Case in Point

Hello! I apologize for not having updated in a while. Since my last post I’ve:

- Finalized my courses (I bet you all thought that had happened already, huh?). I decided to go with the Society and Religion class, since the Cuban revolution class is for fifth year students, and way over my head.

- Gone to this really cool place called Hammel’s alley. It’s basically a street in Central Havana covered entirely in Santería art and quotations from famous Cuban writers. The colors in the art and somewhat eery nature of the sculptures were beautiful. I really wish the speed of the internet connection was fast enough for me to share some of the pictures I took. Maybe I’ll try later.

- Gotten my clothes washed. It’s a pretty covert operation here. The easiest way to do it is to ask one of the women who work in the residence to handwash your laundry. But this is considered private enterprise, so it’s all done under the table. I had to leave my clothes on my bed. Three days later they reappeared, clean. Then the next day I left the woman’s payment. My friend Sam had to meet his cleaning woman in the kitchen after hours to do the exchange. Very hush hush.

- Found a place where I can get my hair done for the equivalent of $4 (for those of you not familiar with American salon price, it usually costs about $55, so that’s pretty fantastic.

- Gone to the national aquarium to see their amazing dolphin show!

- Visited the Museum of the Revolution, which is located inside of what used to be Batista’s Presidential Palace. How’s that for poetic justice? It certainly didn’t paint a pretty picture of the United States’ involvement in Cuban affairs (beginning with our manipulation of affairs during the Spanish-American war), but nothing beyond what I learned in AP U.S. History. After we left the museum, one of the museum guards approached us and asked us where we were from. We told him we were Americans, and he sort of smirked and asked us if we liked the museum. I thought that was kind of funny, because he seemed to think that the Cuban side of things would provide a completely different perspective from the American “propaganda” we are taught in school. It made me realize that, for all of the bias we present through the media about current events, the U.S. does a pretty good job of staying objective in regards to history (of course, the further back in history you go, the easier it seems to be for America to stay objective). I don’t think a Cuban course on even the earliest history of the nation would be taught without at least a hint of bias (which they, of course, would call nationalism).

- Taken a vow with Michael to only speak Spanish until Thanksgiving. Wish us luck!

But here’s a funny story, and the main point of this post:

So last week in my Sociology of Work course, we were discussing the fact that in Cuba (and really in every country), there is a surface economy of “formal” jobs, and an underground “informal” economy that develops under the surface. One girl raised her hand and made a pretty insightful comment, that in her opinion the informal (free-market) economy in Cuba arises in instances where it can fill the gaps left by the formal economy, which is entirely government owned. For example, every shop that has prices in convertible pesos (more or less a US dollar), gives all of its profits to the government, who then apportions salaries for the employees of that shop (which are the same as the salaries for the employees of every other shop, and every other Cuban, actually). But there are still little booths on the side of the street where people sell little snacks and homemade juices, and their prices are in Cuban pesos (25 to a convertible peso, so about 4 cents each). Technically these people are part of the informal economy, since they keep all of their profits without paying taxes to the government. But most of them also have other jobs, the profits of which do go to the government, so they still have a right to the monthly salary that the government gives all Cubans.

Anyway, I digress.

So two days after we have this discussion in class, Michael and I decide to go out on a date. There is this restaurant, El Conejito (the Little Rabbit), that is famous because it makes most of its dishes out of, you guessed it, rabbit. So we go to this restaurant, sit down, and order our food. Forty minutes pass, and although we have gotten our drinks, our food is nowhere in sight. The waiter tells us that our food will be out any second, but fifteen minutes later, still no food. He comes back and tells us that there is a problem with the gas (this is a fairly common problem in restaurants in Cuba, and even our residence has had to delay meals because there was not enough gas to cook the food), but that in less than five minutes, our dinner will be ready. Then, five minutes later, he tells us that our food isn’t coming. Thus, after an hour of waiting for a meal that will never come, we leave the restaurant and begin to search for another place to have dinner. We try another restaurant, but the hostess tells us that we can’t be seated because Michael doesn’t have on long pants (that’s another thing here, Cubans are very big on dressing well for meals, and lots of restaurants and bars have strict dress codes). So we’re starving at this point (we were starving before we got to El Conejito), and Mike takes a risk and asks a random doorman at a hotel that we pass if there’s anywhere we can get a cheap dinner. The doorman tells us to stay where we are runs inside and asks the woman behind the receptionist desk to go get something. She comes back with two bottles of soda and two ham and cheese subs wrapped in saran wrap. He takes them from her, gives them to us, takes the money we give him (a dollar each), and pockets it all.

Although it wasn’t at all the night we had planned, I loved it because it was such a perfect manifestation of the girl in class’s argument. The state-run establishment couldn’t provide its goods due to a utility shortage (the likes of which happen all the time here, and I can’t help but think it’s because the government has so many other things to worry about, e.g. operating a brewery so that Cubans can have beer), so an under-the-counter arrangement popped up to satisfy the unmet demand for dinner. Cubans have actually developed a rather brilliant form of informal economy, in my opinion. Since the government takes all of your profits and then tells you what you can have in the form of salary, there’s no such thing as taxes. Since there’s no such thing as taxes, if you can find a way to earn a little extra on the side, you get to keep all of it, since no one is monitoring your income like the tax system in the U.S. In Cuba the government ignores you once it takes what it needs from your labor, because it assumes that there is no other way for you to make money than the state-run economy. How fortunate for the Cuban families that cannot survive on only 11 dollars a month that the government is wrong in that assumption.