Anecdotes from Cuba

Cuba is truly unique in many respects: its economy, its people, its music … It is impossible to put into words what Cuba is, or what makes it different. These short anecdotes are an attempt to describe just a few moments that I perceived as uniquely Cuban.

• I met a group of people in a city plaza. We strike a conversation. As I leave they invite me to come back saying: “We are here everyday. Come back anytime.” I casually ask what time they tend to be there and what time they have to work. The answer is the same for both parts of the question. “We work form the morning until the afternoon – that is when you can find us here.” It turns out that attendance is not a requirement for many jobs.

• Cienfuegos bus station: the building is full of people: passengers coming, passengers leaving, passengers waiting, sales men offering their goods and bus staff going about their business. My object is to buy a bus ticket to Santa Clara. There are about six ticket windows, all of them are staffed, only one has a line with people waiting. I proceed to a counter and ask where I can buy my ticket. “Not here,” is the answer and she points to the counter to the left. There I receive the same answer until I am eventually directed to the counter with the waiting line. I patiently wait my turn and am told that this is the wrong line and that I need to go to the office around the corner. Unfortunately, the office is closed and I am told to come back the next day. So I ask another person (I have learned never to rely on a single person’s advice) who sends me back to the line I just came from (but I already know better), I ask a few more people without success (one telling me I need to go the train station across town). I eventually ask at the luggage counter and am told to wait for the shift manager who is not there at the moment. He actually does appear after 10 minutes and sends me to yet another office around yet another corner. Inside is a woman sleeping with her head on the desk. The shift manager must have heard my unsuccessful attempts to awake her and comes to my assistance. The woman does not look pleased after she finally wakes up, issues me the ticket (which consists of a piece of paper with a few illegible words scribbled on it) without saying a word, hands it to me and goes back to sleep.

• I enter the (shared) bathroom of a guest house where I am staying to take a shower, but find the bath tub filled with water. I ask the owner if she was planning on taking a bath. “No,” she says, she is saving the water in case there is an outage. She then opens the closet and retrieves about 20 empty plastic bottles. Together we fill the plastic bottles and then put the remaining water in a few buckets. I then take my shower. Her foresightedness is rewarded the next morning when only a few drops come out of the tap. She smiles and hands me two bottles of water, which suffice for a quick shower.

• El último (the last one): Since Cubans are experts in waiting, they have invented a very clever system, which is called: El último, which makes waiting a bit more pleasant. Instead of forming a straight line and awaiting ones turn (this would go against the nature of Cuban rhythm anyway) a waiting line in Cuba is more like a cloud of people moving around, conversing and greeting each other. The secret lies in El último. A person joining the line calls out: “Who is the last person?” and this marks their place in the line. That way everybody knows exactly who is in front and behind you and there is no need for unnecessary orderliness of forming straight lines.

• Mundane things like opening a door can be tricky business in Cuba. Yes, there are locks and keys like everywhere else but sometimes the key does not fit all that well or the soft metal has bent over time. One instance comes to mind where the landlord handed me little hammer along with the key explaining that when they key reaches a certain location in the lock, I had to strike the lock from a certain angle (or maybe twice) which would allow the key to proceed. He considered this a permanent solution to the problem. Often in Cuba spare parts are expensive or not available so improvisation is required. A frequently quoted Cuban saying: “Invention is the mother of necessity.”

• The bottle of rum: Although every expensive (for Cuban standards) Cubans love rum and will do almost anything t obtain it. Once the treasured good has been secured the fiesta starts. Word travels quickly and a group of friends gathers around the bottle sharing drinks. These groups of people gathered around a bottle can be found everywhere anytime. Despite its cost Cubans are incredibly happy to share their rum with others so if you ever find yourself lonely in Cuba (hard to imagine) look for a bottle of rum with a group gathered around and start talking to them or even better, buy a bottle yourself and you will quickly have a few new friends and a fun time guaranteed.

• The art of buying a house: Given its status of communist republic, technically private property does not exist, which means that in theory the house in which you live does not belong to you but to the state which grants you the permission to live there. Because it is impossible to sell which you do not own, the person desiring to move from one house to another has a difficult talk ahead. There exists a provision in the law that allows for exchanging of houses. This means that the person has to find a satisfactory house with an “owner” who equally desires the other party’s house. Only if both parties desire each other’s houses an exchange can happen. The law prohibits any payment of money (but because houses rarely have equal value this happens regardless – illegally). Understandably Cubans do not move very frequently.

• At 9pm across the country of Cuba it is possible to witness unanimous display of enthusiasm for the telenovela (soap opera). In fact, there are two soap operas on Cuban television, which rotate daily, one from Brazil and one Cuban. I have never been much of a fan of the TV much less a soap opera so I took the Cuban fascination of the soap opera with amusement. Cuba is a tropical country and to make the heat somewhat more bearable people tend to leave their doors and windows open to allow the wind to enter providing welcome relief. This has the effect that when talking a walk through a residential Cuban street at 9pm one will receive a continuous broadcast of the latest intrigue on TV because all TVs will be turned on and tuned to same channel with entire family glued in front.