HAVANA CUBA.- On the leaden horizon a lightning bolt is drawn that heralds the arrival of a new cold front in Cuba. The waves of the Atlantic Ocean beat against the barrier reef, splashing at times the face of Jorge Emilio, a chain smoker, who three times a week sits fishing on the wall of Havana’s Malecon.
Jorge Emilio fishes for entertainment and out of necessity. He lives with six other families in a gloomy shell eaten away by saltpeter and abandonment in danger of collapsing in San Lázaro, a street that from Belascoaín to Galiano seems to be the setting for a horror movie. Ruinous facades that collapse every time it rains with a certain intensity in the city.
“In the last three months in my area there have been four landslides. First the balconies fall, then the ceiling of the living room or kitchen or some room. The house is shrinking. People are moving towards the interior of the home, transforming the old bathroom into a kitchen or vice versa. Climbing the stairs is an acrobatic act worthy of a tightrope walker from the Cirque du Soleil,” describes Jorge Emilio, while he drinks coffee from a recycled doorknob.
Spending all night fishing with a patched rod is a way to escape from the many problems in your rigorous daily life. But, above all, it is a business that allows him to earn money and feed his three children, his wife, his parents and a daughter-in-law.
“Anything you catch, from a snapper to a crappie, sells for a good price. The pound of fish fluctuates from 500 to 800 pesos (from 21 to 33 dollars, according to the official exchange rate). If I don’t catch anything I go to the Iron Bridge, at the mouth of the Almendares River, or the entrance to the bay where I buy fish and then resell it,” says Jorge Emilio. And he clarifies that he also uses fish as barter.
“By the end of the year I hope to exchange a 10-pound grouper for seven pounds of boneless pork imported from Yuma (USA). We don’t celebrate Christmas, but on December 31 we want to have a meal, buy two or three bottles of rum and play some music. Nougat and grapes? “Those are things about people who receive dollars, government officials and business owners.”
terrible year
Liliam confesses that 2023 has been a terrible year: “My father and my husband, who were my two breadwinners, died. And my son is in prison. I have to look for her very hard to be able to bring her a jaba with toasted bread and brown sugar. I work in a hospital sterilizing medical supplies. My salary of 3,570 pesos (around 13 dollars in the informal market) is not even enough for me to eat. Let’s see if with the next salary increase for public health personnel they pay me a little more. Although in Cuba no one lives off her salary. I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas at home watching television and at 11 at night I was already in bed. I don’t have any plans for the end of the year either. I don’t think there is much to celebrate. If the chicken comes to the butcher shop I make a meal. If not, like anything.”
Yandy, an engineer, assures that “the economic situation in Cuba is very difficult even for those who have money. But those of us who work for the State are worse off. My wife and I are professionals and between the two of us we earn 12,000 pesos ($46 in the clandestine market) which we use to pay our electricity, telephone, and gas bills and buy something to eat. Strong food (chicken, egg, fish, sausage) depends on what comes in the notebook (restricted diet) or whether a relative or friend sends us a few dollars.”
In his opinion, “it is shameful how the majority of professionals live in Cuba, a country where the pyramid is inverted. A forklift driver or a plumber earn 10 times more than an engineer. That’s why no one wants to study at university and they decide to emigrate. This year’s end we will eat croquettes or seasoned hash. If I can get a piece of pork, welcome, but I’m not getting my hopes up. The year 2023 has been black, but 2024 will be worse, due to the measures that, according to the government, will control inflation and the budget deficit. The day after fuel and electricity prices rise, all prices will progressively increase. Eating will be more expensive and complicated.”
Others
The other side of the coin is people like Roldán. He has relatives who hold important positions in government institutions and the armed forces. His car does not lack fuel, mobile phones and internet are paid for by the government, and his family can buy food and appliances at bargain prices thanks to a regime plan that allows high-ranking military officers to purchase imported goods in Cuban pesos.
Thanks to his government-connected relatives, he was able to get a job at a foreign firm. He receives medical care in hospitals intended for the exclusive care of leaders and once a year he has the right to spend a week with his relative in a tourist village.
“The prices in these villas are the same as those in the 1990s, when a beer cost 10 pesos and a lunch did not exceed 100 pesos. We will spend the end of the year at some relatives’ house. There they throw the house out the window. They roast two or three pigs, snappers and beef bowls. There is no shortage of Spanish nougats or Swiss chocolates. And at 12 at night we eat the grapes,” Roldán commented.
Magda, a lawyer, was able to have dinner on December 24, and on December 31 she will roast a leg of pork, because her father living in the United States sent her food, including nougat, for those two days.
“In Cuba it is impossible to buy these things with your salary. Those who have family abroad, receive remittances or have a profitable business are saved. The rest have to settle for watching Christmas pass,” he noted.
Agua
At the stroke of midnight on December 31, Jorge Emilio and his family plan to throw three buckets of water “to see if we can get rid of the saltiness and the situation improves next year.” Yandy will walk around the block in her neighborhood with a suitcase “because they say she brings luck and maybe in 2024 I will be able to leave this hell.”
Liliam believes that God has abandoned the Cubans. “Before she prayed for the country to change and asked for peace and harmony. But the Lord does not listen to me. “There is more and more selfishness, lack of solidarity and more violence in Cuba.”
The feeling of sadness is palpable when you talk to people. Frustration is growing. They are tired of the regime’s propaganda that tries to sell a perpetual Marxist socialism that does not work.
The Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was able to describe that feeling when he said: “We know that they lie to us. They know that they lie to us. They know that we know that they lie to us. We know that they know that we know that they lie to us and they continue to lie.”
It’s not a tongue twister. The vast majority of Cubans feel cheated by their rulers. The year 2024 promises to be another very tough year.
