Cuban Life

Stylized Cuban flag

A Brief History

This is the toughest blog update to write because Cuban life is nearly incomprehensible. To talk about it, we first have to take a quick look at their history. Spain’s colonization of Cuba began soon after Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. The Cuban people fought three Wars of Independence against Spain, the last one was what we know as the Spanish American War.

The U.S. occupied Cuba after the war, and many Cubans felt as if they had replaced one colonizer with another. The U.S. finally left, but Cuba was plagued with corruption and dangerous dictatorships. One of the worst dictators was Batista who was supported by the U.S. In 1959, the Castro-led Revolution brought down Batista and ushered in a new era of Socialism and later Communism.

Tribute to Fidel Castro,"Forever Comandante"

Of course, everyone knows about the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile crisis. However, we did not realize that the U.S. Embargo began before these events. In fact, from a Cuban perspective, it was the U.S. Embargo that caused Castro to develop a relationship with the Soviet Union. The Cuban people believe that Castro was always a Socialist but only became a Communist after his involvement with the Soviets.

Display of people's affection for Fidel
("I am Fidel")

Something else we did not know: during the “Special Period” after the collapse of the Soviet Union (circa 1989), the U.S. strengthened the embargo in an attempt to bring down Castro. Unfortunately, it did not work and gave Castro yet another opportunity to blame the U.S for all of Cuba’s problems. We asked Jorge why the Cuban people never rose up against Castro but never received a really satisfactory answer. It seems they were held back by a combination of the “devil you know” and that constant fear of U.S. involvement.

Cuban art

Life under the Revolution

Fidel and Raul Castro have ruled Cuba for sixty-five years. Most people living in Cuba today have never known any other government. Even now during “Normalization,” life in Cuba is harsh. When Castro came to power, he nationalized all businesses, and everyone effectively worked for the state. And everyone was paid the same wage: $30 – $50 per month. A brain surgeon was paid the same as a garbage collector. This still continues today for most occupations.

Revolutionary hero Antonio Maceo

To offset the low wages, healthcare and education are free. Cubans are very proud of their medical care, and every neighborhood has its own doctor. They are equally proud of their free education. Schooling through the ninth grade is mandatory for everyone, and the country boasts a literacy rate of 99.8%! Students who pass the required tests can continue on to a University with all expenses paid. Interestingly, the Certificate in Foreign Languages program requires six years of study (the same as a doctor).

Every young person has to give three years of service to the state. For men, this is two years of military service and one year of community service while women do three years of community service.

Revolutionary hero

We mentioned food rationing before, and the amounts are really pathetic. For example, rationing includes very little meat. As their primary source of protein, each person is allocated 5 eggs a month! The only way to survive is with some other source of income, often in remittances, money sent from a family member working in the U.S. or elsewhere. In 2009, American citizens sent $2 billion to Cuba. Some Cubans have been desperate enough to go the illegal route and continue to use ration booklets of family members who have either died or left the country.

Cubans are very proud that their country is so safe. Threatening to harm another with any kind of weapon (a gun, a knife) results in an automatic 25-year prison term in Cuba. Not a bad idea of course, but with no availability of weapons, it also helps to protect a regime against insurrection.

Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUCs)

Like everything else here in Cuba, the monetary system is very weird. They actually have two types of Cuban currency.  There is the CUC (Cuban convertible Peso) and the CUP (Cuban Peso).  Visitors are required to use CUCs which are just about a 1:1 ratio with the American dollar (actually the CUC is worth about .87 cents).  CUPs are used by the Cuban people, and they are worth less than .04 cents per CUP.  Euros can also be used on the streets of Cuba, but from our experience, the Cuban vendors treat the euro as equivalent to the US dollar, which means you get cheated if you use euros out on the streets.  Euros are best exchanged for CUCs at a formal money exchange.

Lecturer and mentor Dr. Jorge Aroche advises
Anne on how to become a Communist (ha, ha)

By the way, it is not easy to leave Cuba. Lots of red tape plus neither Cuban currency (CUCs or CUPs) is accepted in any other country. So, if your life savings is in Cuban pesos, you are out of luck. The few Cuban convertible pesos (CUCs) that we brought back with us as souvenirs are totally worthless outside of Cuba. Although the departure process has become easier, at one time, a Cuban passport included your occupation and those with technical skills (engineers for example) were forbidden to leave.

Cubans still seek freedom

This has been one short, but intense trip, and our thoughts are still swirling, trying to process everything we have seen and heard. It is easy to criticize the regime in Cuba; it is much more difficult to talk about the soul of a people. The people’s love of their Cuban homeland is a palpable thing, and this exuberant and determined culture continues to thrive. We can only hope that someday soon the Cuban people will be able to enjoy the freedom and independence they have sought for over five hundred years.

More pics:

Frank taking this "Comandante" stuff too seriously

Sunrise over Cuba

Cienfuegos, the Pearl of the South

Miami-like homes in the Punta Gorda neighborhood of
Cienfuegos, Cuba

The city of Cienfuegos, Cuba was founded by the French and the influences are still apparent. What a charming, elegant city. We wanted to rent a house and stay for a while!

Hotel Azul in wealthy Punta Gorda

Cienfuegos City Tour

We boarded a tour bus to do a Cienfuegos City Tour. We started the tour in Punta Gorda, the upscale neighborhood in Cienfuegos. It was so gorgeous and obviously wealthy we had to remind ourselves we were still in Cuba. How do Cubans own houses like these with a starting price of $100,000? We are still not really sure, but houses can only be bought by Cubans (their law requires that a Cuban be on the deed), so some foreigners buy a house with a Cuban buddy, and then the Cuban lives there most of the year except when the foreigner is in town.

Palacio de Valle

Our first stop was the Palacio de Valle, an intriguing mish-mash of architectural styles. The three towers on the rooftop are in three distinct styles: a military one to represent strength,  a sculpted Moorish tower to represent love, and a dome that represents the church. 

Typical geometric designs in Palacio de Valle
representing the Moorish influence

Don Valle designed and built this marvel, but he lived here only a short time before he returned to Spain and gave the house to his maid!

Anne delights in exploring
Palacio de Valle

Inside, the palace is a Moorish fantasy of typical geometric design with amazing carved ceilings, walls, and doorways. Anne wanted to move in! 

Frank admires the art at Project Trazos Libre

Our next stop was the Project Trazos Libre, a wonderful collaborative effort of local street artists. 

Street entertainment at Project Trazos Libre

The small enclave had several art galleries, street actors doing their thing, and of course, live music. We realized as always what a small world this is when we learned that one of the most beloved musicians from this group was killed in the Orlando, Florida nightclub shooting back on 12 June 2016.

Che Guevara is still considered a hero to the Cubans

We did a walking tour down the main drag, Paseo del Prado, with its colorful old buildings, palm trees, and great vibe. 

At the food rationing store -- where's the food?

Our guide Jose pointed out a food ration store. Castro instituted food rationing that only costs pennies. However, it’s not enough to live on. This place didn’t even look like a store, no items on display just austere counters (like in an old Post Office) and dour-looking customers walking out with identical plastic bags.

Utilitarian barber shop for cutting hair mass production style

We also stopped by a state-run barbershop. It was just a big room with maybe 20 identical hair cutting stations along the walls, one side for men and one side for women. So plain, minimal decorations other than a big poster on the front window of revolution hero Che Guevara!

Constant roadside reminders that Fidel Castro
is still an honored Cuban hero

Lectures with Jorge

We learned some very interesting stuff today about religion. 65% of Cubans practice Santeria which is a kind of a mixed religion which came from Africa but was kept secret by blending it with Catholicism. Santeria has no churches, but people go to a healer/priest for help. We always thought it was voodoo (and it is similar), but Santeria is completely acceptable here and all kinds of people believe in it. Animal sacrifice is often a part of the Santeria belief.

Typical local with ubiquitous Cuban cigar

We understand that Cubans have unrestricted internet access. This is recent, and it came as a big surprise to us. Jorge has internet access in his home (dial-up), but he had to buy his modem on the very active Black Market. Now, Jorge is a prominent professor at University of Havana, so he may have some “benefits” that ordinary Cubans may not have.  But, he talked about watching Netflix shows like “Game of Thrones.” 

Is everybody happy?

This is weird though, because he gets access to Netflix by going to some guy’s house where he asks to buy “The Package,” a variety of downloads including newspapers, magazines, and movies. Sounds very cloak and dagger, doesn’t it?  This skullduggery is a result of present-day communism in Cuba, and a continuation of the Castro influence.  It shows a confirmation of our original  thoughts on Cuba – very contradictory.

More pics:

Street art in Punta Gorda

Simple transportation common to local Cubans

Anne checks out a neighborhood art gallery

Typical street scene in Cienfuegos
 (on the poorer side of town)

Tribute to Benny More,
legendary Cuban musican

On Paseo del Prado in Cienfuegos

Transportation contradictions: bus, horse-drawn carriage,
and motorcycle

Hola Havana!

St. Francis of Assisi square in Havana

First Day in Havana

Another advantage of this cruise is that we had two full days in Havana. On our first day in Havana, we had a guide named Vivian who was very sweet and helpful. We started the day with a walking tour in the Old City Center. 

Colorful restorations in Havana

Havana is absolutely stunning, filled with old buildings, some crumbling, others meticulously restored. The restoration process is intended to create usable spaces for everyone, not just the tourists. For example, the lovely Plaza Vieja includes an elementary school, and kids have recess right in the square.

Streets of Havana

We stopped by Hotel Ambos Mundos where Hemingway stayed when he first arrived in Cuba. He lived in Cuba for over thirty years, writing seven books here. He was known for drinking 12 – 17 cocktails every afternoon!

Stogie-chomping Cuban woman

Cuban cigars are a big part of the economy here in Cuba, and many people who come to Cuba spend lots of money on this product.  Any knowledgeable Cuban will be glad to expound on why their cigars are so wonderful – growing climate, soil, terroir, unique fashion in which they are rolled, their handling, low nicotine level, strong flavor, etc.  We also saw our first lady cigar smoker – a real stogie!

Vibrant streets of havana

The streets of Havana are filled with activity: women in colorful dresses (you pay to take their pictures), musicians, beggars, and vendors of everything from coins to Che Guevara berets! BTW the worst beggar we saw was a man with his cute little girl. We smiled and said hola to her. Her father put out his hand and said, “One dollar.” We laughed and kept moving.

Frank and his new guitar-playing friend

We don’t mean to sound unsympathetic to the plight of these people, but begging has always been difficult to deal with. Many countries ask you not to give beggars anything. Here, we felt as if the people really are suffering, and we did give to some. Like an old man who latched on to Frank talking and talking in Spanish. Frank couldn’t understand much of what was said but when the man mentioned moneda (money) and gestured a circular rub to his stomach, the message was clear.

Eating in the paladar

We had a break before our afternoon tour, so we decided to have lunch in Havana. (We were really anxious to do some exploring on our own!) Vivian directed us to a paladar, a private, family-run restaurant. Private enterprises of any kind are a very recent development in Cuba. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, all the Soviet monetary support and special trade deals for Cuba dried up. This led to a time of true deprivation, Castro called “The Special Period in Peace Time.” (Only Castro could come up with a name like that!) Since then, a process called normalization is gradually leading to more of an open society with opportunities to start private businesses.

Our restaurant was located in a beautiful old home, and the food was excellent. One odd thing: we were served something that we thought was creamy butter. Frank ask for more butter, and the waiter explained that is was actually mayonnaise because “we have no butter.”

1956 Olds?
 (Note sticker of hero Che Guevara on front of the hood.)

When we walked back for our afternoon bus tour, we got to the large street in front of the cruise terminal and stopped in our tracks. It was like watching a parade. One old American car after another: 1940’s and 50’s Chevys, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Dodges, and more. 

'57 Dodge? (just look at the length of this car!)

They have kept these vehicle engines running in any way they could, and they are used as taxis and fun rides for the tourists – what a hoot to see this assortment of nostalgia. Frank was particularly impressed because he owned some of these models in his early years of driving!

Old building in need of restoration

Our afternoon bus tour took us around Modern Havana, although we saw lots of gorgeous old homes that are reduced to rotting shells. We did pass the impressive Hotel Nacional known for its famous visitors. In 1946 at the height of the mob’s casino and gambling operations in Havana, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky held a big conference at this hotel. Hundreds of Mafioso dudes attended the one-week event.

Colors of Havana

We drove through the University of Havana where beautiful mansions have been converted to college facilities. This might not seem like such a bad idea except that the homes were pretty much appropriated when the wealthy fled the island after the Revolution.

'57 Cadillac?

We stopped at Revolution Square with a memorial to Jose Marti and a government building with a multi-story image of Che Guevara. All of us tourists pretty much ignored the revolutionary stuff and spent our time admiring the old cars parked there. These cars have been remarkably well-restored – real eye candy for Frank! There were so many of them, it was like walking through a 1950’s used car lot!

Pencil with "Yo Soy Fidel!"

The heroes of the Revolution will not be forgotten any time soon. Images of Che and Fidel are everywhere in Cuba on billboards and posters. “Yo soy Fidel” (I am Fidel) is a common statement often painted on buildings. It was a popular chant during Fidel’s funeral back in November of 2016, and now it’s even on some souvenirs! We bought our granddaughter a cute pencil with a doll’s head on the top, and sure enough, painted on the side of the pencil is “Yo soy Fidel!” (I am Fidel)

Rockin' in our 1949 Chevy Special Deluxe

Second Day in Havana

We decide to bag the guided tour today and go it alone. The thought of another day on and off the bus like herded cattle was too much. We are so used to exploring on our own, and this was our one chance to enjoy Havana by ourselves. It turned out to be our best day in Cuba.

On the streets of Havana

We started our day with a taxi ride in a ’49 Chevy Special Deluxe convertible. The interior had definitely seen better days, but it ran like a champ. We asked how many miles it had on it, and the driver said, “I don’t know, billions!” We took off down the famous Malecon Highway, a drive that runs along the sea. For some reason, we not only had a driver but a young man who spoke beautiful English. Of course, they wanted to know where we were from, and when we said America, they went nuts! “I don’t believe it,” the English-speaking guy said. “We LOVE Americans!”

License plates are a big seller here

He certainly knew a lot about America. He talked about how much he admires America, and how remarkable it is that such a young country is the best in the world. He also told us that because he works for a private taxi company, he can make more in one day than a Cuban doctor or a teacher (both on the government payroll) make in a month! How can that be and how can it continue?

New friends in Plaza de Armas

The taxi guys dropped us off at Plaza de Armas, a lively square with a sedate, relaxing park in the middle of it. We sat on a park bench and soaked in the ambience of palm trees, green grass, and fountains. We bought a few souvenirs from a guy and chatted for a while. He even brought his mother over to meet us. Such nice people!

Another woman played the guitar and sang for us. She was incredibly good; what a voice! We hoped to buy a CD of her music, but she said they were too expensive for her to make. So, we enjoyed her music, and of course, gave her some money. She sang such a heart-wrenching song, a Cuban style called danzon. We never knew Cuban music included ballads like those.  Reminded us of the “fado” music we had heard years ago in Portugal.

Scrumptious country pork

We wandered the streets taking in the local color. The streets here feel so alive. We ate lunch at another paladar, this one even better than the last. The restaurant was in another lovely old house up a steep and narrow stairway on a second floor with windows flung open and ceiling fans providing the cooling while a group of musicians entertained us. We could have stayed there all day. The owner explained to us that everything in his restaurant is organic and fresh coming straight from his suppliers in the countryside. Frank said his risotto was the best he has ever eaten, and Anne’s country pork dish with carrots and onions in a slightly fruity gravy was so good she was ready to move to Cuba!

El Commandante Frank!

By the way, everywhere we went, people would call out to Frank, “Hey Hemingway” or “Hola Che.” We think it was the beard, or maybe the hat. Or both. One guy called him Commandante, and Frank really liked the sound of that!  A street artist, who called himself the Cuban Picasso, drew a fast caricature of Frank, calling him “El Commandante.”

Plaza Vieja

We returned to Plaza Vieja where we sat on some steps eating coconut ice cream, listening to music, and watching the school kids doing calisthenics on the square. Today we got to experience the real “Kooba!”

Cuban art

Lecture with Jorge

Jorge’s topic was Cuban art, and Anne was quite taken with it. It seems amazing that these people create art that is so lively and colorful when their lives are so dreary.

Tonight was Latin Night, and the entertainment was vibrant and energetic. All the performers were from Cuba and those kids sang and danced their hearts out. Such diverse music. The love songs break your heart, and the dance music makes it impossible not to move. We even did a little dancing like a Cuban ourselves!

More pics:

Streets of Havana

Cathedral of Havana

Old '56 Buick?

No clue!

'56 Ford Fairlane?

'57 Pontiac?

'53 Ford

Capitol Building

Happy in Havana!!