Do you know about - Stairway to Havana - Softball Diplomacy and Yankee Perspective (Part 3)
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The Political Stalemate
We were invited to a late-afternoon reception at the U.S. Residence in a part of the city that is referred to as "Modern Havana." This neighborhood is in distinctly great repair than Old Havana and features the stucco-and-tiled-roof architecture consistent with its slightly more affluent surroundings. This is where the varied embassies are settled and where diplomats reside while stationed here. Since the U.S. Does not have lawful gentle ties to the Cuban gov't, there is no "embassy" per se, but instead what is called the U.S. Mission. I spoke at length to a senior U.S. lawful - he asked that I keep his identity secret - and I found what he had to say very interesting. He said that what he was about to tell me would probably sound like American political dogma, but it was based on "fact." In response to my ask about how long Cuba could continue to lag farther and farther behind the rest of Latin America before the cheaper was no longer salvageable and the country became unstable, he said that Cuba could do very well for itself if the Castro regime would plainly stop exporting "revolution" to Africa, South America and Central America. Although it has trade relations with a hundred and seventeen countries, he went on to say Cuba spends approx. 40% of its Gnp on soldiery supplies, training, soldiery and "insurgency efforts" exterior of its borders. This lawful explained that he does not expect this procedure to change until after Fidel Castro dies. His brother Raul is apparently not the hard-liner or "visionary" Fidel has always been and also is not unbelievable to maintain Cuba's foreign procedure status quo once Fidel is gone. But until that day comes, the diplomat declared, the Cuban citizens will continue to live on a subsistence level in terms of food, medicine and consumer goods and the suitable of living over the island will continue its decline. Coincidentally, I read an description the next day in Granma International- the English language Cuban newspaper - written about Cuba's continued soldiery aid to African nations - which terminated by emphasizing how "we Cubans...feel the African blood that courses straight through our veins."
The U.S. lawful also said that Cuba maintains a major brain network inside the U.S., meaning that every newspaper article, Tv and Radio program, internet blog, etc. That mentions Havana or Cuba is monitored, sourced and reported back to the government. I posed to this lawful a hypothetical situation: if an description was written for a Us publication based on a writer's impressions of Havana during this softball trip, what could be the possible repercussions? He said I could expect the following: the description would most likely find its way back to Havana where it would be judged to be either pro-Cuban or anti-Cuban. If it was of course deemed to be a negative article, then the author would then be suspected of having entered the country under false pretenses (posing as a softball player when of course an American journalist) and that our tour organizer would then be questioned about this subterfuge and his license to enter Cuba perhaps threatened. It was also possible that the writer's U.S. Passport number would be flagged and he would not be allowed to enter Cuba again. It should be noted here that when I spoke to Mr. Weinstein - the tour organizer and licensee - about my conversation at the Mission, he smiled and said, "Write anything you want."
My sense of it was that the consulate lawful adored that no one from our group write anything at all for publication and that the scenario presented to me wasn't meant to be as cautionary as it sounded, but plainly political guidance on-the-square from a 25 year veteran in the U.S. Foreign aid who had no wish to deal with any repercussions stemming from his candid remarks to a tour group they were entertaining. But in the days following our visit to the Us Residence however, I suspected that the Cuban government was retention abreast of our activities during the trip and was also retention an eye on the members of our group. Interestingly, one of the members of the Cuban senior softball team was the Commissioner of Agriculture - the equivalent of a Cabinet post in the U.S. - so we knew we of course weren't intriguing about under the government radar.
The Embargo
We were approached on the road many times by citizen asking about President Obama and also asking if the embargo would be lifted soon. In addition to the long-standing U.S. Trade embargo, the Bush Plan of 2004 severely restricted travel and financial transfers between the U.S. And Cuba which consequently tiny the assistance Cuban families could receive from their expatriate relatives. I saw posters about the Bush Plan hanging in a concentrate of Havana government offices, the posters claiming the plan hurts Cuba and Cuban families, the young and the old. In retaliation for this Us policy, Fidel Castro withdrew the U.S. Dollar from Cuba's circulation - where it once passed for legal currency - and introduced the Convertible Cuban Peso (C.U.C.). Visitors have to change U.S. Dollars for Cuc's (or "kukes" in local vernacular) at the Currency change at the airport along with a 20% surcharge. In April of 2009, the Obama management rescinded the Bush Plan and has made other overtures to the Cuban government recommending the lessening of restrictions with regard to financial transactions, immigrant travel as well as occasion up new cellular communications, satellite radio, television networks and internet availability.
But the long-standing adversarial posturing and tit-for-tat gentle dust-ups of the U.S. And Cuban governments are long-familiar yet still discouraging words heard among the Havana populace. The unmistakable feeling on the road -at least, to this visitor's ears - is that the time has come for much needed change. Havana citizens know the divergence between a citizen and their government and they long for resumption of gentle relations with the U.S. Because they believe Americans and Cubans have much to offer each other. They want the embargo to end and for the tensions between the two governments to ease because, as the two million touristas traveling annually to Cuba have shown them, there is a great life past the shores of their island home and they want the free time to experience some of it.
The Oldest Profession
At the Museum de la Revolucion, it was stated on one of the many commemorative plaques hanging inside that during the Batista regime prior to the Revolution, things were so bad that women were forced to engage in prostitution plainly to feed themselves but since the Revolution, this no longer occurs. Well, during my stay in Old Havana, nearly every local man I met who wasn't a Cuban softballer or a member of the organizing committee offered to furnish us with women - all we had to do was say how many, what color and when. I was approached dozens of times during my stay by men and women on the street, waiters, protection guards and bartenders gift to furnish us with cheap female companionship. Although it is illegal, a robust black store exists for both sex and cigars - which I was told by a member of the hotel staff are the two most favorite reasons Canadian and European men come to Cuba. Here, Cubans tend to view the sex trade in a practical manner and while there are penalties and prison terms of up to two years that can be served for prostitution convictions, the local law obligation will most likely look the other way unless it's overt and the government won't intercede as long as the incidence of Hiv doesn't climb. As in most cases - and it's no different in Havana than in any place else - the volume of sex trade is in direct proportion to the number of local economic occasion and there is very tiny of that here.
I spoke with a local woman on the hotel veranda late one afternoon. "Maria" works a menial job in Old Havana and supplements her wage straight through prostitution. She is 27, pretty and a particular mother. She cruises the downtown hotel patios and bars daily after work with her girlfriend. Since it was clear there was an American tour group at the hotel, we were targeted by these working women. She waves and winks at the male tourists from the sidewalk and, after getting permission from the protection guards who first must receive the ok from the guests, she enters the hotel patio retention hands with her equally young and pretty friend as they approach, ask to sit at the table and begin to make conversation in the best way their tiny English allows, intriguing the talk to the possibility of sex fast and un-self-consciously. With the added wage she earns from tourists, "Maria" can afford the clothes and makeup she needs to make herself presentable as well as to furnish essentials like extra food, soap, shampoo and basic medicines for her and her son. She is also saving money for the day that she will be allowed to leave Cuba and live in Florida, though she has no family there nor any idea when or if that day will ever come. She chides her friend who recently spent her moonlight wage buying her mom a television. There are hundreds of young women like them in Old Havana, plying their trade the same as their pre-Revolution sisters did two generations ago.
Adios
It was finally time to leave and as I packed my bags, I gave the family-size bottles of ibuprofen, antacid and cold-medicine we had brought along to our hotel housekeeper. We knew there were shortages and the tour group decided when we planned the trip we would bring what over-the-counter medicines we could. I knew she had a family and she had worked very hard during our stay making sure we were comfortable. She seemed a tiny overwhelmed and very grateful while I wondered why basics like these - the kind I take for granted - weren't more easily available to families like hers.
I clambered back onto the same Fokker-100 to be movable (and fumigated again!) back to Cancun, Phoenix and then home. As the plane lifted us up and out over the Gulf, I reflected on the other-worldliness that is the Havana experience. With the cars of my childhood - of course hundreds of vintage 1950's American automobiles - still plying the streets, the crumbling buildings mixed with the subtle, underlying atmosphere of fear and caution, there is yet an attitude of acceptance, calm and even cheerfulness among the Havana residents. One of the horse and buggy drivers giggled to us, "Welcome to Havana, my American friends. Two million people, one million police." Of the hundreds of citizen I met or passed by, there was only one negative reaction to me as a visiting gringo - a sinister looking male bus passenger drew his hand over his throat when he saw that I was an American. But by and large, I was greeted warmly and graciously by everyone I met.
While Cuba is a dirt-poor, political throwback and a persisting problem-child-of-the-Latin American-world, the citizen I met there are friendly, kind and genuine. These placid 'Habaneras' carry a dignity and spirit that belie the decayed surroundings that is their capital city. They stay resolved, keep their heads down, endure hurricanes and revolutionaries the best they can and quietly wait for an old man to die and for a new American President to beckon.
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