for example, a certain amount of fish

brought in on a trawler is absconded, to sell unofficially, in order to obtain cucs. The

middleman does the same thing, and the kitchen staff in the hotels follow suit. Elderly

people in old-age homes were said to be given watery soup, because the underpaid

kitchen staff sell on the chicken and other ingredients that are supposed to go into it,

in order to compensate for their low wages. When the police seize merchandize they

sell it on.

Many items are obtained on the black market. The word circulates by

telephone that, for example, prawns or chicken are on the market; consequently, when

Cubans wish to buy such items for a special occasion they may well be unable to find

them. One day in a house we visited, a man came in with a huge sack of chocolate ice

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cream. Some one had said that ice cream was available, and there it was, purchased on

the black market. Cubans love ice cream and the size of the queue at the main ice

cream parlour in Havana has to be seen to be believed. Cubans have to queue for an

hour or so to purchase an ice cream in pesos. Foreigners, and the few Cubans with the

available cucs, go to a different queue, with a separate till, being attended relatively

quickly.

This clandestine circulation of goods applies not only to food. Cotton wool,

for instance, cannot be obtained at the chemist. You are informed by phone when

someone has some to sell, and he pops round to your house to sell it to you in cucs.

You of course buy about 6 packets, worth one cuc each, while you have the chance. If

you are a tourist you simply purchase it at the hotel or resort shop.

The government sells air conditioners, fridges, freezers and TVs, knowing that

people cannot afford to run them. The guy who comes to read the metre can rig it for

you; if you are willing to pay him some 10 cucs he may reduce your consumption to

10% of what you actually used. When a governmental inspection is being made, you

ring your circle of relatives, friends and neighbours to warn them; you then quickly

lock up and leave the house until the inspection is over, otherwise the discrepancy

between your electricity bill and your equipment – TV, fridge, air-conditioning etc

would be all too obvious. One person who we spoke to has a talking parrot that

learned to call out “where is Carmen? (its owner’s name). Sometimes people like the

inspector think that she is at home and refusing to open the door. Obviously this

scheme entails the government having to subsidize a large part of the island’s energy

bill. This is beneficial neither for the economy, nor for Cuban citizens who must

constantly reinvent the fiction of their energy bill. Water in homes is charged as a

fixed service, independently of consumption. This again means that it must be highly

subsidized by the government.

The public transport system is atrocious, and it is not something that tourists

generally resort to. There are huge bus queues everywhere, a problem dealt with at the

most congested spots by assigning official crowd organizers to try and keep the

waiting passengers under control, despatching people to the desired bus when it

finally shows up. In January 2014, it was announced that the government is now

allowing people to buy new cars, and will use the proceeds to improve the transport

service. However, the price of these cars is well beyond the purchasing power of most

Cubans, and so there are no improvements on the horizon.

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Shops for Cubans are totally different from those for tourists. In the two

visited, we had to leave our bags in a pigeonhole near the entrance. One shop had

plastic numbers for reclaiming one’s bag, the other just gave us a piece of cardboard

with a number written on it. One shop was divided into two sections, one for goods

that are impossible to hide in a bag, such as TVs and fridges. The inner section was

the equivalent to a supermarket. I had to squeeze my way between the till and the

1 The images can be accessed via the following link (accessed 27/3/16): file:///Users/vanessalea/Documents/CUBA/Ensaio%20sobre%20Cuba/Cuban%20essay%20as%20published%20A%20revolução%20cubana%20atinge%20a%20terceira%20idade%20%7C.webarchive.2 Besides Latin American Studies, the school of Comparative Studies, at Essex University, included European, North American and Soviet Studies. The French revolution had been dealt with in the first term. I ended up abandoning literature for the social sciences for motives irrelevant to this essay.

3 Paolo Vargas, who was part of the threesome that undertook this journey, merits special thanks for his multifaceted contributions. Most people referred to in the text have had their names omitted to maintain their privacy, and to avert reprisals.4 Philippe Descola’s book was translated into English as: The Spears of Twilight: Life and Death in the Amazon Jungle (1998).5 This author was born in St Kitts, in the Caribbean, raised in Yorkshire, England, and now lives and works as a professor of English Literature at Yale University in the USA. He mentions anthropologists three times in his 2011 book, always disparagingly, accusing them of sneering at their interlocutors. It does not seem to have crossed Phillips’s mind that North American Indigenous (or First) Peoples are as much part of a diaspora as are the descendents of African slaves. It is the First People’s world that has been displaced, even when they have not been expelled from their homeland, though many have also suffered brutal physical displacement and extermination. 6 « Pour un spectateur normalement informé, la présence photographique est (se présente cognitivement comme…)une présence de l’origine de l’image elle-même, c’est-à-dire une présence actuelle de la présence passée de ce qui a “imprimé” la surface sensible ». My translation of all quotes in this text.7 Diagrams are another option, but do not concern us directly in this essay.8 It is notable the frequency with which married couples cite each other’s publications without making explicit the fact that they are married to each other. If this text were strictly academic, rather than an experimental essay, or chronicle, the partnership could elicit complaints of nepotism. The offspring of doctors, actors and others often follow the profession of one of their parents; this provides food for thought concerning the difficulty of publishing in co-authorship with other relatives. In any case, it is impossible not to specify the relationship between co-authors sharing the same surname.9 This subheading was inspired by a talk given by Mauro Almeida in September 2013, at UNICAMP University, entitled: “What is the ontological turn in Anthropology?” The occasion was the IVth Reunião de Antropologia da Ciencia e da Tecnologia (IVth

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security guard in order to leave this section. There was a long queue of Cubans

patiently waiting to pay for their scant purchases.

After one of these shopping trips I went to a bar with the people who were

accompanying me. We sat at a table and ordered beer and Tukola, the latter being the

Cuban equivalent to Coca Cola, with the advantage of having less sodium and sugar

than the original version,22 besides being affordable for Cubans. When the drinks

arrived I asked for glasses, but was told by one of the people with me that bars for

ReACT). The question of ontologies is also dealt with in an article by the same author published in 2013. For easy access to this debate, including the participation of Viveiros de Castro, see Holbraad, Martin and Pedersen, Morten Axel, 1914.10 At the time of my Post-Graduation at Oxford University (1974-76), the British stressed the fact that they studied social anthropology, relegating cultural anthropology to the North Americans.11 Verena Stolcke (1993a & b) makes a competent analysis of this question.12 Stephen Hugh-Jones told me that he had also used the expression “culture in inverted commas” some decades ago. However, its use in Brazil took off after the publication of Carneiro da Cunha’s 2009 collected essays – the title of her book corresponding to “culture in inverted commas” in Portuguese.13 The notion of conflicting, or overlapping ontologies, can be illustrated by a simple example from my own fieldwork. The Mebengokre (like many Amerindian peoples) deem it impossible for a woman to become pregnant as the result of a single act of sexual intercourse. From their point of view, the foetus is built up from the gradual accumulation of semen, somewhat like a snowball. The notion of partible paternity (involving co-fathers) is equally widespread in lowland South America, but this does not impede a non-Indian from asking an Amerindian who his father is, and obtaining an answer. This accommodation of meaning resembles a Venn diagram composed of two overlapping circles – Euro-American notions and Amerindian ones adjust themselves to provide common ground for communication.14 This author’s first incursion into this debate was in a talk given in 2013. As an anthropologist studying Amazonia it is impossible to relativize the conflict between ruralistas and indigenous peoples.15 In a debate on the notion of ontologies versus culture, Matei Candea (in Carithers et al. 2010: 177) notes that: “One could in principle map ontological differences between...nationalist and anti-nationalist villagers in the north of Corsica, and so on and so forth – but this has not been the norm in anthropological accounts of ontology so far”. Following the line of thinking of this author (2010: 178), I use the terms State, the common people and turists in a strategic sense, as a heuristic. Obviously there are disagreements and lack of consensus within each of these three categories.16 One of the most easily understood examples of a merographic connection is when Strathern (1992:73) notes that the invention of ultrasound images, now routinely used for foetal monitoring, led to a redescription of the mother as a life-support system, rendering maternity invisible.17 Lea (2004) analyses triadic terms in the Mebengokre language; they encapsulate three relations, rather than merely those of either the speaker or the interlocutor.18 See Lévi-Strauss (1982) for a wonderful essay about Father Christmas.

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locals do not give glasses to their clients, lest they steal them. Furthermore, people

carry off cutlery too when the opportunity arises as they cannot afford to buy it.

When we picked up the car we hired, two of the friends with us, both over

sixty, had to wait outside the office standing in the searing heat for at least half an

hour. The explanation given was that it was a question of security. The same scenario

was repeated at a bank, where we had to wait outside in the sun for ages because few

people are allowed in at once. This scene was again repeated at the Casa de Cambio

(place to change money), where there were some very skinny and poverty-stricken

looking people changing money from relatives abroad.

As a tourist, Cuba felt like one of the safest places I have ever visited. My

daughter was constantly taking photographs with a Nikon camera, hanging out of car

windows, or in the famous tricycle or motorbike driven taxis. Not once was there any

hint of anyone out to rob us. According to the Cubans we spoke to, the deterrent is the

stiff prison sentence from anyone attempting to steal from or harm tourists, the latter

increasingly essential to the economy. This is not to say that Cubans never rob one

another. A Cuban friend had her wallet stolen from the back seat of her car while at a

petrol station.

As part of the economic reforms that began some fifteen years ago, Cubans

have been allowed to open their home to gain extra income, providing tourists a

cheaper option for accommodation than a hotel. However, the house owner must pay

the government 150 cus per guest room, per month, independently of clientele, and

there are months when no tourists turn up. One woman complained that some four

years previously her house had no light or water for twenty days, but she still had to

pay tax. The government promises to supply more housing for newlyweds with the

revenue from this tax, but some families have been forced to close their doors because

of being unable to pay it. The premises are inspected twice a month, and tourists must

show their passport and fill out a form reporting where they spend each night. Such

rooms tend to have air conditioning, a tiled bathroom with a hot water shower and

toilet seats (the latter absent from even middle class Cuban homes). One bedroom I 19 A similar situation was described to me in Moscow, where Russians used to be forbidden access to tourist hotels.20 In mid 2013, one cuc was worth approximately US$ 0,80 cents (despite supposed parity with the dollar), and 25 Cuban pesos were worth one cuc.21 Patricia Carvalho Rosa called my attention to an analogy with the “basic food rations” (cesta básica) in Brazil.22 Information gleaned by Julia Lea de Toledo

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slept in had a pink, a green and a yellow wall, and a grey concrete ceiling, indicating

the difficulty in the upkeep of such premises. That explains why the private homes

that rent out rooms also offer meals, and try to persuade their guests to eat in.

CUBA FOR THE NATIVES AND FOR FOREIGNERS

The great thing about staying in people’s homes is that you are more like a

tenant than a guest, free to come and go as you wish and left to your own devices. In

Viñales we had a wonderful view of the sugar loaf shaped karst formations (mogotes)

from the door of our room, and there was a flat roof with an even better view. In

Cienfuegos we had a corner room with its own terrace overlooking the bay, opposite a

beautiful hotel of neo-Moorish architecture, originally Palacio de Valle (see Google),

later transformed into a casino by Fulgencio Batista, a reminder of the wealth that had

once poured into Cuba when it was a haven for the rich.

Cuba is a land of columns; they can be seen all over the place, in all shapes,

sizes and colours, not just in the more affluent buildings. They are often part of a

porch, providing shade to the house and its inmates. Such architecture, though of

Spanish colonial and Moorish inspiration, is not only pre-revolutionary. There are

also run-down, squalid housing blocks all over the place, of obvious Soviet

inspiration.23 They are even found in fairly open spaces where houses could have been

built rather than blocks of flats; the latter supposedly attest to faith in development.

They are a far cry from many of the beautiful old houses where tourists are able to

stay.

Tourists revel in the carnival atmosphere of Cuba. Musicians are always at

hand to serenade them at bars and restaurants, and salsa-dancing classes are available

for the more energetic. Seafood abounds, as do refreshing cocktails utilizing rum and

mint, among other ingredients. A can of beer costs less than half the price of a

lemonade, the latter seeming to be almost an abnormal choice in Cuba, and tourists

can find Coca Cola and even cigarettes imported from the USA.

There are few beggars on the streets of Havana; they are evidently kept from

the view of tourists. Furthermore, there are virtually no stray dogs or cats on the

streets of the capital. The explanation I was given is that they are collected in vans

and fed to crocodiles whose skin is used to make shoes. The person who gave this 23 In Moscow I had seen almost identical housing.

13

information was unable to say whether these animals were fed dead or alive to the

crocodiles.

Nowadays tourists from all over the world can be found across Cuba, though

there are few north Americans as, at least until recently, they were fined by their

government if caught trying to go to Cuba. This tourist mobility is in striking contrast

to that of the Cubans themselves. Many residents in Havana have never been able to

afford to leave the capital, and many more have only got as far as the beach of

Varadero, the one nearest the Havana. People are very family oriented. One man, who

had visited many countries in Europe and even Australia, as a professional dancer,

ended up returning to Cuba to be near his aging parents, despite the fact that this

means now working as a taxi driver and residing with his parents-in-law. A woman

likewise said that she was loath to leave Cuba because of her many relatives there,

despite the economic difficulties. She revels in the festivities of her large kindred,

preferring this to leaving the country. There is a certain ambiguity in people

attributing the failure to leave Cuba to their ties to their relatives; most of them would

be unable to acquire visas for themselves, let alone their aging relatives, if they did try

to leave.

After the revolution, Cuba advanced leaps and bounds in terms of eradicating

illiteracy and providing everybody with free medical care. Education and health care

are still totally free, but equipment is said to be run-down, besides being outdated;

only basic medicines are available and they often run out. An ophthalmologist we

spoke to had left her job because her salary was equivalent in value to the petrol

needed to get to work. She was able to earn more as a party organizer. She explained

that Cubans linked to the State apparatus are able to throw expensive parties, as well

as Cubans who work and live abroad, in such far-flung places as Switzerland. They

like to return to Cuba for big parties, such as the one celebrating a daughter’s fifteenth

birthday (a sort of coming-out rite of passage in various Latin countries). It is cheaper

for them to return to Cuba for such celebrations than to pay for them abroad. Some

Cubans who manage to obtain a visa to visit relatives abroad come back laden with

goods to sell in Cuba, though there has apparently been a clamp down in 2014 on this

type of importation.

Housing is a major problem, and married people with young children are often

forced to live with the parents of one of the spouses, as they cannot afford a flat of

their own. In one of the homes we visited, an unmarried woman of thirty slept in a

14

bed set up in the kitchen for lack of an available bedroom. Some one told us that

many houses in Havana are unfit for human habitation, but they continue to be lived

in for lack of alternatives. A Spanish documentary on this issue has never been

broadcast inside Cuba. There is much halted renovation work in the capital, and one

piece of scaffolding seen by us had been idle for so long that it was completely

overgrown with creepers. Apparently many Spanish entrepreneurs, who were initially

attracted to joint venture renovation of hotels, had later pulled out, unsatisfied with

the input of the Cubans.

The owner of one of the homes we stayed in looked shocked when I expressed

surprise that such luxurious old mansions had not be expropriated during the

revolution. She said that the house had been in her family for generations and that

only foreigners’ property had been expropriated. Her house had been built by slaves,

two hundred years earlier, and its tiles had been imported from Spain. Some of these

old colonial houses have wide windowsills on which people sit to watch the world go

by outside. Some such houses have marble bathrooms and ornate tiles on the floor,

verandas supported by columns, and flat roofs with a view of the sea or the

countryside. Looking for accommodation gives one the chance to go inside some of

these old homes. One that we entered was crammed full of Catholic religious objects,

so santeria is not the only religion to have survived the revolution.

The house where we stayed in Cárdenas had baroque Louis XIV style

decorations in the bedroom, with an adjoining kitchen with champagne in a silver

bucket to tempt visitors. Our host told us that some foreign visitors prefer to stay there

than at the expensive nearby beach resort. Its interior could never be guessed at from

the outside. It even had a small swimming pool and a flat roof where it is possible to

escape from the heat. It that city, which attracts few tourists, the taxis consist of horse-

drawn carriages, not because the city wants to appear quaint, but due to the lack of

money for people to buy cars. Seeing ranks of carriages lined up in the street gave the

impression one was in an historic theme park.

Cárdenas was a welcome relief after visiting the tourist ridden colonial city of

Trinidad, where tourists are besieged by jineteros (touts). They watch your car day

and night, pestering you to follow them to the restaurants and accommodation that

they recommend, besides trying to sell you tours. According to one resident, the

number of office workers had recently been decreased by half, accounting for the

despair of the unemployed. She said that cameras had been installed at the bus station,

15

to intimidate both the touts and the repressive police overreaction to the touts

whenever a tourist bus arrives.

Towns like Trinidad, noted for its colonial architecture, have shops for

tourists, and Havana has a large craft market for tourists, comprised of hundreds of

stalls. Straw hats for protection against the sun are a favourite item; they are more

rustic than those made in either Panama or Ecuador, also available for higher prices.

There are figurines of wood, including heavy black ebony, and beautiful ornate

walking sticks, beside the classical men’s shirts - guayaberas. African inspired

musical instruments abound at tourist craft markets, such as drums and maracas. And

images of Che Guevara come in all shapes and sizes.

The most iconic symbols of Cuba, after Che Guevara (born in Argentina) are

North-American pre-revolutionary cars. They abound as miniature souvenirs, as do

the tricycle driven taxis (a type of rickshaw) and motorbike driven taxis. In Havana,

the old American saloon cars are painted in a wide array of bright colours and

polished to sparkle beneath the sun. Many are used as tourist taxis charging cucs;

others are used as collective taxis for Cubans, paid in pesos; still others are privately

owned. There are also clandestine taxis, slightly more modern, and modest private

cars such as Russian Ladas. On one trip in an old-style collective taxi for locals,

smoke suddenly started pouring out of the dashboard. The driver stopped at the side

of the road, and in no more than five minutes of wire manipulation we were able to

pile in again to continue the trip. In the first car used after our arrival, I was about to

ask whether we needed to put on seat belts, until noticing that there were none in the

car.

Cuba is well known for its music and dance, with its internationally renowned

ballet, jazz, African inspired and Cuban music. We attended a show of Afro-Cuban

music at the Casa de la Cultura Africana (House of African Culture). It was composed

of six women and one man who were great dancers, besides having powerful and

melodious voices. Their percussion instruments included horizontal drums, also used

in Afro-Brazilian music.24 There were floor to ceiling windows open onto the street,

separated off by a low railing.25 The public were invited to join in at various moments

during the presentation. One minute there was a policeman in uniform outside,

swaying gently in time to the music. The next moment there he was on the dance

floor, without his jacket and hat, dancing strenuously, lowering his body nearly to a

squatting position and raising himself upright again with great dexterity. Some time

16

later we came across him again in the street, having regained a serious stance, though

he did succumb to a smile from ear to ear when I praised his dancing.

Santeria shares some characteristics with umbanda and candomblé – Afro-

Brazilian religions. Rituals related to it are generally held within four walls and we

had no contact with it during our travels. We did secure one invitation, but were

unable to attend on the appointed day. On the plane leaving Cuba there was a woman

dressed like a Brazilian baiana (clothed in African inspired clothes), holding on her

lap a doll dressed just like she was. The week we left, direct flights between Brazil

and Cuba were to be inaugurated, and doubtless this will deepen the links between the

Afro-descendants in these two countries.

Blacks and whites are still markedly separate, and it was admitted by one

interlocutor that racial prejudice is still rife. The whites tend to stigmatize the blacks

as lazy. The stereotype of the sexy mestiza from pre-revolutionary days still lurks in

the background. At the door of the restaurant in the famous Hotel Cuba Libre there

was a beautiful mestiza girl, tall and slender like a fashion model, perched on very

high-heeled shoes, holding the menu in her hands, supposedly hired to entice diners.

The stereotypes are also evident in handicrafts, such as carvings of black women with

huge melon like breasts. One little girl, whose father is the first copper skinned

member in his wife’s family, described herself as beige, not black. Outside of Brazil,

the myth of its being one great racial melting pot subsists, despite the abundance of

people of European descent; likewise in Cuba there are many fair-skinned, blue-eyed

people, with the blacks are concentrated among the poor.

Virtually the only sign of the indigenous population visible on our trip was a

singer in a group whose nickname is Indio due to his features. Apparently it is still

possible to find people with an indigenous physiognomy at the eastern-most part of

the island. This area is the furthest from Havana and more tropical in climate than

western Cuba, where the infamous Guantanamo prison is situated. In one of the 24 Uirá Garcia pointed out the analogy, explaining that it is called "batá" in Brazil, being used in Vodun ceremonies.25 One can actually see this museum and examples of santeria music on Youtube. For example:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0FITLmyuyo&list=PL7wFU2KMB7HqCDofJy0QQjmWhsVrJ8Ntx&index=1 (accessed 27/3/16). A clip of this dance for Oxun (the equivalent to an Orixá in Portuguese (according to Garcia) was commented on by a Nigerian viewer, who attributed it to a ritual of the Oshogbo, a Yoruba speaking people. Besides attesting to the resilience of the religions of Afro-descendants in Cuba, it shows that the country’s isolation has always been relative.

17

homes in which we rented rooms, there were wooden headboards on the beds

depicting two Indians looking in the direction of a bell positioned between them,

supposedly representing in a positive light the missionaries who arrived with the

Spanish conquerors.

BEACH RESORTS AND THE TOURIST ITINERARY

Cuba is in fact an archipelago. A recently built causeway, north of the main

island, spans from the mainland across three islands - Cayos Coco, Guillermo and

Romano, on the Atlantic Ocean coast. The government does not seem overly

concerned with its ecological impact. The middle island, Cayo Coco, is being divided

into resorts at a rapid rate, with hotel building much in evidence. It is set amidst

swampland, exhaling noxious smells along much of its length, but tourists in air-

conditioned coaches need not take this into account.

This area still has a few deserted beaches; the water is warm and flecked with

various shades of turquoise. However, such beaches are lined with rubbish brought in

from the sea by the tides - every possible type of plastic and even small bottles,

probably straight from Miami. Unfortunately, the embargo on imports fails to include

litter from Florida. You can fly directly to Caio Coco from abroad, for example,

straight from Manchester airport in the UK via Cooks (a long established British

travel agency), without even setting eyes on the rest of Cuba, or you can go off to

spend a few days in Havana as part of a package deal.

The hotels are spread out into separate resorts, beyond walking distance from

one to another. Each resort supplies plastic identity bracelets for its clients, facilitating

control of who can access the restaurants and the beach situated behind each hotel. At

one of these, we managed to get two cheese sandwiches at the snack bar without

being detected as outsiders. We were ravenous and it is impossible to buy food in an

all-inclusive hotel like that. It reminded me somewhat of a cruise ship, though it had

villas for the wealthier guests, and buildings of flats for the not so wealthy. One night

there cost nearly 300 cucs; in contrast to the salary equivalent to 45 cucs per month

that one of the cooks told us he earns. Children were being kept amused by an

employee at the hotel pool, rather than at the beach, and two obese boys were

slouching on a sofa indoors watching TV. One couple looked totally bored and

18

British. There was to be a romantic dance and a disco to keep people busy at night.

These resorts also have one or two shops.

At another resort, a bit lower down market, we were ordered briskly to

accompany a security guard with a walkie-talkie, because of merely trying to get a

glimpse of the beach without paying the 35 cucs required for using it for a day. We

stayed at the only moderately priced resort on the entire island. It was small and

probably the oldest, comprised of cabins covered with straw to resemble indigenous

houses, though you can drive up to the door by car. The guests are invariably attacked

by hoards of mosquitos, as the bloodstained sheets attest. The resort was fumigated

twice a day with such noisy equipment that it sounded like an overhead plane. We

were assured it was not toxic, but it was not very convincing.

Not even the staff who work at the resorts that are serviced by the causeway

are allowed to reside there. They return to the mainland each day, and their food,

transport and work clothes are all discounted from their monthly wage. Cayo Coco

and the two neighbouring islands give one the impression of being a high security

area. Even on a deserted beach we came across a soldier, asleep. He did not wake up

while we were at the beach, but spending the night on a beach is evidently out of the

question.

Along the highways, in the countryside, cars often get stuck behind horse

drawn vehicles. Much of the length of the two main highways divide oncoming from

ongoing traffic with irregularly placed, square or oblong pruned hedges, and some

even had red hibiscus flowers. It is as if to insist that the forces of nature are always to

be held at bay; civilization, in the form of geometric shapes, must maintain the upper

hand.

Varadero, not far from Havana, is the oldest hotel lined beach. At one hotel

where we sneaked around to the beach, pretending to be residents, the chair attendant

provided us with deckchairs, saying that one could not let in the Cubans like that as

they are too noisy and festive, besides bringing picnics with them. Some expatriates

do frequent these hotels, having returned to visit relatives, or so their children can see

where their family came from, as overheard in a conversation at that beach.

Beyond the bounds of such hotels, with their sparsely frequented beaches,

Cuban residents are to be found packed densely onto beaches that have not yet been

taken over by the hotels. Plans are said to be underway to open golf courses as a

further enticement to upmarket tourists. We visited a holiday resort comprised of

19

bungalows for Cuban workers (Uva Caleto), so they too can go to the beach. It was

rocky with a narrow band of sand, not viable to develop as a tourist resort.

Viñales, west of Havana, a tobacco and sugar growing area, is another region

that attracts tourists. They can ride around on horseback to visit sugar mills and

tobacco plantations, or walk about with a guide. Our guide was a former biology and

geography teacher who had abandoned this profession due to the monthly wage of

200 pesos. He was doing a six-month government sponsored course, paying 60 cucs

per month, to acquire some rudiments of English to become a tourist guide. He

charged us 30 cucs, saying that he had to hand the money over to the state-run travel

agency. At the end of the month, 10% of this is given back to him; the rest goes to the

government.

Even going to a waterfall can be relatively expensive for tourists. At one near

a gigantic Kafkaesque sanatorium from the Batista era, tourists have to pay 9 cucs to

the government just to walk to the waterfall. Cubans are usually allowed to visit such

places without paying. They like to drink rum at the falls, leaving the bottles strewn

about. Marihuana is virtually non-existent in Cuba, being strictly prohibited by the

government.

The famous cigar making factories, where someone used to read out stories to

the workers making the cigars by hand, no longer exist. Tourists can visit a tobacco

grower in regions like Viñales, where a person demonstrates how the cigars are made.

Cigar-makers hand over what they make to the State, being allowed to keep 10% to

sell themselves, preferably in exchange for cucs and not pesos. Touts try and sell

legitimate and counterfeit cigars to tourists and, together with rum, they continue to

be the chief must-haves for tourists, sold also in air-conditioned shops.

TO THE LEFT OF THE STATE

People talk of working to the left of the State (a la izquierda del Estado); in

the Cuban context it means obtaining some income that escapes the clutches of the

State. Everybody is forced to do this because wages are so low. A huge layoff of

workers is occurring, something supposedly counterbalanced by the incentive to turn

one’s hand to private enterprise, entailing more tax for the government.

It is mainly only people in their seventies or over who continue to express

faith in the government, probably because their younger years were dedicated to

20

making the revolution happen. One elderly lady, who must have been in her eighties,

told me that she had fallen in love with her husband when she saw him in uniform,

driving past her window on a motorbike. After that she herself joined the militia. The

husband proudly showed me a photograph of himself as a young man, guaranteeing,

good humouredly, that I too would have fallen in love with him if I had seen him

then. He still has bright blue eyes, as do many Cubans who arrived from the Canary

Islands.

The couple showed us a room upstairs, attached to the daughter’s flat, with its

own bathroom and separate staircase to the garage. The husband is a poet besides

being a handy man and makes caste iron beds, extolling their virtue, including the fact

that they are noiseless. The man asked, laughing, if I knew why the mirror on the wall

at the foot of the bed slanted. He said that he used to tell his grandson that it was for

combing one’s hair lying down. The suite serves as the equivalent of a Brazilian

motel, guaranteeing the family some extra money.

People get really excited when talking about the clandestine game of chance

known as la bolita.26 One guy who earns his living from the game explained with

sparkling eyes that, for instance, if you see a dog run over by a car, you might be

inspired to bet on the number that corresponds to its number plate. The winning

numbers, with the first, second and third numbers valued differently, in terms of the

prize money, correspond to those of the daily lottery in the USA, though in Cuba each

number is also represented by a visual symbol, such as an animal. As ordinary citizens

do not have access to Internet, they have to rig up a clandestine connection in order to

discover the winning numbers. There are even clandestine banks where the money is

stored. The enthusiasm for explaining the workings of la bolita reminded me of the

way Brazilians talk passionately about football. One old lady in her eighties, who was

virtually bedridden, suddenly emerged from her apathy when I was asking her

grandson about la bolita. She sat bolt upright at once and enthusiastically joined in the

explanation. She spends most of her time lying in bed, with her family bustling

around her.

With a mere pittance (200 pesos) for the old age monthly pension, some

elderly people resort to selling things like rum, for a small profit, to avoid going

26 There is no description of la bolita available on Wikipédia, even in Spanish, and I admit to being totally ignorant about jogo do bicho in Brazil, thus unable to say how closely it resembles la bolita.

21

hungry. One day I saw an elderly man sitting on his doorstep, with crutches on the

floor beside him. His sellable wares consisted of four avocados, sold individually for

5 to 10 pesos. Hours later, when returning to the same street, he was still there, not

having managed to sell the avocados that he had obtained from relatives in the

countryside. It was explained to me that if he were to be caught by the police, he

would be fined for not having a licence, thus not paying tax. It was unimaginable how

he could possibly afford to pay a fine. In Sancti Spíritus we met one old man aged 87

who cycles daily two km to work, to plant mangos at a cooperative that exports them

to Canada. He was having problems because of planting other produce without a

licence.

One Cuban explained to us that there is a kind of class system. The highest

echelon is composed of Cubans who work abroad or who travel in and out of the

country. Their income outstrips that of anyone obtaining a salary inside the country.

What amounts to a de facto middle class is composed of those who have relatives

outside of Cuba, who regularly send back money to them. A mere $US 100,00 goes a

long way in Cuba. However, it is best if it can be brought into the country via

relatives or friends because, as the USA is Cuba’s main enemy, due to the embargo,

the government charges 13% tax for changing dollars into cucs. This includes money

sent via the Western Union, whereby one obtains only the equivalent of around $US

80,00 from the relative that sent $US 100,00. Apparently, years ago you could be sent

to prison if found to be in possession of US dollars.

One of our friends currently receives $US 100,00 per month from each of his

two sons who emigrated to Florida and work as barbers. They used to be dancers

when living in Cuba and their father longs to join them; he has never been outside of

Cuba. This shows how one cannot distinguish clearly between families that remain in

Cuba versus those who have gone off to the USA; the former are dependent on the

latter, forming a network.

The poorest of the poor are those who have no access to cucs. One man

explained that, as he is not dependent on his rations from the government, he is able to

barter the provisions available in his ration book to a woman who needs them, and in

exchange she cleans his house without pay. In one of the houses in which we stayed,

it was possible to pay a girl in cucs to wash and iron clothes. As the predicament of

those totally dependent on Cuban pesos is becoming increasingly unsustainable, ever

more young people pin their hopes on the tourist trade, leading to situations like that

22

described in the town of Trinidad. Some embittered older Cubans complained that the

young do not want to work, striving to live off the tourists like parasites, due to their

disillusion with the value of the wages paid by the State.

On account of the lack of information about the outside world, and the

difficulty in leaving the country (the latter gradually being eased), Cubans tend to

idealize life outside Cuba, in the capitalist consumption oriented world, having

virtually no idea about the economic crisis and unemployment there. One of the few

alternatives to Cuban state run television is a Venezuelan TV channel. Private homes

are not allowed to have Internet, and the only way around this is finding a foreigner

willing to delegate this service to a Cuban. Internet services can be found at some

tourist cafés, but the average price of 9 cucs an hour prevents most Cubans from

having access to them. The tourist hotels do have Internet, charged per hour via cards

obtained at the reception desk.

People are aware of the existence of services like Skype and Facebook, either

having heard of these from their relatives or having seen them on soap operas. Even

phoning Cuba via Skype comes up against the embargo; it is more expensive to call

Cuba from Brazil than to call Europe. One family told us that the father had been

arrested when getting into a taxi some years ago, transporting a television set. He was

suspected of having obtained it on the black market, but managed to be released

shortly after this episode. Cubans are great fans of Brazilian soap operas, displaying

much admiration for them, together with samba music and dancing, whereas interest

in football is minimal.

The women have a limited choice about what clothes they can buy, so they

invest in cheap accessories, though many also use gold loop earrings. Colourful

necklaces, bracelets, rings, hair elastics and headbands, all imported from China, are

worn by women and young girls. The fashion during our visit was for the women to

wear false nails, and either paint each nail differently, or have the tips decorated

separately, with scintillating colours and details produced with glitter, such as a

jinetera who displayed her long colourful talons while talking to us. For some

mysterious motive, the Union Jack is a roaring success in Cuba and apparently has

been for a long time. It is worn on trousers, T-shirts, bags, bikes etc. It is so

ubiquitous that the Cubans could be claimed to have resignified it; most people are

probably oblivious to the fact that it is the national flag of the UK.

23

For around three years, until the end of 2013, visiting relatives frequently

brought clothes from abroad to be sold at small shops or stalls at house fronts. I

enquired about some purple and gold satin stilettos, and was told proudly by the shop

owner that they had been brought from Italy; in cases like this each item is exclusive,

limited to one pair and one size. Apparently the government changed the law at the

beginning of 2014, suspending the selling of clothes not confectioned at the premises

where they are sold. In residential non-tourist districts like Regla, a short ferry ride

from Havana, the pavements along the streets to the waterside were lined with stalls

set up at house fronts, selling items like pirated DVDs, nuts and bolts, nail varnish and

a host of other things.

One of the government approved small-scale enterprises that has been around

for the longest amount of time is the paladar - a family run restaurant that tends to

attract either the local clientele or tourists, depending on where it is situated. Initially

the number of seats available was very limited, to avoid fomenting a middle class of

micro-entrepreneurs. Recently the government has permitted the expansion of these

enterprises, although some close down due to the tax burden. In Trinidad, some

private homes had even opened up their living room onto the street as a restaurant.

One such house served up spaghetti with tomato extract as its pasta dish. Fast food

take-away outlets serving pizza and drinks are a success with both locals and tourists,

whereas the restaurants catering especially to tourists are deemed to be outrageously

expensive by the Cubans themselves.

The scarcity of public transport leads to Cubans expecting to hitch rides from

tourists able to drive about in cars. One poor black lady who we gave a lift to one day

was asked what she thought about the present situation in Cuba. She retorted that she

was afraid of saying anything, and she pointed to the car radio saying that someone

might be listening. This expresses all that needs to be said about the atmosphere of

fear in Cuba, reminiscent of Brazil during the dictatorship. Demonstrations are strictly

forbidden and political prisoners tend to be camouflaged as common criminals. There

are “women in white” who stage protests, demanding their release, but such actions

mobilize other women from the committees “defenders of the revolution” who accuse

the women in white of lying. In the past, some people who were considered

subversive simply disappeared.

POLITICAL PROPAGANDA

24

The Museum of the Revolution is dilapidated – an allegory of Cuba’s present

state of affairs. Some of the labels are too faded to read, and they have rust marks at

the corners where they are nailed to the wall. The airport in Havana likewise

exemplifies Cuba’s decay. There are birds flying around the embarkation bay and the

toilets have no seats. A woman hands out toilet roll when you enter and when you

wash your hands, collecting coins in a saucer, both in pesos and cucs. Our plane on

the Cuban airline was four hours late leaving Havana, and no explanation was offered.

Some people had been waiting to embark for days, due to overbooking.

Political propaganda is displayed everywhere, in the form of posters, murals

and monuments extolling the virtues of the revolution, with rhetorical phrases. The

radio was full of didactic messages about celebrating the 60th anniversary of the

revolution, and there were huge posters commemorating July 26th. On that date people

in Havana carried on their lives as normal, the main celebrations being staged in

Eastern Cuba, the birthplace of Fidel and Raúl Castro.

Che Guevara mementos were available everywhere we went, being a success

with tourists. There is at least one renovated square in Havana selling second-hand

books relating to Che and Fidel. Che Guevara could be described as the equivalent to

a patron saint. There are images of him all over the place, besides a huge monument

and museum in the town of Santa Clara, together with a mausoleum, with a cemetery

beside it, for those who gave their life for the revolution. Fidel’s words, inscribed on

the wall of the monument, amount almost to a declaration of love for Che. There is no

talk in Cuba about why Fidel publicly announced that he had sent Che to Bolivia,

after having declared it to be a secret mission. Fidel, though increasingly frail,

remains the charismatic figurehead who holds the country together. That is why

certain measures that might be deemed unpopular, or contrary to the ideals of the

revolution, were left for Raúl to implement, such as minor economic reforms allowing

mini enterprises to be set up. Raúl lacks the charisma of Fidel. One sees plenty of

tourists with Fidel’s image stamped on T-shirts, but it is used less by the government,

concentrating on Che Guevara who, being dead, is beyond reproach.

In Cuba I was reminded of a Brazilian friend who told me, some 35 years ago,

that Brazil was too poor to worry about ecological issues. In Regla, near Havana,

people’s health was affected by a nearby industrial chimney spouting toxic smoke,

and the rubbish was left lying around the road for days due to the lack of public

25

lorries to pick it up. Coral is sold at tourist shops and used to decorate walls, including

at the greenhouse at Cienfuegos Botanical Gardens.

CONCLUSION

Despite the visible absence of American tourists, the military might of the

USA makes itself felt by the continuation of Guantánamo prison,27 besides the

crippling economic embargo, an anachronism of the cold war. The Cuban State is

constantly audible via propaganda on the radio and TV about liberty, equality, and the

merits of the revolution. It was also visible via the slogans posted everywhere we

went.

The Cuban State over taxes its citizens and they retaliate by trying to fleece

the State of its revenue (reminiscent of Brazil). One man said that in former years the

‘apartheid’ was greater than at present. Cubans were not allowed to associate with

foreigners, travel in the same buses or stay at the same hotel. If the government has

relaxed these rules, money continues to keep people apart.

Cuba left me with the impression that it is a bomb about to explode, either at

the death of Fidel or when the embargo finally ends. The cumulative dependence on

tourism is very risky. Depending on currency ratings and competition from elsewhere,

including nearby Caribbean islands, the tourists may up and go. Having got rid of the

mafia and the casinos, Cuba is now on the road to becoming, once more, a playground

for the rich.

Some people claimed that school children automatically pass their end of year

exams in order to boost Cuba’s ranking on international tables. Cubans have not been

informed in their media about the debate raging in Brazil, since mid 2013, over its

importation of Cuban doctors. These are sent to work in places where Brazilians

refuse to go, and most of their cost goes to the Cuban government, the doctors

themselves earning a very low salary. Brazil’s President, Dilma Roussef, has

compared her importation of Cuban doctors to a similar phenomenon in Britain.

People from that country’s former colonies complain bitterly that Britain leaves them

without the doctors they need, enticing them to go to Britain for higher wages than

27 A journalist specializing in Cuban affairs for decades, Michael Voss, my ex-class mate from 1971, insisted (in answer to my incredulity) that Cuba quite simply lacks the military power to rid itself of the Guantánamo base.

26

they would earn in the country that invested in their training, instead of Britain

investing more in training its own doctors.

Increasing disparity of wealth is a global affair, as are unemployment and

underemployment. Much of what has been said of Cuba in this essay applies equally

to Brazil, such as the chronic shortage of housing and of public services, and even the

touts besieging tourists at the beaches in Northeastern Brazil. What is surprising about

this déjà-vu is that Cuba and Brazil are supposed to be antagonistic systems –

communism28 versus capitalism. However, this essay is not an evaluation of the

Cuban government, but just an ethnographic essay.

The different parts of Cuba do not add up to a whole, not even the tourist

perspective - part hedonist, part nostalgic, part curious. This essay has attempted to

highlight the tenacity of the Cubans. It is up to the reader to adjudicate to what extent

the text and the images constitute a common narrative. Personally, I was struck by the

luminosity of Cuba when examining the images, a question that words could describe,

but the text omits. And finally, Cuba’s macho ethos impacted me more upon seeing

the images than while visiting the country, contradictory though that may seem.

At the time of going to press, there was a BBC advert on TV entitled

“authentic Cuba”,29 portraying the country as a tropical paradise. In this sense it

resembles the stereotype of Brazil abroad. Some spokesmen on the Right justify the

coup that occurred in 1964 in Brazil as being due to fears of that country becoming

another Cuba. At the present time, as a consequence of decades of economic boicote

and the neoliberal reforms, including investment in luxury tourism, it is more likely

that Cuba becomes another Brazil, as it fails to escape from the worldwide tendency

towards greater economic inequality.

EPILOGUE: ABOUT ONTOLOGIES

“...where elements that are part of one system are also in another dimension conceived as parts of others”.

Marilyn Strathern on the of merographic overlap (1992:188)

28 Cubans use communism and socialism as synonymous.29 http://autenticacuba.com, made by the Cuban Ministry of Tourism (Mintur), last accessed 27/3/16.

27

Perspectives, from the viewpoint of popular belief, refer to representations of one same reality. The debate concerning ontologies (despite the heterogeneity of approaches involved) postulates the existence of multiple worlds – the products of distinctive ontologies. Within social anthropology, the notion of representation is gradually being abandoned because it presupposes a single objective reality, represented in diverse ways. An important point stressed by McCallum (2014: 506) is that ontologies are not fixed, with rigid frontiers; they are dynamic and flexible, and at the same time they are resistant, a force favouring continuity. Obviously the distinction made in this essay between the State ontology and that of the people is more permeable than that separating turists from the Cubans.

Acknowledgements

I thank Julia Lea de Toledo, Paolo Vargas, Patricia Carvalho Rosa and Caio Navarro de Toledo for their comments on the text, and Uirá Garcia for information concerning an orixá and instruments of African origin. I am also most grateful for Rodrigo Charafeddine Bulamah’s reading of the text for the online Journal Proa, where it was published in Portuguese. His detailed comments provided both criticisms and suggestions. Rodrigo convinced me to translate the essay into Portuguese and he made several bibliographic suggestions. After having translated the text from English, time and energy were lacking to incorporate all the suggestions made by the various readers. Responsibility for what is written is entirely mine.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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BEUVELET, Olivier. 14/6/2013. Parergon: notes sur des objets visuels - Silvia Baron

Supervielle et le corps maternel de la photographie.

http://culturevisuelle.org/parergon/archives/1951.

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DESCOLA, Philippe. 1986. La Nature Domestique: Symbolisme et praxis dans

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SAINSBURY, Brendan, and WATERSON, Luke. 2011. Cuba: Lonely Planet Guide.

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Volume 1.

RECOMMENDED READING ON CUBA

CUNHA, Olívia Maria Gomes da. 2010. Outras ilhas: espaços, temporalidades e

transformações em Cuba (org.) Rio de Janeiro: Editora Aeroplano/FAPERJ

STOLCKE, Verena. 1974. Marriage, class and colour in nineteenth-century Cuba: a

study of racial attitudes and sexual values in a slave society. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Abstract

This paper is an essay or chronicle, not an orthodox academic article. It attempts to

provide in words a picture of Cuba at the time of the 60 th anniversary of the revolution

(mid 2013). The text runs parallel to a photographic essay on Cuba, consisting of over

forty images produced by the co-author. The author of the text is an anthropologist,

with no claim to being a Caribbean specialist. The aim is both to explore the

complementarity of words and images, and to produce a mental image through text

that is palatable to non-specialists. This joint venture was based on a three-week visit

to Cuba, covering around 2.000 km of the Western portion of the country in July

2013. The result evokes a journalistic approach; nevertheless, the author of the text

found it impossible to shed herself of contemporary anthropological concerns.

30

Key Words: Cuba; words & images; parts & wholes; tourism; society & culture,

State

31