WHEN IN HAVANA … (WITH A TWIST) 

I wake uncharacteristically at 6:30 AM. More sleep than I’ve had in a decade overnight. Start blogging right away, to catch up on the last two busy days in Havana. Largely, I am waiting for a money transfer from home. Without it, my options are very limited. Allowing for the time differences, I check my e-mail past 2 PM and find … it ain’t that easy. This is Cuba. I am an American. The financial firewall is nearly complete.

I run into a young friend, Manny, who has dual American and Mexican citizenship. We have visited at the Central Hotel a number of times while accessing the internet for the past 48 hours, and we have both experienced the same problems. Still no dinero from home. My sons try valiantly to put a transfer through Western Union, but that particular service demands impossible levels of information, including the region and exact district I am in here in Havana. Didn’t know it is Playa (there are 19 in Havana Central alone). So we work it out one question at a time. Which means hours of delays.

As of 5 PM on the day after Christmas, with a three hour time difference between here and Seattle, there is no money yet. So, with nine CUC remaining in my pocket – eight of which is needed for one final hour of internet access – I walk the streets with one lousy CUC effectively to my name. And then walk some more. The reality becomes, this situation provides a gift of insight for my thick Irish/Italian head. My empathy factor is forced – like the heart of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas – to grow three sizes this day. I have been making notes all along about what the locals do for fun. So many of them have nothing.

So they walk, too. They play street futbol. They hang out at the seawall on the Malecon. They browse shops (before being quickly ushered out). They cadge cigarettes. They fish. They make out in cubbies all over the city. And they try to engage foreigners and especially English speakers in conversation. Many thusly engage me while walking in the core of Central Havana and Old Havana. They are awestruck that a Yankee would be here, let alone in their same situation – sans cash, and sans opportunity. I listen to their stories closely. They approach me carefully at first, afraid of being caught talking to a foreigner by police, or afraid of security cameras.

One young man who is hanging out near the seawall with three friends at the Malecon engages me very carefully. All four are black. “Can I ask you one single question? He asks. I generally look to this as a prelude for the usual request for a donation. Or to bum a cigarette. Or directions to a favored restaurant. Or a referral to the Cuban version of a cathouse. “We just want to know what is going on in the world,” Barbaro says. “Our government won’t tell us anything. And what we are told, we know is wrong.”

I warily engage the four in conversation. They soon ask for a photo together. Again, my hackles go up.  I waggle with my backpack and clutch my camera. Care is taken to make sure nobody is circling behind me. Or that arms do not reach near my backpack zippers. Sad, in retrospect. But real life does this to the experienced traveler. They go on to describe life for the poor in Cuba. Especially the black poor. If you should be unlucky enough to be black in Cuba, your economic opportunities are severely limited. That is not the official story line, of course. Not with the trumpeted “Equalidad” of the Revolution. But racism, they assure me, is alive and well here in Cuba. Moreso than the United States.

Everything that is possible, I am told, is done to keep blacks away from tourists and local spenders. If you have lighter skin, and speak anything approximating foreign languages, you can get a job in a restaurant or hotel where one can be proximate to visitors. That way the tourist economy benefits kick in. That means tips. Which are paid in CUC. Allowing access to US and European and Canadian goods, like shampoo and soaps and toothpaste and decent shoes and clothes. And food. All four are hungry. But they believe me, understand my situation, and sympathize with me. The zenith of irony.

They are pouring their hearts out. I start to relax. My heart in turn goes out to them. I may be the first westerner they have ever talked to. They specifically just want to engage. And nothing from me beyond that. We talk for perhaps 45 minutes. Barbaro gives me his shared e-mail address, to send them their photo. I know I would like to see them again, to share a beer and perhaps even a meal if my money arrives tomorrow. I promise to look for them in the same area of the seawall, at the artillery fort where the Malecon faces the lighthouse on the opposite side of the Bahia de La Habana at The Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes Magnos del Morro.

It remains a special place for me, hours later. I was given a rare gift. Much the same thing takes place further on in my meandering. Primarily women this time, approach. Some want help for their children. Some want to provide sexual services in exchange for payment or a meal. I decline, but with much more empathy than previously. Sometimes they still want to talk. Most of them seem nice. They don’t have the hard shell of regular life on the streets. But they are starving. And they are desperate. That is made very plain.

Most (like me) have not eaten at all this day. I get the impression that this is fairly regular fare for many of them. When I arrive at my Casa Particular, Ody inquires in her rapid Spanish how my day has gone. As usual, we piece it together bit by bit. She too, is empathetic about the money wire situation not happening yet from North America. And very understanding. Because at this point, one would begin to get the impression this story of mine is like old fish or relatives after three days. Time for a change. She offers encouragement. But more importantly, a meal.

I realize I’ve had nothing to drink all day, either, and she fills me up with bottled water and her usual dinner of salad, yucca instead of potatoes, black bean sauce with rice, cucumbers and tomatoes, and chicken (pollo) instead of pork (puerco). The thanks that I offer, is given up with much more earnestness than usual …