Cuba, the Middle

The days have really been sinking away here in Austin, Texas. I think I'll be leaving in less than two weeks, but I have no idea where to. I've also stopped denying the heat. It's 30 degrees every day and humid. I'm sitting on Ania's bedroom floor in front of the open door to the garden to try and catch any breeze that might be going, and sweating. I might get up at some point to make myself a mojito with the rum I brought back. And I'm going to try and write about Cuba, which has taken me ages because I keep telling people about it instead of writing it down.

One of the things about Cuba is that it doesn't work. That is, the people don't work, and the plumbing isn't on the job either. I think Cuba is much like one of the vintage cars that prowl the streets; just functioning enough to keep going, but not sounding too healthy, seeming like it's going to fall apart any moment but still managing to keep it together. Sometimes you can't get bread, because none has been baked, or because the people in the bread shop don't feel like selling it. Often a store will be closed, and the staff will be inside, but they just don't feel like serving. Restaurant service is dismissive at best, non-existent at worst. It drove my aunt mad. In this way it sounds similar to what I've heard about Russia (which is pretty new to capitalism, after all). In fact, talking it over with Ania (who was in St. Petersburg for three months back in the fall) Cuba is like a hotter, more colourful, more cheerful Russia. And it may sound presumptive from someone who was in a communist country for only two weeks, but this work ethic seems pretty well connected to the political system. If you're not going to get anything for working hard and striving to get ahead, then you're not going to; if there's no benefit in innovation, then you won't invent anything new. Maybe you could jiggle the communist system to solve this issue, maybe not. And I guess it's not really an objection. I mean, as long as the country is ticking over day to day there's not really an immediate problem. But this could explain why each house in Cuba has tanks for water, which are filled up every second day by a truck. Or why there isn't really any street food like you find in Mexico (most Cubans seeming to subsist on pizza and hotdogs and ice cream, a very unvaried diet).

I spent all of my two weeks in Cuba in Havana, it being very pricey to travel as a foreigner in Cuba. The tourist industry there is very much set up to get you into an expensive hotel, to an expensive restaurant, to the beach and back to the airport preferably without seeing more than the sanitised version of Cuban culture. Um, I don't think I was technically legally staying with my aunt; she was renting an apartment, and my name was written down and everything, but the bed I was sleeping in was meant to be occupied by the landlord. He actually lived somewhere else but it meant I had to take all my things out of the room each day in case an inspector came.

Havana is beautiful. I think. I guess it's smelly, yes, and dirty and crowded, all things which bothered my aunt. But to enjoy being in Cuba you have to be a bit of a romantic. You have to smell the cigars, not the rotting rubbish and blocked drains. You have to gasp at the beauty of the colonial buildings and be enchanted by their decaying grandeur, and not worry too much about the lack of building standards or housing codes that would condemn them in your home country. You have to be inspired by the story of the revolution and not think too hard about what fifty years of the same leadership will do to a country. You have to fall in love with Che and not listen to the rumours of how he was dismissed from Cuba and left to his death. You have to glory in the past and not worry about the future of a country that is totally unprepared for the onslaught of capitalism.

I digress. Really Havana is quite enjoyable without totally burying your head in the sand. And discussing and learning about the current state of politics doesn't take too much away from the fairytale streets, lined with tall brightly coloured buildings with intricate metalwork and old-time balconies. Most of the walls are literally falling off, and some of them have collapsed completely. It would be an amazing place to make a film. Old people sit on their doorsteps, children play in the street, men sit around tables of dominoes as the day falls. People queue, for bread, for the bus. There are occasional signs of Santeria, the voodoo religion mixed with Catholic saints, if you know where to look for them: women dressed in white skirts with white scarves tied around their heads, or the figure of Icarus dangling upside down from the window opposite our apartment. Goat skins are left outside to dry in the sun for drums.

The abundance of art and music in Havana astounded me. Perhaps it was in comparison to the other countries I visited, or perhaps because in a communist environment I'd expect it to go the same way as street food; not useful, not necessary, not pursued. But Bellas Artes, the art gallery of Havana, was packed with amazing Cuban artists (I wrote down heaps of names; let's see, Fidelio Ponce de Leon, Tomas Sanchez, Carlos Garaicoa). So I was interested to learn about the laws against criticism of Fidel and communism. My aunt and I went out one night to a youth centre (it was pretty cool) to see a movie, and beforehand they were playing some Cuban music videos. One of them had an obvious anti-government message, even to me with my non-existent Spanish (a hammer and sickle symbol in a rubbish bin next to a swastika needs no translation). My aunt raised her eyebrows. One audience member stood up and starting talking loudly. 'He's saying it's illegal,' my aunt told me. The video was stopped. Apparently there was a rapper arrested recently for being too anti-Fidel; they were going to put him in jail but there was too much of an international outcry.

As well as Bellas Artes, I went to visit the Museo de la Revolucion. It was very oddly laid out and only partially in English, but did have some interesting artifacts, mainly odd clothing belonging to various people (some complete with bloodstains). It was also very angry about the United States, just in general, but somewhat understandably. It referred to them as the 'Yankees' ('yanqui' in Spanish) and I am curious about whether they will tone this down if/when the blockade is lifted. Also, how about all the anti-American billboards? Really, I mean, I've been to Egypt. They're meant to be Muslim and want to kill all Americans, but there was nothing like the anti-US messages that are everywhere in Cuba. I kind of love it. Someone has to do it, after all, and they've kind of being screwing all of Central America over for years. A Cuban guy that I met refused to refer to it as the United States of America, his logic being that he is also American, and also in a State. So he referred to it as Gringolandia.

Um, funny story. So the US doesn't have an embassy in Cuba, obviously. Instead they have a 'Special Interest Section', a grey blockish building down by the Malecon (the wall that runs along the waterfront, quite the party spot at night). Sometime during the Bush years they put up digital signs in the windows of the upper floors of the building, which displayed anti-Cuban messages in bright electric red. Cuba didn't take kindly to this. The response was to put up a large number of flag poles right in front, flying black flags with white stars, reputedly one for every person that died in the revolution. This effectively blocks the messages.

One day my aunt and I went to visit Matanzas on the Hershey Train (named after, yes, Mr Hershey, who built his own train line to the port to get his sugar out easier). In all Central American countries you would expect the train to run late. The difference in Cuba is that it often doesn't run at all. So we turned up at 8.30am (much to my disgust, I was tired) and then had to return at 12.30pm. In the meantime we got to see the Jesus statue that stands on pretty much the only hill in Havana, next to Che's old house. It was erected shortly before the revolution, then a few months after that came into effect, one of Jesus' arms was blasted off by lightning. It was said to be an omen. The train was seriously the most decrepit beast I have ridden on. The seats were barely still there. It passed between houses built so close to the tracks that a child could have reached out and touched them. Then it picked up speed, rattling and shaking and jolting along so hard that literally couldn't sleep. I'm just thankful that it stayed on the tracks, and that it didn't break down for hours.

So. What else? Che! Oh yes, Che! It seems that Fidel doesn't believe in living idols. He doesn't appear on any coins, there are no statues or t-shirts of him (it's illegal to make one, actually). This doesn't mean that Fidel isn't idolised. I mean, the country is pretty much his plaything. He's still alive, retired somewhere near a beach. He writes these reflections, and when a new one comes out they stop all the programs on TV so they can read it out. If he doesn't believe in living idols however, he sure does believe in dead ones. Che is everywhere. I guess he's one of the most marketable things they have. You can buy t-shirts and posters, postcards, keyrings, lots and lots of books, anything you want really emblazoned with the silhouette of the hero. It's all very ironic (as is the Adidas store downtown, and the mall out in Playa). I wonder how Che would feel about all this. Camillo Cienfuegos, the other dead leader of the revolution, is not nearly as visible; I can only assume he wasn't as good looking. I also wonder what would have happened if Che had survived and run a country, grown old and grey-haired instead of being burnt out and immortalised. But there's certainly something about his spirit, divorced as it may be from the actual man: revolution and youth and hope. I'm totally in love with him. I'll chalk him up on my list of useless crushes.

I guess that was Cuba, a country somehow still stopped fifty years back. When it comes, and it will, capitalism will hit it like a ton of bricks. The revolution that was fought half a century ago was fought against a different kind of enemy, and the lack of change in the administration has not been matched by a lack of change in the opposing forces. One of the problems is that you can't tell people what to think, you can't control them and expect them not to desire what they've been denied. The young people in Cuba want capitalism because they want the stuff they see on TV, and they won't listen if you simply tell them that it won't make them happy. They have to learn that for themselves. But it makes me sad, that the revolution will come to nothing in the end. All power corrupts, and Cuba has not been protected against what is coming for it. It's far from a perfect island paradise.