Cuba Diaries

An American Housewife in Havana

by Isadora Tattlin

A Shannon Ravenel Book
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

For “Thea” and “Jimmie,”
our good-natured fellow travelers

Introduction

The First School Year

The Second School Year

The Third School Year

The Fourth School Year

Epilogue

Map of Cuba

Glossary

Principal Characters

IN THE EARLY AND
mid-1990s, Cuba suffered several major setbacks. The first, in 1990, was the abrupt withdrawal of economic subsidies by the Soviet Union following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Cuba, which was being subsidized by the Soviet Union at the rate of $3 million a day (it is estimated), entered economic free fall. The value of the peso dropped from 1 peso to the dollar to 140 pesos to the dollar. Gasoline, transport, food, and material goods were in dramatically short supply, and Cuba entered what was defined by Fidel Castro as its
periodo especial en tiempo de paz
, or “special period in time of peace,” a time in which the Cuban people were asked to endure shortages for the sake of the survival of the socialist revolution while their government adjusted to new realities.

In 1993, in an attempt to stem the economic free fall and to put more hard currency in circulation, the possession of dollars by average Cuban individuals, which until then had been illegal, was decriminalized. Dollar stores containing goods that before then had been available only to foreigners were opened to Cubans as well. Foreign investment of up to 49 percent in manufacturing, agriculture, and the tourist industry was encouraged and facilitated.

Legalization of the dollar and foreign investment, however, were not timely enough to prevent the
balsero
crisis of 1994, in which tens of thousands of Cubans took to the Straits of Florida in anything that floated and were not impeded by Cuban authorities. This led to a change in the U.S.-Cuba emigration accords. Cubans leaving Cuba for the United States were no longer welcomed as political refugees but classified as economic migrants and required to undergo the same screenings as economic migrants from other countries.

Further liberalizations of the economy included the opening, in 1994, of
agropecuarios
, or fruit, vegetable, lamb, and pork markets, in which farmers, who had been obliged to produce only for government entities, could now sell on the open market a portion beyond what they produced for the government. Cuban shoppers no longer had to rely solely on undersupplied bodegas, or neighborhood food stores, where Cubans shopped for subsidized basics with ration books.
Agropecuarios
brought variety to Cubans' diets and helped to alleviate malnutrition, which was beginning to take hold in the provinces. Self-employed workers, or
cuentapropistas
, such as manicurists, shoe repairmen, seamstresses, tire repairmen, piñata makers, or rent-a-clowns for children's parties, were allowed to operate.
Paladares
, or private restaurants in peoples' houses, were legalized.

The downside to legalization of the dollar and liberalization of the economy was (and continues to be) the rise of inequality between Cubans with access to dollars and Cubans possessing only pesos. The relationship between salaries became skewed. People in less-skilled jobs but in daily contact with foreigners, such as domestic servants for foreign families, hotel workers, and taxi drivers, made salaries up to twenty times greater than the pesos-only salaries of doctors and engineers.

The early and mid-1990s saw social liberalizations as well. Gays no longer faced active discrimination. In 1992, the Cuban National Assembly changed the definition of Cuba from an atheist state to a lay state. Those who openly professed religious affiliations no longer faced professional or political ostracism, and a surge in church attendance occurred. Artists, musicians, playwrights, and writers were allowed to travel more freely. More and more tourists visited Cuba, which put more and more Cubans in contact with foreigners. In 1998, the pope visited Cuba.

My family and I arrived in Cuba at this time of liberalization and of opening. It lasted until the Miami-based Hermanos al Rescate airplanes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force for an alleged incursion into Cuban airspace. The result was a tightening of the U.S. embargo by way of the Helms-Burton Bill, signed into law in 1996. Subsequent developments (with the exception of the visit of the pope) witnessed, for the most part, stepped-up repression on the part of the Cuban government and a contraction on the part of Cuban society.

It is still difficult to gauge, at the vantage point of a few years, how intentional or foreseeable the results of the Cuban government's liberalizations in the early and mid-1990s were. Foreign investment was encouraged, dollars were legalized, some categories of
cuentapropistas
were permitted or
tolerated, and
agropecuarios
were opened as direct decisions of the government. Further developments, however, in which it appeared that average Cubans seemed to be taking the reins of society in their own hands, seem not to have been intended, and seem to have been the result of the government's inability, for a brief but raucous lag time, to integrate the myriad ripple effects of its liberalizations with the goals of socialism.

It is this rowdy, ambiguous, ironic, and sometimes even exhilarating time that, the longer we lived there, the more I felt the compulsion to document. It was a time that seemed to be defining itself as
a time
, unique in itself, which would not and could not last, but which called out to be preserved, in memory and on paper. Every day was extraordinary.

Our identities and the identities of most Cubans and others have been disguised for protection. Criticism of the government or of its leadership is punishable by imprisonment of up to thirty years. The Cuban government remains the principal employer of the population. Activities that are perfectly legal in most countries, such as the buying and selling of goods and services from and by individuals, were and are in some instances permitted by the government; in other instances not permitted but tolerated (with the limits of toleration constantly shifting); but in most instances neither permitted nor tolerated—neither permitted nor tolerated at the time of our living there, and neither permitted nor tolerated now—and can lead to loss of employment, fines, and imprisonment.

My husband's generous salary, a small legacy from my own family, and the low cost of goods and services in Cuba allowed us to live in a style far more grandiose than the style to which we are accustomed. Because of the low cost of living, nondiplomatic foreigners in Cuba with even modest incomes can afford to rent spacious houses (either discreetly, from private sources, or less discreetly, from the government) and have one or two domestic servants. Nondiplomatic foreigners are generally the employees of foreign companies; some foreigners, however, do manage to maintain houses in Cuba as vacation homes. The low cost of living is one reason foreigners have servants; the other reason is that the spacious houses foreigners rent, though start-of-the-art in the 1950s, are no longer chock-full of smoothly running labor-saving devices nor served by an efficient infrastructure. One or two servants, at least, were necessary during the time we lived there if a resident foreigner wanted to do something more with his day than coax more life out of a forty-five-year-old Kenmore refrigerator or spend half a day on the telephone trying to get a tanker truck to come to fill his
cistern, the aqueduct leading to the cistern having not been patched since 1957.

I am a U.S. citizen, born and raised in the United States. I hold a U.S. passport, but I also hold an “X——ian” passport, acquired after my marriage to my husband, to facilitate my moving around the globe with him. Our children hold both U.S. and X——ian passports. Though the United States maintains a forty-year-old embargo against Cuba, which bars most U.S. citizens from traveling in Cuba, Cuba maintains normal diplomatic relations with most other Western countries. My children and I used our “X——ian” passports for entering and leaving Cuba. We presented U.S. passports to U.S. immigration officials when entering the United States. This was perfectly legal for us, as X——ians and Americans, to do. Though I at times, especially in the beginning, played down my
norteamericana
identity and played up my X——ian identity, thinking that Cubans would feel less inhibited in expressing themselves about the United States if I did that, I never did attempt to hide the fact that I was
norteamericana
and soon discovered that the fact of my being
norteamericana
, far from being inhibiting, was, more often than not, a source of curiosity and at times even delight.

My editor has asked me to write a word about religion. It would take another book—and there are in fact many books—to describe the vast range of religious expression in Cuba. In spite of Cuba's having defined itself until 1992 as an atheist state, Cuba is a deeply religious country. This is the product not only of its traditions, but also, I believe, of its astounding physical beauty, which compels you to marvel at the virtuosity of the Creator at every turn of a country road or every glimpse of a ceiba tree.

Catholicism and Santeria are the predominant religions of Cuba. Santeria is the blending of Catholicism with the polytheistic beliefs of West Africa, brought to Cuba by West African slaves.

In the attempt to make Cuba's slaves Catholic, the worship of West African gods, or
orishas
, was forbidden by early Spanish colonists. The resourceful slaves continued to worship their
orishas
, however, while appearing to be Catholics by masking their
orishas
as Catholic saints. Female saints often became stand-ins for male
orishas
, and male saints often became stand-ins for female
orishas
, in order to mask them more thoroughly. Hence Santa Barbara, who in Catholicism is the protectress of powder magazines, stands for Changó, the
orisha
of thunder and war.

In Santeria, the message of Jesus is amplified by the inexorable forces of nature (as represented by the
orishas
) and of fate. Each Santeria devotee has
his or her chosen
orisha
, to whom he or she makes offerings and obeyances.
Babalaos
, or Santeria priests, are consulted regularly for guidance and knowledge of the future. The predictions of a council of
babalaos
, made on the first day of every year and circulated on photocopied sheets throughout Cuba, are read with intense interest by practically all Cubans.

Santeria is not solely the religion of Afro-Cubans. A growing number of Cubans of European descent not only listen to the New Year's predictions of
babalaos
but follow Santeria with varying degrees of adherence. Cubans of all shades can be seen wearing beads in the colors of their
orishas
.

In addition to conducting religious services, the Catholic Church is active as a source of medicines and as a caregiver, especially of the elderly, in Catholic homes run by nuns and priests. Though Catholic schools are not allowed, the Catholic Church is increasingly active in after-school programs and in adult classes in a variety of subjects. People in all sectors of society pay attention to Catholic publications and the sermons of outspoken priests, as they are among the few (though limited) alternatives to government messages.

All faiths in Cuba respect the mysticism and power of La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (The Virgin of the Charity of Cobre).
Cobre
means copper, and it is also the name of a town where a shrine to her was built, in the middle of a copper-mining region. According to popular legend, three fishermen were caught in a dangerous storm in a small boat in Nipe Bay in the year 1628. In some versions of the story, the three men in the boat were a Native American, a Spaniard, and an African slave, representing the three races of Cuba. Just as they began to believe they were doomed, a small statue of a
mulata
Madonna came floating to them across the water on some wooden planks. Though there was a storm, the statue of the Madonna and the dress clothing her were dry. In her left arm she held the infant Jesus, and in her right arm, a cross. On the wooden planks on which she was floating were written the words, “I am the Virgin of Charity.”