Beautiful but tragic. There is no other contrast to explain it. The people are unfathomably friendly but they are also unfathomably poor. The beaches are beautiful beyond belief but the political and economic situation is horrid. I really don’t know where to start.

Cuba the Beautiful

Perhaps, I should begin with the beauty. We stayed in Playa del Este, “The East Beach”. It was magnificent, my first time in the ocean brought with it burning eyes and that peculiar but also entirely unexpected sensation of salt water in one’s mouth; and I loved every second of it. I felt almost childlike in my desire to be in the ocean. Even the consistency of the sand is different. In Canada, the sand surrounding our fresh water lakes has the consistency of muck. When, rather if, a wave hits it barely moves. In Cuba, when a wave hits and you are standing on the sand, as the water begins to fall back into the ocean, it takes the sand and your foothold with it. The waves alone left me awestruck. I lost my bathing suit at least twice to a combination of strong current and strong waves.

The resort that we stayed at, Villa Los Pinos, is approximately twenty minutes from Havana, the capitol of Cuba. Driving from the resort to the capitol, you see water towers, numerous hawks, hitchhikers making hand gestures to describe where they are going to oncoming motorists, security checkpoints, and 20-60 year old vehicles. The only advertising I saw in my travels through the city and the countryside were for the socialist (read, communist) movement in the country, which is the equivalent of propaganda.

Havana is a city built around tourism and this is apparent through a few examples. The only houses that are in good condition are the ones that are up kept for tourists such as: cultural centers, churches, villas belonging to important historical figures, hotels, and some restaurants. Imagine an agelessly beautiful exterior, but when you enter, it is black from dirt, suit, or perhaps just pollution. From the outside the houses display amazing architecture, yet, almost all of the houses in the city are decrepit. The houses in Havana in general can date back as far as the 16th century. The city itself was founded in 1515 and from the looks of it, things have not changed that much. Apparently, people leave a house when things inside start to break and move to a new one.

The moment your feet hit the ground out of the taxi a Cuban will try to sell you something. However, I did not meet a Cuban person that was not favorably aligned to our being there. For lack of a better word I would refer to their general demeanor as appreciative. Almost all of the Cubans that we interacted with asked where we are from with sincere interest, and when we told them Canada, they immediately requested to know which city, proclaiming “Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver?” their eyes lighting up with something I would almost label as wonderment. From a safety perspective, I always felt comfortable. There was only one moment in which I felt unsafe and that was an entirely situational and protective overreaction on my part.

The purpose of our trip to Cuba was to attend the wedding of a Serbian man and a Croatian woman, star-crossed lovers for certain¹. During the time between the wedding ceremony and the reception I was having a comparative conversation about democracy and communism with one of the 1st generation Yugoslavian parents. She told me something that really made a lasting impression in my mind.

Under communism, the people around you are your best friends but the state is your enemy. Under democracy, the state is your best friend and everyone else is your enemy.

In Cuba, you couldn’t walk down the street without seeing two or more people congregate and greet each other whole-heartedly. In Canada, the countenance of those who are closest to me in greetings barely compares.

I would like to proclaim, with absolution, how beautiful Cuba and its people are. I would also like to recommend Cuba as a vacation spot. From an economic perspective, these people need you to visit and spend your money in Cuba. If you do plan on visiting Cuba, here are a couple of suggestions on what you should bring with you to give to the people while you’re there. Remember it is a communism; most of the things that are listed below are available to the people, but only at rationed intervals that far surpass their actual needs or wants.

• Clothing: shoes (even used shoes), shirts, pants, shorts, clean socks, clean underwear.
• Toiletries: shampoo, conditioner, soap, grooming tools, anything that you would think so marginally of in your bathroom, you must remember that it is not available to them in the same way that it is to you.
• Leisure items: chocolate, cigarettes, alcohol, non-perishable treats, electronics, and batteries.

In Cuba, black market trade is very popular. If people can not use your goods they will distribute them. Do not feel uncomfortable giving women’s clothes to a man or children’s clothes to an adult or vice versa. It will be used through their family and friends or sold on the black market and converted into other goods. The black markets in Cuba provide at least some form of economic freedom to the people.

Cuba the Tragic

Under communism, everything that you need is supplied to you. Healthcare, education, food, clothes, the list goes on. The problem lies in; when and what is supplied to you. There truly is little economic freedom under communism. One cannot change what they receive at the end of every month or week; one cannot start their own business (except in very particular cases). In fact, there is really little reason to work hard at all, considering that you are not really working for your own self-interest. Communism goes against the foundation of many economic theories that I have come to understand.

To give you an understanding of the situation in Cuba, allow me to extrapolate on the personalities of the people living there. On the second night of our stay at the resort we had a rather large party at our house. Many people gathered and drank heavily, leaving behind a large quantity of unfinished drinks in the outside common area of our lodging. In Canada, you would throw out half finished or even just open drinks from the previous night. In Cuba, the cleaning staff brought it in as though it still had intrinsic value. Another similar example would be from our own room. We had a small canister of replica Pringles that had spilled on the table. The remnants of one potato chip lay on the table but the cleaning staff left it. They mopped the floors, made the bed, and changed the sheets, but they didn’t throw out the food – one measly potato chip.

To further the situation you have rampant prostitution. When the plane first landed, I was walking through the airport, alone, looking for a money exchange. Two different women approached me and attempted to converse. It was like the moment they caught my eye, they began to speak. Never mind in the airport, try walking alone in the streets of Havana. I walked outside of a restaurant to smoke – before I had made 5 single steps a man came up to me and told me, “I have a pretty lady for you man”.

The people do not seem to have much, yet, they seem to have each other. I’m not sure what is better or worse but it affected me. If this is communism, where people are purported to get everything they need from the government how bad is it in impoverished democratic countries that do not provide education or health care to their people.

About a month ago, someone emailed me regarding a problem in my writing that I appreciated at the time but now have a completely different feeling about. It was regarding the use of “extreme poverty” and “extreme starvation” and how it is useless to add that adjective because poverty and starvation are extreme. However, in witnessing poverty, I now understand that the use of an adjective to describe any extreme in society is a function of one’s personal reaction to it.

¹ This article is dedicated to my experience in Cuba. For a more detailed and personal description of the joyous occasion that is the commencement of Marijana and Branko’s marriage please visit the Diana & I page.