24 hours in Havana
The 42 minutes flight to
Havana was delayed one and half hours. The plane arrived late from Puerto Rico.
There was a change in crew and a very pleasant young girl, black and an older
white woman, full of experience but understanding and not at all arrogant were
in charge of us.
While waiting in line to
board, I saw two guys standing next to me, one looked well fed and another lean
and meek. I glanced at his telephone inadvertently and found that he was
texting in Hebrew. I said to him: Shalom, Ani Yehudi. And thus we began
talking. He is a businessman who is going to Havana for two days, as he is the
sole importer of Havana cigars to Israel. He was from Haifa but now maintains a
residence in Tel Aviv. He is of Turkish origin and the Honorary Consul for
Brasil in Haifa.
They were staying in
Kempinski Manzano Hotel and I saw that some official who also looked Israeli
met them inside the Immigration. Who knows we might meet again?
I told him I like my life in
Cuba, he did not ask for explanation and I told him that my life is full of
mitzvahs done well; he seemed satisfied what is that I am doing.
Immigration official was a
rather overweight negrita, who was very pleasant. Welcome to Cuba she said,
when I said I am ready for my bottle of champagne for being in the island so
often. She gave me a toothy smile and said Have a good time and I smiled back
and said: how can I not have when you are given me such a good welcome.
Waited for the luggage for
one hour. It is incredible, I am here for three days and I had two pieces of
luggage apart from my backpack and shoulder bag. My luggage was each in excess
of the allowed 50 lbs. but the agent had overlooked the few pounds over the
limit.
The first bag came and it had
no marking on the tag, as luggage are put through x ray and then they are
marked AX for Alimentos or Food or SP
Equipo meaning they detected some metallic or electric equipment. AX are
screened by what looked two lower level customs officers who were doing only
cursory examination to make sure that nothing bad entered the country in the
form of fresh food or contaminated or contagious food. Apart from the lines,
which are very common and rude customs officials that are even more common,
nothing to be bothered about. But when you have SP on your tag, you are
directed to another level , more morose than the previous one and more disdain
for the passenger especially if they are Cuban-American. I had a security box
Caja de Seguridad, which he wanted to see, and wanted to know in the typical
Cuban surrealistic fashion: Is it a hard security box? Una Caja de Seguridad
fuerte? I told him that it was a cheap security box to put my passport etc. in
when I am in the house and it for my personal use. He looked at it and then
stamped my customs form as well as the tag that he had checked it, but the
burly buxom mulatica at the exit was even haughty, oh senor you have to go
back, she shouted but when I showed I have the necessary stamp on my tag she
waved me through. One and half hours after arriving after a 42 minute from
Miami, I was outside.
So it is not the flight time
that matters, whoever comes, especially a repeat visitor like me who brings
every thing to Cuba, knowing which are the things that are hard to come by.
Once you are outside the
Customs area, the humanity is there, swarming around, some holding placards,
one of them for the Congreso Sexologia that is taking place now in Havana.
I changed some money and of
course the clerk tried to cheat me of one dollar, I innocently pointed out
(faking that innocence) , Senorita it says here 112.50 and you gave me only
111.50. She without a smile put another tourist dollar in my palm that I later
gave to my chauffeur waiting for me.
In Miami, the Cuban steal in
thousands and millions and here the Cubans steal in one two five twenty dollar
amounts. But the desire to sobrevivir
Survive is present and the
immigrant Cubans cant shake off, however accustomed to the American life they
become, they become good at manipulating the American legalities and make a
killing in the economic market.
The time was 9 and a little
bit when I left the airport where Yodel my driver was waiting and we had a
pleasant chat on the way to Vedado to my house. He helped me with my two bags
and I pressed on him the dollar the lady at the Cash Exchange was trying to rob
me of.
I noticed a strange kind of
tranquility. Havana is never the same, sometimes it is ebullient, and sometimes
it is melancholic but always interesting.
My neighbours were waiting
for me, and after the preliminary greetings they brought dinner for me from
their home and apologized not waiting for me to have dinner together.
We chatted for a while,
caught up on the news of our friends during my absence. They went to their
house and I went off to the parquet to check my Wi-Fi. Every one had told me
that the services had been down because of the rain and storms. I tried to
call USA numbers but unfortunately the
person I was calling did not wish to answer the phone with an unknown number,
but they could have easily seen that the country code was 53 Cuba and thus put
one and one together to know that it was I who was calling them.
Having gone to bed at 1 am ,
I slept without a break until 8 30 and walk along the Malecon was as magical as
before, only during summer even at this early hour it is hot and getting
hotter.
The eerie calm of the city
was beginning to bother me. Does it mean something is happening at the higher
levels of the government? Changes in the way things are being handled?
Like in most countries,
pilfering at the state run establishments is a fact here, very important and
life saving. But the difference here is that the majority of the places are state-run,
and people have ample opportunities to pilfer, from flour from bakeries to
cement at the construction sites. In the farmers markets, which are abundant
with local and produce of the times, the scales to measure are ancient, with an
approximation of weight and of course the weight is always in favour of the
vendor.
While walking along the
Malecon, I noted with sadness that the beautification project near the avenue
of the presidents has been put on hold, half constructed canals now holding
muddy rain water in front of the sports arena which had seen much better days
from its construction at least 30-40 years ago.
Once again I tried to connect
to the Wi-Fi at the Hotel Presidente with no success.
In Cuba, you can have a
telephone with an account, usually in the name of a Cuban who has to present
his ID card to get a line, up to three if he likes. I used my neighbour’s ID to
get a line under his name, so if you reverse search my telephone number. In
Havana you also have a separate account to access Internet. Foreigners and
tourists can get temporary Internet cards, on which there is a brisk black
market trade, a rather profitable one for those engaged in. The Internet cards
which are sold in specific places, has a face value of 1,2 5 dollars for
corresponding one, two , five hours of Internet access. But they are sparsely
placed and are not open outside of the specific hours. So for most tourists or
foreigners, it is better to get a card in the Black Market, pay just double,
but a lovely income for the trader. Since the shops are few and far between,
there is a brisk trade in goods through black market and through a website
which matches sellers and buyers, anything from old cars to apartments.
Please do not fall for the
propaganda especially from Miami saying that salaries are low in Miami. Yes
they are low but salaries and income are not the same here and also the quality
of life has nothing to do with your salary. No one can live and no one lives on
what they make at work.
There is an unwritten code of
contact and sharing of goods and edible products, which actually has an
incredible social effect. Cuba is a humane society because of that, no one goes
hungry, no one is homeless and people have a barter system which has unwritten
rules.
Let me give you an example.
One year ago, my neighbor after a strenuous weekend, felt twitches of pain in
his chest. A neighbor immediately drove him to the Cardiovascular Hospital
which is not far from here, there the Cardiologist in charge of Cardiac Care
Unit, immediately attended to him and had a catheterization done after
stabilizing him and found out that it might have been angina and perhaps, what
the patient told me, a beginning of a heart attack. Since then he has been well
looked after with frequent consultation and he is back to work without any
further chest pain.
I met the cardiologist, a
pleasant man in his fifties, who had served as an International volunteer in
the Cuban Medical Brigade in Angola .His 24 year old daughter is the consular
officer in the Cuban Embassy in New Delhi. So we immediately connected with
each other.
On this visit, I wanted to
invite him and his wife for dinner. So the neighbor whom he has saved, and his
wife suggested: a menus of lamb, seasonal vegetables: habichuela string beans,
acelga bokchoy, plantains to make plantains a la tentacion sometimes called
patacones, carrots, cabbage. To which I would add my contribution from Miami:
Spanish olives, savouries as pre dinner little bites, the wines chosen by me at
the Wine store near my sisters home: a Sauvignon Blanc from NZ, a special
Merlot for an Endocrinology Colleague and a another bottle of Malbec from
Argentina for the Professor of Endocrinology who also had served as a volunteer
in Angola and they two had met there but don’t know they both would be here for
dinner. Amaretto for after dinner, and of course Cuba makes excellent Ice-cream
and my sister in Miami insist that I take them sweet biscuits. So it would be a
nice dinner by any standards but the ten people present would represent the
spectrum of Cuba: Four of us doctors, all of us specialists, all with
International experience, all others with university education (a lawyer and an
administrator, an engineer included)
When it comes to affection
and friendship I doubt there is another country in the world that can beat
CUBA.. All other affections pale and at least appear themselves in their
context. We do not realize how manipulative are our affections in the western
world: it is almost like western networking, what can you do for me? In Cuba,
the affections and friendship are akin to the Inuit Networking: What can I do
for you ?
Inuits say: Compassion and
Gifts are for animals and slaves, sharing is far more human.
In Cuba, we share everything.
The Dinner tonight would be no exception.
Starting around June, there
are always afternoon downpours, and the days are hot and humid.
The neighbour who brews a
mean cup of Cuban coffee prepares the breakfast. (paradoxically they like the
Coffee that I bring from Miami, as they want to taste something different than
the Cuban coffee!), two eggs are on the offer.
My household is an amalgam of
all the cultures I represent: Israeli flags, Malaysian curries, Indian
condiments, Middle Eastern Music, artwork, books and the comfort of a very nice
home. Not to mention, a bottle of Rum for those who wish to indulge in that
excellent product of Cuba.
My sister, who is very
quantitative like many of her generation in the West, asks me: why do want to
just spend your days in Havana when you can have all the comforts in the home
in Miami. People are always surprised that when I have a few days off, I rather
be in Havana rather than Miami, mainly because of the purity of love, affection
and friendship I feel and also the sensation that my sharing my soul and my
thoughts and what is available, I am making the lives of my friends a little
better.
So in my first 24 hours,
which began with an intense feeling for a new friendship in Dallas, slowly
converted itself into a calm feeling of living with a purpose. I love this
country and its people .
I took my blood pressure the
evening after my arrival in Havana, here it is. You can judge for yourself.
It is reminiscent of what
Emma Lazarus (a Jewish American) wrote, which is now inscribed at the foot of
the Statue of Liberty.
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-lost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I tell my Cuban friends, the
freedom you enjoy the Americans or Europeans or South Americans or Asians cannot savour and unfortunately the freedom
to make money which they have, you do not have. It would be good if you had a
chance to make a little bit more money, legally and not by stealing from the government
sources.
My hope is that such a
compromise can be achieved, let us wait.. And wait.
A VERY INTERESTING FEW DAYS IN HAVANA.. I TOLD THE IMMIGRATION AGENT: I REALLY DON'T WANT TO LEAVE
A VERY INTERESTING FEW DAYS IN HAVANA.. I TOLD THE IMMIGRATION AGENT: I REALLY DON'T WANT TO LEAVE
