By Eric Umansky
Updated Friday, Aug. 6, 2004, at 5:36 PM ET
Subject: Entry 1
Posted Monday, Aug. 2, 2004, at 6:18 PM ET
This entry was written on Wednesday, July 21.
The first sign Cuba is a slightly different getaway spot comes as I wait in line for my flight to the Bahamas, where I stopped en route to Havana: There's a "Warning" poster that has a blurry photo of a guy with tight shorts and what looks like rolls of quarters taped to his thighs. A mule, I figure. Then I look at the small type: "This man was caught trying to smuggle 44 birds from Cuba. He was fined up to $4,000 per bird." I raise my eyebrows, as does the Cuban-American woman next to me. How do you hide 44 birds wrapped around your thighs? "Pobrecitos" (poor little ones), laments my neighbor.
Using the Bahamas as a way to launder myself—and thus avoid the wrath of the embargo—turns to be easier than I had thought. The instructions from my Bahamian travel agent had been: Go through Immigration, go through Customs, turn left, and then head into the liquor store and say, "I'm a friend of Ken's." The rigmarole is required because U.S. government restrictions force you to work through middlemen in order to buy anything Cuban, such as airline tickets. It works perfectly.
As a journalist, I am actually licensed by the Treasury Department to visit Cuba. So I could have taken a direct flight from Miami. Trouble is, Cuba's policies are the opposite of the United States': They're happy to let in average visitors, but they're suspicious of nosy reporters and require them to get a special visa. Since I plan to report on dissidents—who faced a brutal crackdown by Fidel last year—my chances of getting such a visa are basically nil, and even applying for one may increase my risk of getting caught should my application be denied and I go anyway. So I head in as a "tourist" (sans fanny pack and sandals with socks).
Arriving into Havana's airport, there's another peculiarity: X-ray machines on the way in. That's probably a result of the terrorism Cuba faced in the mid-1990s when a series of small bombs, presumably from exiles, hit the capital.
I catch a taxi into town, and my head immediately hurts and my eyes water. It's the pollution. There are plenty of tail-finned Chevys still plying the streets—ranging from those in mint condition to others, so far as I can tell, using wire hangers in strategic locations. None, I bet, would pass a smog test.
An Argentinean journalist who visited Cuba last year and tried to do what I am doing (reporting on dissidents and independent journalists with only a tourist visa) was held incommunicado for two days and then expelled. I'd prefer that not to happen to me. So I try to keep a low profile and play like a tourist for my first few days.
I walk down Calle 23, otherwise known as "La Rampa," which became famous in the pre-revolution days for its gambling and gangster scene. The streets are devoid of advertising and filled with party propaganda. My favorite: "I [heart] my CDR." Committees in Defense of the Revolution are the evil twin of neighborhood watch groups. There's one on almost every block. Staffed by locals, you go to them to, say, complain about potholes. They also control jobs. And they snitch on you.
A security guard at an outdoor pavilion along La Rampa sees me gazing around.
"Where you from?" he asks.
I tell him.
"Ahhh, the United States. The Yankees, the Marlins ... and ohhhh ... Serena Williams. I have a poster of her in my room. She's muy linda," he says, doing that hour-glass-shape thing with his hands. We chat for a few minutes. Then he takes out a photo of his 3-year-old son. "Handsome," I say.
"Listen, I don't have money for diapers," he says. "Can you give me $3?" I do.
I make my way to the Museum of the Revolution, which, shockingly, has a slightly heavy-handed approach. Upon entry, one is greeted by a looping video of a Fidel speech. A friendly matronly looking guide approaches me. "Listen," she says, pointing to the screen and smiling.
Escaping, I make my way down the Malecón, Havana's famous seawall and boardwalk, where I run into a raging party. The Malecón has been closed to cars, there is beer for 3 pesos (about 12 cents), and the massive speakers are pumping in Jay-Z. It's like a Third World Spring Fling.
Not exactly the hip-swaying type, I go to buy some water and meet a thirtysomething Cuban named Raul. He's sitting at a cafe with his wife and invites me to join them. Raul owns a paladar, a private restaurant licensed by the government. So he has dollars and buys me a beer. "There's nothing here in Cuba," Raul says. "If and when I have the money, of course I want to go the U.S." I buy some rounds, he buys more, and more. He invites me to his house tomorrow night for dinner. I hedge. But still, we talk for hours, and celebrate with his cousin who everybody is offering congratulations on his 15th birthday.
Eventually, drunk, I get up to leave. "My friend will give you a ride home" Raul says. I accept—I don't see any taxis—and Raul, his friend (who's Mexican), and I hop in the car. We arrive without event at the high-rise apartment where I'm staying. Raul gets out to say goodbye. "Listen," he says. "Can I borrow $20 for a present for my cousin? I'll give it back to you tomorrow when you come to dinner." $20 is about twice the average monthly salary in Cuba. I give it to him—and skip the dinner.
Subject: Entry 2
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004, at 2:26 PM ET
This entry was written on Thursday, July 22.
It is hell trying to work here. I feel like a blind man in a maze (inside a sauna). Take the phones: I bought a telephone card this morning for $7. So far I've only had two problems with it: 1) It's supposed to sell for 7 pesos. The rate of exchange is 26 pesos to the dollar; and 2) Cuba's crackerjack phone system has various kinds of public phones, each accepting a different type of card. Of about 20 phones I encounter, my card only works on one.
Of course, that's if I want to call somebody, which normally I don't. I'm going to be meeting with dissident-types, and my understanding is that their phones are tapped. Given that I'm here without a proper invitation from Fidel (that is, I don't have a journalist visa), my best bet is to just show up at people's houses.
Taking the easy route, I go to see a foreign correspondent in Havana with whom I had gotten in touch before arriving. I'll call him Dennis Hopper. We go out to the hallway to speak, since Hopper and his colleague say their place is bugged. "Man," says Hopper, "this place is so fucked up. You think it's just another Third World getaway spot with nice beaches, because it's hot here and people complain about the economy. But underneath, man, it's fucking East Germany. I know, you don't think like that. You won't think like that. It took me a long time and I was burnt. But trust no one here, man. No one."
I temporarily postpone my search for dissidents.
Instead, I deliver some packages—books and brown rice—from my journalist buddy, Ann Bardach (who wrote the essential Cuba Confidential). I drop off the rice to B., who's a doctor, a health nut, and very thankful. We start talking about the economy. The government recently announced price hikes, just after the Bush administration announced tighter restrictions on travel and remittances. (Cuban-American families are now only allowed to visit the island once every three years, down from the former once a year, and now can only send money to immediate family.)
"We're in another special period," B. says, referring to Cuba's severe economic crisis and rationing that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and its subsidies. "The government of course blamed the price hikes on the new Bush administration policies, and I think that's probably partly true. But the government also just doesn't have money."
B. then starts telling me about her Internet connection, which gives her access to e-mail and medical-related sites. Everything else is blocked. "It's my Internet-ito," she says (literally "little Internet"). "Do you know what I would do to get the New York Times? One day's paper would last me a week. And the Sunday Times? Ohhhhh .... a month." B. explains that it's essentially illegal to buy or sell a computer here. Same with cars, VCRs, apartments, houses, etc.
Next, I deliver a book to S., who was once a scientist and now makes ends meet by translating; she seems quite content with the revolution. "People who leave expect to still get all the good things Cuba provides, the free medical care, the free food—which isn't enough, I know," says S. "And it just isn't so." As she's talking, a blackout hits, which happens daily in Havana. (S. and B. both explain that touristy neighborhoods tend to remain exempt from the blackouts.)
At 11 p.m., exhausted and still sweating, I end the day by watching a bit of television. It's as if PBS had staged a coup, and, in a realization of its dreams, cut off all noneducational programming. Two channels are broadcasting. One is showing a drunk-driving video, and the other is stuck in a seemingly endless introduction to Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman. The Cuban host is extolling the virtues of "kitchen movies"—and showing 10-second clips of various examples. It's just enough time to forget about the host for a moment and become angry all over again when he reappears.
Subject: Entry 3
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004, at 6:19 PM ET
This entry was written on Sunday, July 25.
I begin my Sunday at church. This is not exactly a tradition in my family. Let me explain:
In the spring of 2003, while the world was focused on the invasion of Iraq, Castro launched a vicious crackdown on dissidents and independent journalists, throwing 75 of them in jail. (There is only one kind of legal media in Cuba—state-controlled.) The dissidents and journalists were found guilty of having violated Law 88, a kind of catch-all antisubversion clause that the government can invoke at will. The dissidents and journalists, none of whom had done anything more than express their opinions, were sentenced, on average, to 20 years in jail. One result, as Reporters Without Borders puts it, is the "world's largest prison for journalists."
Every Sunday, the wives of many of those imprisoned gather at the Santa Rita de Casia Church, in Havana's posh Miramar district. They dress in white, and after Mass is finished, gather and walk around the block. No bullhorns, no chants, no speeches. They call themselves Damas de Blanco— Ladies in White.
The Mass itself is uneventful. When the Ladies started coming to this church a few months ago, the priests got concerned and asked them not to protest inside. I'm sitting next to a Cuban journalist I have become friends with, A., so I ask her: If the priests are antsy about the Ladies, why did the group choose this church? "Because the saint represented in this church, Santa Rita," she explains, "is the patron saint of lost causes."
After services end, A. introduces me to the women. Each has a button on her blouse with a photo of her husband and the number of years to which he's been sentenced. After their walk, we make our way to the home of Elizardo Sanchez, Cuba's most well-known human-rights advocate (who was also involved in a bizarre scandal last year after the state released a video that purported to show that Sanchez was also a state spy). He's not home. So we all sit on the porch as the women chat amongst themselves, in a sort of impromptu support group, and a few others shower me with details about their husbands' situations.
Most of their husbands have been jailed in far-away provinces (even though there are closer jails available), and the wives are only allowed to visit once every three months. They are allowed to call once a week, but the state schedules the time-slot, and as it happens, the time scheduled is usually Sunday morning during Mass.
Alejandrina Garcia de la Rivas, begins talking about trying to visit her husband, Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero, who was sentenced to 20 years under Law 88. She had heard that he had been put in solitary confinement and wanted to find out how he was doing. "I stayed outside the prison for four days," says Garcia. "They wouldn't let me see him. Eventually a note came out: 'I am in solitary confinement. But I am OK. Please, stop waiting and go home.' So I went home."
I go back to my apartment, out again, and then, after about three hours of searching, meet Claudia Marquez, one of the brightest young independent journalists in Cuba. We spend the afternoon chatting and walking around Old Havana. Marquez has written for Internet sites as well as De Cuba, an underground magazine published last year. (She's also written op-eds for the Los Angeles Times and New York Times.) Then Marquez's husband, Osvaldo Alfonso, a member of the political opposition, was arrested during the crackdown. During his trial, Alfonso apparently recanted his statements and asked Marquez to stop her work. He was sentenced to 18 years. Marquez kept working.
"Many of the editors of De Cuba had been arrested," she says. "So I tried to put out another edition. We had trouble accessing computers, printers, even copiers. But we did get an issue done." Soon after, in October, state security hauled her in. "They told me I should stop with De Cuba and asked me if I wanted my 7-year-old son to grow up without parents."
"The cost of continuing was too high," says Marquez, who seems to be keeping a low profile and essentially biding her time until she gets a visa. "My husband wants me to leave the country. Even if he remains." We talk about what the worst part of the situation is. "I feel isolated," she says, "even from other Cubans. I always feel scared and they feel scared to spend time with me. My brother got a visa to leave for the U.S. One day, he was gone; he never told me. And I had friend who worked at the national library. She called me one day; after that they fired her. I felt responsible."
At night, I head over to a small dinner party thrown by a few American businessmen who are working in Cuba; two of them are staying at the same B&B I am. One, a middle-aged Southern man I'll call Tennessee, introduces me to his Cuban wife, L. She's about 20, very attractive, and doesn't speak English. Tennessee, it turns out, doesn't speak Spanish.
I start chatting with L. and one of the businessmen's Cuban girlfriends. "Look at the girls all interested in Eric," says Tennessee. "It's like a Woody Allen movie."
Hours and much wine later—"We're going to eat some erroz [sic]," Tennessee says at one point—the talk gets to the Cuban economy. Walk around downtown and there appears to be at least a smattering of private enterprise. There are multiple car rental companies, even seemingly competing fast food joints (El Rapido and Burgui). Some are run by one government ministry, others by another (for example, some car rental companies are overseen by the tourist department; others are overseen by the ministry of transportation), but in the end all the businesses are owned by the state. "It's the Duff Beer economy," says one expat. "It might all look different, but it's all coming from the same spout."
Subject: Entry 4
Posted Thursday, Aug. 5, 2004, at 5:28 PM ET
This entry was written on Monday, July 26.
I'm on my way into Santa Clara—a provincial capital 300 kilometers east of Havana—for Fidel's annual speech celebrating the kickoff of the revolution. What should have been a three-hour trip has now taken us six hours. The highway is in horrible shape, and we had flat tire. As T., my driver and a former general who had somehow fallen into disgrace, was fixing it, an Austrian couple who had joined us for the trip decided he was charging too much. A lengthy argument ensued, the tension broken only when we noticed a fleet of Mercedes roaring by. "See that," said T. "That's Fidel's caravan."
The festivities are supposed to be at the Revolution Plaza, abutting the big, spooky Che Monument. (He fought a battle here during the revolution. Large bronze statues resulted.) About 50,000 people are expected. The town center is filled with cheery Cubans sporting red shirts, making their way to the event. But it looks like it's going to rain. And soon I hear that the speech has been moved indoors to an auditorium that only holds 900 people. It's not first come, first serve. You need an invitation. There go my chances of seeing the spectacle.
I head back to my hotel, the Santa Clara Libre, a seemingly Soviet-era monstrosity. (It turns out to have been built just before the revolution—by the same architect who built some Cuban prisons.) There's no air-conditioning, nor, for the moment, running water. I go to watch the speech on my TV; except it turns out to be just a mantle piece—the power cord has been snipped.
I head downstairs to lodge a symbolic complaint. The lobby is filled with foreigners milling around, presumably in the same situation as myself, all hoping to catch a glimpse of El Jefe. Judging by the number of mullets, it's mostly Europeans. Many holding celebratory flags, some sporting Che shirts.
There is a TV in the lobby. It offers nothing but snow until one of the hotel staffers stands with a six-foot high tall antenna, twisting it here and there until he finds the sweet spot.
"Nuestro Comandante, Fidel! Castro! Ruiz!" says the M.C.
Fidel comes up to the podium and clears his throat, at length. Twice. Then he starts speaking v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. It's a Bush bash-arama: Dubya addled his brain on beer, says Fidel, hence the WMD scandal. (Slight paraphrasing.) The disquisition takes the better part of an hour. Eventually, even the Euro-groupies—drinking and smoking up a storm—get bored, and the chatter in the lobby begins to drown out Fidel's monologue. I walk outside, as much to escape the stinking smoke as the tirade.
Listening on a car radio, I head back into the lobby just as Fidel is wrapping up. "Let's hope that, in Cuba's case, God does not 'instruct' Mr. Bush to attack our country," he says. "Long live the truth! Long live human dignity!"
The mullet-crew lets out a sustained applause.
The next morning, I wait at the bus station for … something to take me to Havana. There are a few buses per day. All are sold out. There are also private cars that take people—illegally, of course. I've been here, along with a few other foreigners, for three hours, and we haven't seen a car leave. That's when the tourists revolt. One Colombian woman complains how hard it is to travel here.
"You have to listen to the music," responds one friendly Mexican academic. "Cuba is a special place."
"Yeah," retorts the Colombian, "especially hard."
There's a graduate student from Quebec waiting with us. He had planned on traveling around the island for a month. He's going home after two weeks. That is, if he can get a ticket. Cubana airlines says he'll just have to show up at the airport. "The logistics here are a nightmare," he says. "And I had heard about how friendly Cubans were. I don't know. I'm sick of getting hustled."
Twenty dollars and three hours later, I make it back to my B&B in Havana. (The Canadian, the Mexican, and I had finally found a private car.) I decide to try to rent a cell phone, even though doing so requires a few hundred dollars deposit. I've become friends with the B&B's owner. We had spent many evenings chatting honestly—about the economy, the U.S., and Fidel. So I ask her if she has any tips for picking up a handheld.
"I have two cell phones," she offers, "You can take one of mine."
I hesitate.
"Are you going to meet dissidents?" she asks.
I never told her I was reporting. Don't ask, don't tell, I figured. But now that she's asked, I don't want to lie, especially when doing so would put her at risk. "Yes," I say.
"I think it'd be best if you found someplace else to stay," she says, "You can find one in the guidebook."
Subject: Entry 5
Posted Friday, Aug. 6, 2004, at 5:36 PM ET
This entry was written on July 31, 2004
With just a few days left on my trip, I'm trying to pack in the meetings. To speed things up, I've rented a car. Thanks to the U.S. embargo—which makes U.S. credit cards useless in Cuba—I'm required to put down $400 in cash. That gets me a battered Peugeot with a grinding sound coming from the right rear-wheel well. (It disappears when a worker pushes the bumper back into place.)
I first stop at Elizardo Sanchez's house. The human-rights advocate, who I mentioned earlier this week, is a slick-looking political type. Chomping on a cigar, he invites me into his backroom office. (Other than bedrooms, it's the only private room I've seen in Cuba that's air-conditioned.) He launches into what I sense is a kind of stump speech.
Like everybody else I've spoken to—dissidents or otherwise—Sanchez rails against the U.S. embargo and the Bush administration's hardline policies. "The White House's policies are causing us—the opposition—to lose," he says. "There's an old saying, 'The best ally of a dictator is a foreign enemy.' The result is that the White House has facilitated repression here."
Sanchez picks up a copy of the State Department's recent report titled, "Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba."
"Look at the chapter one," he says, pointing to the title: " 'Hastening Cuba's Transition.' "
He waves the paper in disgust. "In Cuba, there's a great nationalist feeling," he says. "The Bush administration just doesn't understand Latin America."
Flipping to the acknowledgements page, Sanchez starts jabbing his finger at the names of Daniel Fisk and Roger Noriega, two hard-liners who helped oversee the report. "These two have never been to Cuba; they've never asked us dissidents what we think. We feel like hostages to their policy."
Sanchez is in a groove. Then the A/C sputters out. Another blackout.
We move outside and Sanchez starts talking about Cuba itself. He shows me two maps, one of prisons in Cuba before the revolution and one now. The new map shows perhaps 10 times as many prisons. "We never used to be a country of crime," says Sanchez. "Now we have one of the largest incarceration rates in the world." Thousands—mostly suspected prostitutes, he says—are jailed under a law against "dangerousness," a vague Minority Report-type provision that essentially criminalizes intentions.
Sanchez's work is well-regarded. But it's impossible to verify his numbers, since, as he points out, Cuba keeps its incarceration rates secret and prohibits inspections by human rights groups or the Red Cross—the only country in the Western hemisphere to do so.
"Welcome to our gulag," Sanchez says, pointing to the map. As others have explained to me, it's not that there are thousands of political prisoners. It's that so much of regular life—from selling a car to owning a VCR—has been made illegal. So just about everybody breaks the law. They are pushed into doing so because of the absurdly low state salaries (about 260 pesos or $10 per month). Cubans get free monthly rations—in addition to free education and health care—but it's not enough, so just about everybody in one way or another works in the black market. (One example: When I was driving, I saw farmers offering peanuts along the side of the road. Then, at one point, they ran off into the bushes. Turns out a police car was driving by.)
Soon after meeting with Elizardo, I swing by Old Havana to say goodbye to Claudia Marquez, the independent journalist I've become friends with. It's my last night in Cuba and she tells me that Manuel Vázquez Portal is finally back in town. Vázquez, 59, is one of Cuba's most well-regarded poets and essayists. I've been trying to get in touch with him since my arrival. He was jailed during the crackdown last year, and then given a medical parole last month. (Like a handful of other dissidents who've been released, all under similar circumstances, he wasn't told by the government what his illness was, and it's still a bit unclear.) After celebrating for a week, Vázquez had something of a breakdown and left to recuperate at his parent's telephoneless house in the provinces.
At about 10 p.m., Claudia and I hop into the Peugeot. She thinks she knows the way. Twenty minutes later, we've stopped by the side of the road to ask directions. A bus passes us on our left and then—"CRUNCH!!!" The bus clips the car—the mirror to be exact—and doesn't stop.
The rental agreement, as well as Lonely Planet, insists that any accident needs to be reported to the police. With my flight early the next morning and an interview ahead of me, I have no intention of doing that. Though the glass itself is now sporting spider veins, I'm able to jiggle the mirror unit back into place.
We arrive at Vázquez's apartment a few minutes later. He's a small man with a big beard and thick, Monchichi-type hair. Warm and very funny, he serves us Cuban coffee and starts regaling me with one-liners ("Castro is walking down the street with his brother Raul when a bird seems to dirty his head. 'Raul, what do I have on my head?' 'Crap,' responds Raul. 'No!' says Fidel, 'I asked what's on top of my head, not what's inside it!' ") At one point, I look for the bathroom. Like many Cubans, Vázquez's toilet doesn't have running water and he says, "The bathroom is that way, careful what surprises you might find there!"
When I return, he starts sharing his poetry with me. I have a hard time understanding it. So I ask him if he's started writing again. "No," he says. "I'm too angry right now, and I want to wait until I feel more peaceful inside."
He starts telling me about his year in prison. "The jail was made for 800 people," he says. "There are 2,400 there now. We didn't have space, enough water, enough of anything." (Here's a diary Vázquez kept.) Echoing Sanchez's comments, Vázquez says most of the prisoners were there for economic violations. "They're the victims of the system. Castro is like the owner of a plantation. He controls the jobs, he controls access to education and he controls health care. Those who are revolutionaries have access and those who are counter-revolutionaries don't; and he decides who is which. There are four ways to survive in Cuba: 1) Leave 2) Rob 3) Get drunk 4) Go crazy."
After a few hours' sleep, I return the car to the rental agency, which has said they'll give me a ride to the airport. They look the car over for damage and give a clean bill of health. Then the driver hops in to bring me to the airport. "What happened to the mirror?" he asks. "Dunno," I say.
The manager walks over. "Ah, it's OK," he says. "It was cracked beforehand." Then he points to some dirt along the side panel. "What is this!?!" he screams.
"Dirt," I say. "Some roads outside Havana aren't paved."
"I can't rent the car like this!" he says.
"So wash it."
"No no, the paint is ruined!"
He brings me inside and pulls out the rental contract. Clause #12 says, in English: "Diety car $50." [sic]
"What do you want me to do?" I ask.
"Give the driver $20," he says. I do, and head to the airport.
Eric Umansky, previously the "Today's Papers" columnist for Slate, is currently a Gordon Grey Fellow at Columbia University's School of Journalism.Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2104649/
