We were having a heated, rum-fuelled discussion with Pablo about how proud he thinks we should feel about being British in the run-up to a royal wedding, and so we attempted to flatter in return by suggesting that he, too, had a right to feel proud of his country for having the best health care and literacy rates in the world. Proud of his country? It was then that he gave to us as a souvenir the family’s ration book from last year. And suddenly the harsh truth about life in Cuba dawned.
But who is to blame: Fidel Castro or Jimmy Carter?
When you see us back at home, ask us about the ration book, or better still, ask to see it. We need to raise awareness of the plight here, alerting the bourgeois westerners hermetically sealed in the society of high-mass consumption to the sufferings on the paradise island. It’s not Marxism at work here, it’s a society of class distinctions lurching along under Fidelism. The crumbling, rotting Habana Vieja is a life of impossible hardships: Sandra is amazed by just our passports, for she is unable/forbidden ever to leave the country. We took a little stroll around the southern zone of the old city, where the roads crumbled years ago, the aging facades hide empty shells rather than functioning buildings, and the neighbourhood shops are devoid of any viable produce. We linger outside a house full of women adorned in white headscarves, only to move on when the Santero gives us a glance, and we listen to the sacrificial cockerels, blissfully unaware of their impending doom. We weave in and out of small shops selling artesanias, eventually purchasing enough musical instruments to found our very own two-man symphony orchestra. And eventually we arrive back at our family casa to find Pablo sitting in the street, forlornly gazing into the middle distance. What’s wrong? Well, there’s a problem yet again with the water supply: each house has water tanks underground and on the roof, but the mains water only runs for a few hours, every two days. Missing the slot could prove to be disastrous. During the evening, somewhere between 8 or 9pm, government workers allow water to pass from a reservoir to an accessible supply so that every household is able to take water on board through pump systems. As this only happens every other day, plans for evenings with friends or night walks have to go on hold, or life may become miserable. Water is life! The Cubans rely on this water supply for washing clothes, bed linen and the floor of the house from time to time, cooking and drinking. Bottled water is not really an alternative because prices are extortionate for these guys, so the best course of action which our host family have taken is to install a filter that allows them to drink tap water safely.
One of the most dismaying sides of Cuba is that the two-currency system makes it very difficult for locals who haven’t managed, and can’t manage, to get jobs relating to tourism. Builders, for example, receive their wages in Cuban Pesos Nacionales whereas the owners of tourist restaurants or craft shops have a large turnover in Cuban Pesos Convertibles (CUCs). Just to give you an idea, there are currently 24 Cuban Pesos to each single CUC. It has resorted to a fine divide with some restaurants serving food exclusively for tourists and others remaining loyal to their kind. Most Cubans cannot afford to pay 10CUCs (or 240 Pesos Nacionales) for a hearty meal of fish, beans, rice, and half a pizza if they’re really hungry. For a plate of rice tonight we paid 0.75CUCs, call it 75cents because this currency is pegged to the US dollar. In a restaurant we passed by earlier we saw that a portion of rice would cost a Cuban 2 Pesos Nacionales. We’ve done the maths here, so just trust us. We pay nine times more for rice than Cubans do, and just for your interest, 3 times more for beer. We aren’t complaining because, well take the rice again; we are paying nine times as much for it, but we probably earn much more than nine times the amount of money that they do.
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