From the Telegraph Hotel
The hotel is located in the center of Old Havana on the corner of an intersection that it shares with a public park, a 5-star hotel, and a local restaurant. And while this is a major and busy intersection filled with local foot traffic, bike taxis, tour buses, and cars, there are no traffic lights or traffic cops. In fact, there are very few traffic lights in the city. Car horns are the rule of the road, size definitely matters and the right of way is for vehicles only – pedestrians beware. Somehow this combination of tradition, controlled chaos and an innate urban rhythm make this and other Havana exchanges quite functional. The only close call I witnessed was when I myself carelessly pulled up in front of a moving taxi and Ondi, my new local acquaintance, backed me up at the last second. “careful friendHe smiled, shaking his head, urging me to be more careful.
Old Havana bustles with activity at all hours. Even at 4 in the morning there are voices in the street calling, waving, arguing or laughing. During the day there are people constantly on their way, transit buses are full, sidewalks and alleys are packed with locals on their way. Almost everyone has a job from Monday to Friday from 9 to 5, but somehow rush hour congestion differs little from any other time of day. Everyone has a purpose in Havana, however inconsequential it may seem. Hotels seem to be overstaffed, public restrooms have attendants, lone security guards read books in quiet corridors and everywhere you stop there is someone asking if you might be interested in something they have to see, sell or trade or somehow help you in your search. . I was surprised by the amount of English I heard from the locals and when I asked some of them where they learned the language, they said it came from working in the tourism sector. More than two million visitors come to Cuba each year, most of them from places like Canada and Western Europe.
‘Old Havana’ it is also a potpourri of architectural styles. There are Old World cathedrals, centuries-old fortifications, Baroque, Spanish Colonial and Gothic buildings scattered throughout its alleys and narrow streets. Modern buildings stand alongside 19th-century relics, and every few blocks a plaza pops up with a fountain or sculpture as its centerpiece. These plazas, aglow with tropical sunlight, are crisscrossed by schoolchildren, office workers, street people, and the ever-present stray dogs. There is a small presence of street people with outstretched hands as you walk through Old Havana, but there is much less of that element than one would find in, say, downtown San Francisco. The city is also clean. While there may be a few piles of garbage and construction debris here and there, in general, Havana’s sidewalks and alleys seem to be frequently swept and hosed down.
toothpaste for history
Directly across the narrow side street from our hotel’s north-facing window are the balconies of an apartment building over a corner restaurant. Since our arrival, we had waved from our window at the residents who appeared there while they were hanging their clothes to dry, eating or just watching the street parade below. One male in particular seemed to be friendlier (or more curious) than the others and we greeted him each morning with greetings in Spanish. My brother and teammate, who was sharing the hotel room with me, was eager to meet the man and decided to break the ice by tossing a package of tube socks, brought in as part of our hurricane relief efforts, to him across the the narrow street and in his arms – at least that was the plan. Every morning we would see him hanging a pair of socks to dry on the iron railing, so we speculate that he only had one or two pairs. After a comedic charade that proved his intent, the throw was spot on, the catch spectacular, the reaction joyful, and I’m sorry I didn’t capture the event on video.
The next night, our friend with the freshly put on socks greeted us as we left the hotel. His name was Juan and he wanted us to visit him and his brother Paolo at his apartment. We climbed the dark stairs of the concrete structure and walked through narrow hallways under fluorescent lighting until we reached the three small bedrooms and bathroom that made up Juan’s apartment. He showed us around and allowed me to take some pictures of his humble home. A few tattered shirts hung on wire hangers from a cord attached somehow to the cement wall that served as a closet. Some potatoes were boiling on the stove in the small kitchen next to some beef jerky on the counter while the fan rattled in the mini-fridge below. We were shown family photos and led down the hall to meet his father, an old man eating rice and beans, who acknowledged our presence with a few grunts before returning to his meal. I slipped a 5 peso bill under his plate and he smiled, showing me the few remaining teeth as he patted my arm.
The brothers asked us if we were interested in photos of Che and Fidel “from the old days.” I said yes, definitely. He took 18 black-and-white photos of the two heroes of the revolution from the time in the late 1950s as they trained and planned their coup from the Sierra Madre mountains. To my untrained eye these looked quite rare and historic and although they looked like something out of magazines I was surprised our new friends were willing to part with them. I imagined pictures of Washington at Valley Forge or of Jefferson perched on his pen in Virginia, and the historical significance seemed almost the same: Founding Fathers before the Revolution, men whose Time was yet to come. Maybe everyone in Cuba had photos like these, but I had never come across anything like this before and thought they would be splendid memories.
I asked Juan what he would want in exchange for these pictures and he simply said, “Toothpaste.” He showed more passion for this consumer product than the images, saying government toothpaste was “shit” and American toothpaste was something everyone wanted. After a quick ride back to our hotel room, Juan soon had a familiar mint-flavored tube of Colgate in his hands. “I’ll make this last a whole year,” he grinned at him, holding up the toothpaste like a trophy.
food for the people
One notable difference in the street scene compared to American cities in general is the near absence of obesity. While 1 in 3 American children are affected and 40 million Americans are obese, the problem is virtually non-existent here. The reason is quite simple: there is not much to eat. There is no fast food, sweets, snacks or soft drinks within reach -much less affordable- for the average Cuban. Rice, cooking oil and meat are rationed monthly and the allowance is meager.
The most popular of the many street food vendors could be found in the courtyard of our own hotel, selling Gold Delicious and Red Delicious apples imported from Virginia for 45 cents (about 50 US cents). The hotel sold at least ten boxes a day (about 1,500 apples), there was always a line and most of the people who bought them started eating them as they walked away. One could conclude that this is a hungry population that spends its meager pesos on basic necessities when and where they can be found.
Despite the trade embargo, the US exports produce, fruit, and meat to Cuba to the tune of about $780 million per year (data source: US Census). We met a businessman from Arkansas who had just closed a $3.25 million deal to provide chickens to to import, a food importing company from Cuba. Cuba relies on deals like this and goodwill, low-cost imports from China and Venezuela to feed its people because it simply isn’t growing enough to be self-sufficient. The state’s long-term agricultural policies have failed to produce enough to eat for its citizens, and while reform is underway, Cuban food production remains a problem. Three hurricanes hit the island in 2008, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to tobacco and pineapple crops while deforesting 475,000 hectares of coastal timber. For a nation struggling to feed its 11 million citizens, these natural disasters are devastating to both government food production and economic stability.