AN AMERICAN IN CUBA
A friend of mine, who will remain annoymous to protect her identity in Cuba (even though I’m sure no one of importance will ever read this) goes over her thoughts and experiences of her life in Cuba the past 2 years.
“G” as we will call her, is a born and raised New Yorker who went to Cuba to take singing lessons and experience Cuban life, but soon found herself so involved with the community that she went back and forth for 2 years until eventually staying there, this year, for about 10 months.
What did you think of Cuba
before you went?
I was a communist without ever having experienced it in the slightest. I believed what i heard from my parents who had gone there once in 2005 for 9 days. That people were very happy, intellectual, and it was paradise and everyone had equal access to everything. I defended cuba whenever the topic came up and thought that having free and equal healthcare and education was what any country should implement.
I thought the united states was fucked up for blocking them and not allowing them to find their true potential within their system of government, so no one could ever really see if communism worked or not. I thought people were probably selfless, that they genuinely cared for each other because everyone was happy with having equal education and healthcare because they wanted everyone to have a chance at the basic necessities in life. I thought that the ones who left were selfish and didn’t care about helping others and only cared about themselves. I also loved the music.
I thought the united states was fucked up for blocking them and not allowing them to find their true potential within their system of government, so no one could ever really see if communism worked or not. I thought people were probably selfless, that they genuinely cared for each other because everyone was happy with having equal education and healthcare because they wanted everyone to have a chance at the basic necessities in life. I thought that the ones who left were selfish and didn’t care about helping others and only cared about themselves. I also loved the music.
how has your opinion changed?
All of my opinions are based on the places I’ve lived and the people i have met, I do not intend to generalize but they are also based on what most people have explained to me about what Cuba and Cubans are like.
My perception started to change when I was threatened by immigration that they would fine me $3000 dollars, wouldn’t be allowed back in cuba for 5 years, and my friend would have his house confiscated by the government if i stayed one more day in his house. people then explained to me that until recently cubans weren’t allowed to associate with tourists and weren’t even allowed to go to the hotels. I questioned why that would be if one of the main reasons why the revolution was started was because of the fact that Americans would treat cuba as though it was las vegas and party here while cubans served them. So how was it that now cubans were still not allowed to experience what tourists do when they come to cuba, why was it that in the hotels tourists have access to a wide variety of food and amenities that cubans aren’t allowed to have in their homes. why can tourists eat cow meat and lobster but a cuban would be sent to jail 30 years for having one pound of cow meat found on them?
Why was it that if i looked like a foreigner i.e. didn’t dress up like a cuban and didn’t get a tan yet people looked at me like i was an alien and automatically thought that i was some kind of jewel? why did people automatically assume that where i lived people were mugged and killed on the daily? and then i got sick in cuba. I went to a hospital and waited to be assisted the whole day in a line of people standing outside of the doctors office until the doctor said they were going out to lunch and we would have to wait there another hour until they came back, only to receive a diagnosis and prescription for a medication that wasn’t available in any pharmacy within 2 hours of travel from where i stayed. So i remained sick for two weeks until someone we knew was able to contact a doctor they knew at the military base, for which i thanked the favor with a bottle of rum.
Then there was the time i brought a 32” TV that cost me $60 from Walmart and when i arrived in Cuba the immigration officers told me i had to pay $250 to keep the TV or else they would keep it. Then when i complained enough that the lady asked me what brand the TV was and i told her it cost me $60 and she told me she would make it $200. Why were they trying to make money off of me? So basically its legal to steal from tourists and then resell all of the objects they take from them so they make money off of them. I should have said “okay” and slammed the TV on the floor and left.
Oh and then there was the time that my friend from NYC came to Cuba with me and we rented a car which my cuban friend drove. We drove from Varadero to Camaguey and back, thats about 9 hours. When we were reaching Trinidad we were stopped by the cops who asked my friend how he knew us. He told the cop that my friend was his girlfriend. The cop then gave him a ticket for 250mn which is technically what a cubans monthly salary is because he said he was along the lines of a prostitute, and that its illegal to drive around with tourists, a crime which would have sent him to jail for years in the recent past.
The bodega in cuba is the state store through which people are given food monthly which includes rice, beans, sugar, salt, coffee, cooking oil, milk for children under 7 years, and two chicken thighs/legs. But these supplies are good enough for one week. After that you go to the two other stores in the town and if theres not a line outside that means they rarely have anything thats worth going inside to buy. But anything they do have has the same price as in the united states, so how is a population who makes strictly 12-40 dollars a month able to eat? well… they steal from their jobs to live and the government turns the blind eye. So basically they are breeding a population who does things under the table in order to survive.
I realized that instead of making people selfless this system made people develop survival of the fittest, it made people jealous of you if you got something they didn’t have. it made people more separated than united. it made me realize that the human being is innately selfish and theres nothing any government can do to contain that trait. The only thing that appears in the news is that because of the united states embargo they aren’t able to do anything. They show only horrors that happen in other countries but the crime that occurs in cuba is never publicized. It is true that Cuba is probably the safest country in latin america. Guns are really rare and drugs are not mentioned. Alcohol isn’t considered a drug and everyone drinks rum all day, and its really cheap. Marijuana is considered the same as cocaine and heroine and watch out with asking where you can find some. Yet there is no knowledge of any other type of drug and they refer to drugs as smoking 40 which could mean smoking oregano mixed with pills because what they describe as the effect of it doesn’t sound like weed.
My perception started to change when I was threatened by immigration that they would fine me $3000 dollars, wouldn’t be allowed back in cuba for 5 years, and my friend would have his house confiscated by the government if i stayed one more day in his house. people then explained to me that until recently cubans weren’t allowed to associate with tourists and weren’t even allowed to go to the hotels. I questioned why that would be if one of the main reasons why the revolution was started was because of the fact that Americans would treat cuba as though it was las vegas and party here while cubans served them. So how was it that now cubans were still not allowed to experience what tourists do when they come to cuba, why was it that in the hotels tourists have access to a wide variety of food and amenities that cubans aren’t allowed to have in their homes. why can tourists eat cow meat and lobster but a cuban would be sent to jail 30 years for having one pound of cow meat found on them?
Why was it that if i looked like a foreigner i.e. didn’t dress up like a cuban and didn’t get a tan yet people looked at me like i was an alien and automatically thought that i was some kind of jewel? why did people automatically assume that where i lived people were mugged and killed on the daily? and then i got sick in cuba. I went to a hospital and waited to be assisted the whole day in a line of people standing outside of the doctors office until the doctor said they were going out to lunch and we would have to wait there another hour until they came back, only to receive a diagnosis and prescription for a medication that wasn’t available in any pharmacy within 2 hours of travel from where i stayed. So i remained sick for two weeks until someone we knew was able to contact a doctor they knew at the military base, for which i thanked the favor with a bottle of rum.
Then there was the time i brought a 32” TV that cost me $60 from Walmart and when i arrived in Cuba the immigration officers told me i had to pay $250 to keep the TV or else they would keep it. Then when i complained enough that the lady asked me what brand the TV was and i told her it cost me $60 and she told me she would make it $200. Why were they trying to make money off of me? So basically its legal to steal from tourists and then resell all of the objects they take from them so they make money off of them. I should have said “okay” and slammed the TV on the floor and left.
Oh and then there was the time that my friend from NYC came to Cuba with me and we rented a car which my cuban friend drove. We drove from Varadero to Camaguey and back, thats about 9 hours. When we were reaching Trinidad we were stopped by the cops who asked my friend how he knew us. He told the cop that my friend was his girlfriend. The cop then gave him a ticket for 250mn which is technically what a cubans monthly salary is because he said he was along the lines of a prostitute, and that its illegal to drive around with tourists, a crime which would have sent him to jail for years in the recent past.
The bodega in cuba is the state store through which people are given food monthly which includes rice, beans, sugar, salt, coffee, cooking oil, milk for children under 7 years, and two chicken thighs/legs. But these supplies are good enough for one week. After that you go to the two other stores in the town and if theres not a line outside that means they rarely have anything thats worth going inside to buy. But anything they do have has the same price as in the united states, so how is a population who makes strictly 12-40 dollars a month able to eat? well… they steal from their jobs to live and the government turns the blind eye. So basically they are breeding a population who does things under the table in order to survive.
I realized that instead of making people selfless this system made people develop survival of the fittest, it made people jealous of you if you got something they didn’t have. it made people more separated than united. it made me realize that the human being is innately selfish and theres nothing any government can do to contain that trait. The only thing that appears in the news is that because of the united states embargo they aren’t able to do anything. They show only horrors that happen in other countries but the crime that occurs in cuba is never publicized. It is true that Cuba is probably the safest country in latin america. Guns are really rare and drugs are not mentioned. Alcohol isn’t considered a drug and everyone drinks rum all day, and its really cheap. Marijuana is considered the same as cocaine and heroine and watch out with asking where you can find some. Yet there is no knowledge of any other type of drug and they refer to drugs as smoking 40 which could mean smoking oregano mixed with pills because what they describe as the effect of it doesn’t sound like weed.
How has life changed in the past week during quarantine?
No one is allowed on the beach. Inter municipal travel has been suspended so i cannot go to Havana, i came to varadero last week but it was pretty much the last transportation that left and the police stopped us when we were on our way, i was shook because they could have had their license taken away if they asked me for my id and i didn’t have one and they found out i was a tourist. No one is on the street except on Saturdays when they brought potatoes after two months of there not being any potatoes. so the whole town was there in line waiting to get their potatoes. But thats normal. Everyone is wearing a mask
Manditorily or else they get taken to the precinct. The pork meat is now three times as expensive as it usually is. Everyone knows that the situation is going to get really bad, even worse than the special period because at least back then there was tourism. The economy depends on tourism and now that thats gone no one knows what will happen, so everyone is stocking up on food wherever they can find it, but its even more lost than usual.
Give me a day in the life of “G”
I wake up at 8am and cooked powdered milk and then made oatmeal on the electric stovetop. Then made coffee. went out to buy a bag of bread. made two breads with guava marmelade and ate the oatmeal. Then laid down and watched tv. At 1pm i start to cook beans then rice and have that for lunch and dinner then go to sleep. Cant really go outside and if i could i would just go to the beach but no one is allowed there so yep.
What do you miss most about home?
I miss my family and friends and food and making money.
Do you think there are lessons/norms from cuba that should be applied to america to make it a better place? do you think they have got in right in some areas?
The fact that by law a cuban must help another cuban if they fall or are sick on the street and that any car that passes by has the obligation to take them to the hospital is something that should be applied in America. In America if you do that the person can sue you and claim that you caused further illness which i don’t understand how that happens.
what did you find hardest to acclimate to from living in NYC to moving to cuba?
what is the craziest thing you’ve experienced there that wouldn’t ever see here?
3-5 year olds dancing like strippers at kids parties… and grinding and the parents standing there laughing and cheering them on.
A crazier thing is the fact that people who study 5 years in the university to become doctors, architects, engineers, computer engineers and basically any career which in America would give you a sufficient salary would expect to make at most 40 dollars monthly or else do not find a job and must turn to being a waiter, hotel worker, or construction worker in order to make what is closer to a living wage.
I know a construction worker who makes really good money and stopped going to school when he was 8 years old. He gets paid $300 to make stairs of houses. He said he has had architects as assistants, whom he pays at most $10 for a whole day of work, and they say they assist because there is no job opportunity for them.
So most people i have met don’t aspire to go to college and say there is no point if they make more money taking a course that lands you a job in a hotel. So they have free education but there is no incentive to take that opportunity.
what do cubans think of new yorkers? like have you heard stereotypes they’ve heard?
Most cubans I’ve met think the same of the rest of the world regardless of the country, they don’t really know anything in specific about new york. When i told people i was from new york they just thought i was from miami for some reason, and would talk to me about miami as if thats where i was from, meanwhile i’ve never been to miami. But in general they just thought the same of me whether i was from the US, Colombia, or Italy, im just a foreigner and not cuban. When i went to music lessons and would meet people that were studying music they knew that new york has many opportunities in terms of theater and music.
if you could give every cuban one thing that you think we take for granted here as any everyday object, what would you give them?
There are so many basic things that we take for granted in the US that I would bring to cuba, starting with soap and detergent which is rarely found no a days.
Manditorily or else they get taken to the precinct. The pork meat is now three times as expensive as it usually is. Everyone knows that the situation is going to get really bad, even worse than the special period because at least back then there was tourism. The economy depends on tourism and now that thats gone no one knows what will happen, so everyone is stocking up on food wherever they can find it, but its even more lost than usual.
Give me a day in the life of “G”
I wake up at 8am and cooked powdered milk and then made oatmeal on the electric stovetop. Then made coffee. went out to buy a bag of bread. made two breads with guava marmelade and ate the oatmeal. Then laid down and watched tv. At 1pm i start to cook beans then rice and have that for lunch and dinner then go to sleep. Cant really go outside and if i could i would just go to the beach but no one is allowed there so yep.
What do you miss most about home?
I miss my family and friends and food and making money.
Do you think there are lessons/norms from cuba that should be applied to america to make it a better place? do you think they have got in right in some areas?
The fact that by law a cuban must help another cuban if they fall or are sick on the street and that any car that passes by has the obligation to take them to the hospital is something that should be applied in America. In America if you do that the person can sue you and claim that you caused further illness which i don’t understand how that happens.
what did you find hardest to acclimate to from living in NYC to moving to cuba?
The hardest thing to acclimate to was the food because here the only vegetables are tomato, lettuce?, cucumber, malanga, huawi, pumpkin, yuca, potatoes, and beans. you might think some of those aren’t vegetables but here they are considered as such. Everything is cooked with tomato sauce… and i’m pretty much eating the same thing for lunch as i am for dinner everyday. i eat rice and beans every day, every other day the color of beans changes so its either white, colored, or black beans. I either eat them with egg or with pork, or chicken. where i am living in varadero it is very hard to come by eggs or chicken, so most of the time its pork. it sucks the most when its just rice and beans. other than that i eat yellow rice and soup. The seasoning they have here is very weak compared to the ones in NYC so i brought some from colombia which have really come in handy. I have learned to cook all of these things really well and now i cook better than i ever did because its more economical to cook than go to the same two restaurants and eat there all the time. If i go out to eat the only options are pizza, spaghetti, or a sandwich. The sandwich is the best option but the pizza and spaghetti here are nothing compared to what i’ve had in NYC. What i mainly think about here is what am i going to eat today and how can i cook it as best as possible so that i actually enjoy it. it took me a while but now im not saying i hate what i eat as much as i used to. i do lose weight every time i come to cuba because i really just don’t enjoy eating the same thing every day so sometimes i don’t eat.
what is the craziest thing you’ve experienced there that wouldn’t ever see here?
3-5 year olds dancing like strippers at kids parties… and grinding and the parents standing there laughing and cheering them on.
A crazier thing is the fact that people who study 5 years in the university to become doctors, architects, engineers, computer engineers and basically any career which in America would give you a sufficient salary would expect to make at most 40 dollars monthly or else do not find a job and must turn to being a waiter, hotel worker, or construction worker in order to make what is closer to a living wage.
I know a construction worker who makes really good money and stopped going to school when he was 8 years old. He gets paid $300 to make stairs of houses. He said he has had architects as assistants, whom he pays at most $10 for a whole day of work, and they say they assist because there is no job opportunity for them.
So most people i have met don’t aspire to go to college and say there is no point if they make more money taking a course that lands you a job in a hotel. So they have free education but there is no incentive to take that opportunity.
what do cubans think of new yorkers? like have you heard stereotypes they’ve heard?
Most cubans I’ve met think the same of the rest of the world regardless of the country, they don’t really know anything in specific about new york. When i told people i was from new york they just thought i was from miami for some reason, and would talk to me about miami as if thats where i was from, meanwhile i’ve never been to miami. But in general they just thought the same of me whether i was from the US, Colombia, or Italy, im just a foreigner and not cuban. When i went to music lessons and would meet people that were studying music they knew that new york has many opportunities in terms of theater and music.
if you could give every cuban one thing that you think we take for granted here as any everyday object, what would you give them?
There are so many basic things that we take for granted in the US that I would bring to cuba, starting with soap and detergent which is rarely found no a days.