Wednesday, April 26, 2006

March 29 - April 9

Unfortunately, it’s been almost a month since my last update. While a lot of interesting things have happened, my lack of initiative to put them down to paper means some of them have been filed away into the part of my brain that will only remember them at some random time in the future; the others I will recount now.
While Cuba ended up losing to Japan in the World Baseball Classic Finals (as a sidenote, I’ve never seen a baseball team play with the odd style that the Japanese team did, but obviously it beat out our Western style), they were given a hero’s welcome home. A half-mile long procession of all the players, coaches, and trainers wound its way through Havana, with people lining the streets the whole way. They ended up at the main sports stadium where they were received by a cultural celebration and then given commemorative bats by Fidel. One of the things that struck me about this whole ordeal was the scale of the production: who organizes these large receptions and what will go into them? This celebration for the baseball team was a bit more than your typical tickertape parade, and lasted for over two hours (broadcast live on TV). The Communists here are very much into their pomp, and this certainly lived up to it.
I watched the parade procession for a while and then realized that it would hit the Malecon at some point - and why should I sit around and watch it when I can be there in five minutes? So Scott, Valerie, Alex, and I all hauled down the six blocks to the Malecon and watched the parade pass by in person. I took some great pictures of the beaming players as they passed by, as I remembered that some of these athletes are recent graduates of the sports universities and despite their sudden celebrity status from the Classic, they’re considered the same as any other Cuban.
Every time we attend one of these state-sponsored festivities, I can’t help but get a warm feeling that even if things aren’t superb as far as standards of living, the people of Cuba band together under their national identity and get to collectively take pride in a success del pueblo in a way that most people in the US couldn’t even begin to comprehend (though we Texans have a pretty good idea of how being so proud feels).
One afternoon with El Profe, we went to Regla, across Havana Bay, for the novelty of the ferry ride. On the way back to Havana, a girl asked me gruffly if I was interested in two of her friends, and I apathetically replied in the affirmative, having had my fair share of jineterismo the past weekend in Santiago and not wishing to be bothered by prostitutes at that point in time. A kid on the ferry noticed that this girl kept trying to get my attention, and shared his concern that the woman was actually a man. We got off the boat before them and turned around to ogle, and while the two prostitutes were definitely women, the boss was undoubtedly a man, dressed in Capri pants, a bandana over the head, a tight tank-top, and some heels. The lack of breasts, the deep voice, and the over-exaggerated walk gave it away however.
This led to an interesting discussion about transvestites and transsexuals in Cuba. Cuevas informed me that after a consultation with a sexologist at one of the many government sex clinics, those approved can receive a state-provided sex change, free of charge. Now while the moral-conservatives in the States might condemn the state-sponsorship of sex changes as some perverted endorsement of unhealthy social behavior, I feel that this is a great example of the progressive attitude that is permeating the Cuban government. To me it seems that the government is aware that there is extra pressure to look good internationally and internally when it runs the risk of stagnating after almost fifty years. Examples of this attitude abound: Cuba has come to embrace the youth rap scene wholeheartedly; homophobia is almost non-existent when compared to the US; and the government recognizes and helps the transsexual community.
Sometimes, however, the government approach, when faced with new and difficult problems, is unorthodox and perhaps a little rough. Take Cuba’s approach to the burgeoning AIDS issue in the 80s. Fairly quickly, sanatoriums were set up in certain locations throughout the country, and those seen as high-risk sexually active adults or admittedly HIV positive individuals were interred into these glorified quarantine camps. This practice is one of the government programs that have been criticized as violating human rights. The moral dilemma arrives from the belief that Cuba would have had a rampant AIDS problem had they not forced certain residents into these sanatoriums. While some citizens who were admitted were discriminately stereotyped based on paranoid criteria, the question remains: At what cost do you suspend certain rights in order to protect the whole of the population from an unknown threat? Obviously, these same questions have been asked within the US government of late, though in a different context.
Travel in Cuba is a strange beast. As I’ve mentioned before, as students in Cuba we occupy a strange space between tourists and residents. We carry two different IDs, our Cuban-issued temporary resident ID and our US passports. The former theoretically allows us to gain access to Cuban prices and Cuban opportunities that most travelers in Cuba do not enjoy. The problem is that along with those much cheaper prices (for instance, a $40MN Cuban bus ticket – which converts to $1.60CUC - compared to a $40CUC tourist ticket on the same air-con bus) comes all the difficulties of living as a Cuban. To reserve tickets at these prices, you must place the reservations exactly 15 days before you intend to travel. Otherwise, you can get onto the waiting list, which is a first come first serve situation depending on the space still available on each incoming bus. This list, however, can vary from several hours (within two hours of waiting in Matanzas, a city two hours away from Havana, I bought a $7MN ticket on a new air-con bus), to several days (the bus station in Holguin had taken names on the waiting list up to 749, which meant a two or three day wait).
This system, therefore, works well for one-way-bound Cubans, not for weekend traveling students that must get back before classes begin again on Monday. You may be lucky enough to have a short waitlist to your destination, or perhaps you planned in advance enough to reserve tickets fifteen days in advance. But once you arrive at your destination and the time to come home is at hand, your options become limited to an expensive en divisa tourist ticket or a private taxi whose driver ironically asks you to tell the police if he is stopped that you paid in moneda nacional, not the less-expensive-than-the-bus-but-still-at-least-half-the-cost convertibles that you actually pay in. The latter is often less comfortable but more convenient and cheaper, while the bus is usually more comfortable and always a sure bet, though more expensive and running on a schedule.
A case in point of the difficulties of travel, the citizenship of students, and the attitudes in Cuba was our attempted trip to Isla de la Juventud. We had only heard of one way to get to Isla: reserve the trip 15 days in advance for $30MN, or pay $35CUC the day before. Both options included an air-con bus to Batabano and then the ferry ride to the actual island. Considering we didn’t have 15 days to plan, nor did we want to pay $35CUC to have it prearranged, we decided we would get to Batabano ourselves, and then buy a ferry ticket separately.
We arranged a private taxi to Batabano, the port city on the Caribbean side south of Havana, for $10 a person. Scott, Valerie, Danielle, Diana, and I made the trip squished into the backseat of the car. We arrived at Batabano at 11AM only to find out that the two ferries leave at 2:30 and 6:30 in the afternoon. Where the actual ferry landed was about 300 yards away from the control point, so we were forced to wait outside of the gate. We talked with the security guards about how we would be able to buy ferry tickets, and were told that once it was determined how many free seats were available that we would be first in line to purchase those. To make a very long story short – every hour we would check to see how things were looking, and the story kept changing: first we would have to wait for the first seats to open up; then we were supposed to wait for the first three buses carrying the people who paid for the bus and ferry ticket; then it ended up we were just going to have to hope that something was open. No seats ever opened up; six buses, instead of three, showed up; and our hope for anything at all was dashed by a rude security guard who at one point declared that we could call anyone, including Fidel, and no one would be able to change the situation. Later he sarcastically told us to go complain to our embassy.
Getting fed up with the guard not helping us out, I took an opportunity when he was looking away to walk through the gate and towards the ferry landing. I got about 100 yards before they started yelling at me to come back. One of the guards made a motion at me of alternately clasping a hand on a wrist – I think he meant he’d arrest me if I didn’t come back. After exchanging some nasty words, I realized that we had no hope of getting on the ferry, so we booked it back to Havana for another $10 at 6:30PM. In other words, I spent $20, 7 hours, and a lot of frustration for nothing. But Cuba no es facil.
Fun fact: When Cubans say something like "Todo el mundo piensa que…" ("The whole world thinks that…"), they really just mean all of Cuba – the frame of reference for everyone in life doesn’t really extend past the coast of Cuba. Their patria is the whole world.
Sometimes I’m afraid that I come off sounding like Cuba is just frustration after rip-off after confusion. That’s true – but it’s still a great time and I love it. Our trip to Santiago was no different.
Originally, we were supposed to travel by Cubana airlines, since we had the money in our program to afford it, and it’s a 16 hour drive by bus. There were doubts, however, considering Cubana has the worst flight record of any in the world. The change came when the UNC students decided that they wanted to come as well, although they couldn’t afford the cost of an airline ticket. So instead of four hours of traveling and almost three days in Santiago, we had two days of travel, and less than 48 hours in Santiago to accommodate the others. But apparently we saved a couple hundred of dollars that probably won’t get kicked back to us since we didn’t pay out of pocket.
The bus was hellacious. It was freezing cold, and for the whole overnight trip, loud salsa and reggaeton music blared over the speakers. It was proposed that the explanation for the cold was that because Cubans so seldom do get to enjoy a large air-con bus, they want to get the most of it. It’s as if you find a big case of Girl Scout cookies, but you have to be somewhere in five minutes. Well of course you’re going to eat as many cookies as you can before your time is up, even if it’s unhealthy and uncomfortable. Such was the temperature on the bus.
When it rolled around to 10PM on the bus, Scott and I politely asked the bus driver if he could turn down the music so some of us could sleep. The bus driver said he would, but then didn’t. Once again, we asked him to turn it down, and so he did, but hardly enough to make a difference. He came back to ask us if it was ok, and acted appalled that we had asked for the music to be turned down when Scott was listening to his iPod. We had to explain that even with headphones on, it was still possible to hear the music, and I went so far as to say that I can’t even think to myself because the music was so loud. Well, of course, at this point, the music stayed at the exact same level and we tried our best to ignore it.
To make the whole bus situation even better, we had an annoyingly over-the-top sleazeball tour guide who overused his rape whistle to call everyone’s attention to get back on the bus. By the end of the trip, everyone was fantasizing about shoving the whistle down his throat.
Just so I don’t go on complaining unnecessarily, here’s a quick list of other ways we got hustled:
A bicitaxi driver took us to a restaurant that was closed, then to a private restaurant that was overly expensive, received a finder’s fee from the proprietors, and then charged us $10 for the trip, when it would’ve normally been $2-5. I gave him the $10 and told him to choke on it.
Friday night, while drinking beers, we were told to leave the establishment if we weren’t going to order any food, despite the fact that A) we had already ordered 10 beers between 5 people, more than the cost of a plate of food, and B) the sign outside said that we were in a bar, which I assumed to mean that you can just drink, if you’re so inclined, and not be required to buy anything.
Saturday night, without any hindsight, we ate at the same restaurant, and argued for 30 minutes about the prices on the check. The waitress had decided that when we had asked for a certain plate, that she would instead give some of us the 3-course option with it, forget some of our side orders entirely, and change what came with the plate to her own accord. The bill, however, said we had each ordered the most expensive, 3-course option. We won out in the end, but we left our good moods as the tip and walked out in a terrible mood.
Onto the fun parts: Friday night, Diana and I ate at a very nice, inexpensive restaurant and had a fun day visiting the rum museum. Because of the difference in cost between the plane and the bus, we were able to stay in the Casa Granda, the best hotel in Santiago, where we enjoyed hot showers, a real breakfast buffet, and American TV. Diana and I spent a good amount of time watching Rudy on HBO and NCAA Final Four games.
Friday night, we also ended up hanging out with a bunch of Santiagueros, drinking beers, moving from bar to bar, and singing songs. I ended up trading my shirt with one of the Cubans, which I think has been my best transaction here in Cuba so far.
Saturday, we visited Castillo de San Pedro de Morro, one of the first castles in Cuba. The grandeur of this castle was actually pretty breathtaking, and I saw my first two iguanas here.
The city itself is very pretty, with some of the oldest buildings in Cuba. Santiago was the second capital of Cuba before the Spanish government was moved to Havana, and the Sierra Maestra surrounding Santiago, as well as the city itself, served as the starting ground for the Revolucion with the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, 7 years before the second leg of the Revolution began. Fidel delivered his "history will absolve me" speech in court in Santiago, and when he, Che, and Camilo Cienfuegos restarted the Revolution in 1956, the people of Santiago drew attention away from their entry by starting a rebellion.
However, besides the museums, the city reeked of jineterismo to me. Others on the trip loved it and had a much easier time of the city, but I unfortunately walked away completely uninterested in returning. Still, I have to take the bad with the good, and it wasn’t a complete blowout of a trip.
The following weekend improved quite a bit. We ended up taking a train from Havana to Camaguey, an old colonial town, and Cuba’s third largest city. For one, we wanted to try to visit the five largest cities in Cuba by the time we left, and for another, Diana’s Cuban boyfriend, Raydel, hails from Camaguey, and so we were invited to stay the weekend with his brother, mother, and grandparent’s in their house.
In one of our guidebooks, the travel time from Havana is listed at 7-10 hours, and unfortunately we landed on the long end of that estimate. Several "technical problems" occurred, and the train spent close to an hour not moving. Once again, the adage of "if it’s available, don’t just use, abuse it" came into play, as we all struggled to stay warm against the constant cold of the air conditioning. We also joked on the train about keeping a journal of how many times the smell of rancid urine wafted into our car from the bathrooms in the front: "9PM, somewhere outside of Matanzas – the smell of acrid urine hits my nose again."
Camaguey did the colonial thing well. Colorful houses, extravagant churches (even one with a catacomb), and incredibly kind and laidback people made for a great city. The fact that throughout the whole weekend I saw less than ten foreign travelers made for a welcome juxtaposition to Santiago’s hustler-laden tourist cesspool.
Raydel’s family was a lot of fun. We woke up together on Friday morning and made omelet sandwiches with tomato, ham, and cheese. Both he and his brother were referred to by friends and family as Nini and Jeje. We met his sister and her husband, who had an adorable child with bright blue eyes, and Friday night had a large family dinner with Raydel’s mother, stepfather, father, stepfather, brother, grandparents, and several friends. We talked about scholarship in the US versus Cuba, and his father agreed with me that what’s important above all is understanding the people: taking "clases de la calle".
Saturday, while Scott did his typical new-city walkabout and Diana, Jessica, and Valerie went with Raydel to tour some more of the city, I went with Nini and his friend to Playa Santa Lucia to enjoy the beach. The highlight for me was the snorkeling, as I not only saw conch shells, colorful fish, and barracuda, but I also saw a shark. In ten foot deep water, I saw in front of me a five foot long shark swimming diagonally away from me. I froze, and in an instant had about fifteen thoughts flash across my mind: How afraid should I be? Am I bleeding anywhere? Is it going to turn around and come for me? Should I try to get closer to it, since it seems to be going away from me?
Naturally, I answered yes to the last question, and finally saw in real life what they always tell you on the Discovery channel: one, that sharks really have no interest in humans, and two, that they are extremely fast. Within a few second of me pushing forward to get a better look, he was out of my vision. Admittedly, the rest of the time I snorkeled I was checking behind me to make sure that the shark wasn’t sneaking up behind me.
Saturday night, we decided to leave early after having an uneventful night. During the day, we had put down our names twice on a wait-list for the bus, thinking that if we missed it the first time around, we would be there the second. We decided to go at around midnight to see where it was, and regardless, be ready to wait. When we arrived, we found out that our group had missed our first chance by less than five names, and we weren’t scheduled to come around again for another hundred people. At that point, we decided to cut our losses and get a private taxi back to Havana. At 2AM, we rolled out in a brand new Volkswagen minivan. We realized a few klicks outside of Camaguey how fast the driver was going – he averaged 85MPH, sometimes getting up to 95MPH. The thing that made this even scarier was that for a long time we were driving through thick fog and rain. I took off my glasses and decided not to open my eyes until I got to Havana. Coincidentally, we got back home less than five hours after leaving Camaguey, and in less than half the time it took to travel the same distance by train.
I’ll bring this up-to-date in a few days. I apologize if the quality is lacking. Like I always say, if I kept up with it more often then I’d have less trouble remembering everything and be more apt to be profound. Que sera…