What are you crazy?

A few weeks ago, my aunt asked me what I do in Cuba. Specifically she asked me if I go shopping. I thought, What are you crazy?  

Capitalism, socialism, communism, we can analyze how theoretically different they are from each other but in practicum the governments that construct themselves adhering to any one political-philosophy function in a similar fashion. To legitimize their power they claim it was given to them by the people; to support themselves and their mandates they collect taxes; to govern they pass laws; to maintain order they create a military and police force. The differences don’t lie in the government but in the reality formed from history, circumstance, and present action. 

The markets are lavish in the US. You go to the market to buy sugar and there is white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, fake sugar, calorie free sugar, calorie free “natural” sugar, foreign sugar, best sugar, and worst sugar. In this country you buy a bag of sugar, when you only need a cup, to return to the market for another because you were unhappy with your first choice.

Economists like to separate money from the hand, from the person who makes the transaction, from human thought and motive that initiates the purchase (because that’s the reserved for marketing and Google, of course). But it is impossible to separate the market from the people because without the people there is no market. Monetary transactions are not simply an exchange of amounts and numbers, they are a tell of a society, an attitude, a way of life. 

To borrow a Marxist concept--the people construct the markets and at the same time the markets are constructing them. The markets influence the culture and the daily lives of the people, all the while, the people decide what they want and what they need to be sold in those markets. Governments get in the way of this symbiotic development. Not just the government of the country in which the markets physically reside but all of the governments. El bloque does not only affect Cuba but the entire world. 

The markets are empty in Cuba. You go to the market to buy sugar and there is no sugar. In the country where sugar was, for centuries, and still is synonymous with money, you can go to the next market and the next market and the next market to eventually give-up and call a neighbor for a cup of sugar.

There is no shopping culture in Cuba because there is nothing to shop and no money to buy even if there were. In 1959, the people chose la Revolución over the purchasing power of capitalism to buy them a nice new pair of Nikes. Now what do the people do? Stop wanting Nikes? No. Instead, those who want them bad enough, make a dinky little raft, find some friends, and throw themselves into el mar from el malcón in hopes of reaching Miami. Those who aren’t willing to travel those dangerous 90 miles wait until a family member who is, or was at some point in ancestral time, willing to do so to send them a pair. 

Yes, Americans will never be happy with the cup of sugar that they choose and yes, it is very sad. Then once a year, we have a day when we pretend that we are, in fact, happy with our choice of sugar. That day is Thanksgiving; the very day that our government-sponsored elementary education taught us that the colonists befriended the indians and that Columbus was a good man. Either way, I’d rather have the opportunity to buy a million types of sugar then not be able to buy sugar when I want it most. 

The Cuban Laugh

I do not like this country but I admire its resilience. The Cuban people do not warm my heart but they have my respect. Cubans laugh at their problems. Not the way a Mexican would; after a long disastrous day con algunos tragos de tequila. Cubans laugh because there is nothing else that can be done. They laugh because they are strong, like someone who chooses to laugh at the pain of an injury rather than shed a tear. 

Cuba is an isolated country. For it’s geographical position, the island has been historically referred to as the Key of the Gulf. In reality, it’s treated like a hunk of rusted metal that ships avoid as they pass by. Cubans blame their isolation on the US. They call el bloqueo el genocidio más largo del mundo but it take an entire world to isolate, to turn a blind eye to suffering. 

Tourists love to take pictures of los almendrones, old cars whose outer shells are from a different time. What tourists don’t see, is the profession it takes to maintain these cars. The parts that have to be reused, revived, reconstructed to keep the machine running por 10 pesos cubanos cada vuelta. They keep these cars alive because they know they won’t be getting any other ones soon--if ever. 

A mid-western man asked us American students how we can put-up with this internet connection for an entire semester. In our brief conversation at the hotel, el Presidente--one of the few places in Habana where there is internet access--not once did he ask how Cubans live with the miserable connection. Let alone how they afford the $2-3 USD hourly fee. 

I went to the Western Union today to send money out of the country. The lady at the desk told me there is no way to send money out of the country (legally of course); she added, the world assumes there isn’t enough money to send so money can only be received. 

I laughed because there was nothing else I could do. We both laughed.