More (lots) on Cuba's economic life

oxen pulling farm wagon

I am quite surprised at the level of poverty in Cuba.  It isn’t so apparent just watching the people on the streets, but look a little deeper and it is clear.  The housing stock is crumbling.  Large concrete apartment blocks look like they will shudder into rubble during the next hurricane.  Private houses are tiny, dingy and often nearly falling down, except for the few that have been turned into guest houses or paladares (private restaurants) and some that have been renovated with remittance money.

beautiful tiles on crumbling house

When families are able to get remittances from family members in other countries, they repair their homes first.  We’ve been told, though I can’t verify this, that roughly half the homes in the cities have no running water and, in the country, virtually none.  Flush toilets are also scarce and community sanitation systems are non-existent.  Most houses in the city do have electricity.  The government gives rural villages far from a power line money to buy a generator, which supplies electricity to a community building where residents can watch television (all government channels) and have light at night.

restored colonial home, now a restaurant, in Trinidad

People keep telling us how expensive everything is.  There are 2 currencies, the CUP—Cuban peso—which is the currency in which people’s salaries are paid and that is used in most shops.  The exchange rate to the dollar is $1 to CUP 25.  The other currency is the CUC, or convertible currency, with an exchange rate of $0.85 to 1 CUC.  This prices most people out of the CUC shops and restaurants. 

Doctors earn about 600 CUP, or about $25, per month.  After many years, they may earn as much as $60 per month.  A typical salary is $10 to $20 per month.  Consequently, people have flocked to the tourist industry where they can earn tips on top of their salaries. 

Gail with musicians are paladar in Camaguey

Our driver (we have a yellow taxi, owned by the government and rented by our driver, an employee of the government taxi company) rents his taxi for about $20 per day and pays for insurance, gas, taxi license and all repairs and service as well.  His costs are $46 per day on average, not counting repairs, so he says he must work every day for 16 to 18 hours to make enough money to support his family. 

His wife is a pediatrician who finished her residency only a short time ago.  She commutes 40 miles to the hospital where she works and where she also did her residency, but must hitchhike both ways because she doesn’t have a car and there is no public bus service to the small town where she works.  She was assigned to that hospital and must work there at least two years, probably more, to repay her education costs.  Then she may be able to find a job closer to home in Holguin.   His wife's mother helps them care for their 7 year old daughter when they both have extra long days of work.

We talked to a Cuban doctor at Barisay, the bay where Columbus landed for the first time in the New World, who was home on holiday from South Africa.  He was sent to South Africa by the government at the time of the crisis (how Cubans refer to the collapse of the Soviet Union) to earn money for the government.  Unlike many overseas assignments, a doctor sent to South Africa can take his family and stay as long as he wants.  This internist has been there for 17 years.  One of his children was born there.  He and his wife, also a doctor, live in far western South Africa, near the Namibia border, in a very rural area, which is where Cuban doctors are usually assigned.  Not only does he get his meager Cuban government salary, but he also gets a much better South African salary (another perk that is not typical for Cuban doctors sent overseas), so he and his wife are saving their money to retire in Cuba with a good middle class lifestyle, on a farm about an hour outside of Holguin. 

Our excellent guide, Juan Jose, and tobacco farmer on cooperative farm

Cigars, rum, coffee and sugar are Cuba's big export items, though sugar is far less important than before the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Shops everywhere sell rum, hand-rolled cigars and coffee, which is very good.  A farmer at one tobacco farm showed us how to roll cigars. 

hand-rolling cigars

Our guide earns $11 per month, but supplements that with a per hour wage on top of that if his government tour company thinks he is doing a good job and working long hours (which he does).  He also, of course, gets tips, which make the job a valuable one to have.  He had been a professor, but couldn’t earn enough money to survive.  He inherited a tumbledown house from his grandparents and has gradually made it habitable by saving every peso he could and rebuilding it literally from the ground up and outside walls in, with a new roof, paint and some appliances.  He doesn’t use his stove because the electricity to operate it is too expensive.  Instead, he uses a small gas burner to cook.

shelves of staples in a ration shop

We visited a “ration” shop, where Cubans buy staples.  Everyone has a ration card which allows him or her to buy a specific amount of rice, oil, sugar, bread, beans and so on for a specified price each month during the year.  These are reissued annually and take into account a family’s changing circumstances.  For example, milk is in very short supply, so only available, in powdered form, to children until they are 7 years old.  After that, families must go to the countryside or farmers’ markets to buy fresh milk.  The shops are frequently out of the staples, so, when people learn that they have oil or rice or something else they need (soap), they will line up in long queues to buy the goods.  For most people, the farmers’ markets, which sell fresh produce, meat and fish, are too expensive except on rare, special occasions.

ration book

In Trinidad, we wandered through rows of “peso” shops where most of the goods were second hand.  Things we consider essential, like detergent or shampoo or toothpaste, cost $2 to $3 U.S., so are out of reach for someone earning $10 per month.  Many Cubans rely heavily on relatives in the U.S. or other countries to send them money or goods in order to survive.  It is considered extremely fortunate to have a relative in the U.S. or Europe who can send remittance money to a family member in Cuba.

During the “crisis”, after the Soviet Union collapsed, doctors and professors were forbidden to leave.  We were told that anyone who could leave then did.  Usually, when doctors are “leased” to another country to earn foreign exchange for Cuba, they cannot take their families with them.  They would be too likely to stay permanently.

typical old car in front of badly renovated building

Almost no one can afford a car unless they receive money from abroad.  Then, they usually buy a very old, 1950’s or 1960’s, Chevy or Ford or Dodge, replace the engine when they have the money (Toyota engines are favorites) and drive them even when they are rusted nearly into oblivion.  Public transportation is via very old buses, trucks (privately-owned) and a few trains.  The government owns all the means of transportation except for the few private cars, trucks, taxis and vans that carry people who can pay a little more.  Flying is unaffordable and flights are completely unreliable.  I’ll describe the transportation system in another blog.  It’s very ingenious.

My daughter, a high school Spanish teacher, asked me to get her some magazines about art or architecture or cultural life in Cuba.  When I asked our guide to help me find some, he had no idea what I was talking about.  There are no magazines in Cuba because they are too expensive to buy and too expensive to produce.  Some literary organizations publish periodic collections of poetry and short stories, so I bought those for about 10 cents each.  What you can buy very easily are music CD’s and DVD’s of Cuban artists and also copies of foreign musicians and movies.  There are also lots of book stores selling mostly used books.

private truck carrying packed-in passengers

With the small exceptions I’ve already mentioned, the entire economy is government-owned.  Most of the farms are cooperatives.  Some of these have tractors, Russian models from the 1940’s or 1950’s.  Small family farms are worked either by family members or, in some cases, ox teams.  While we saw hundreds of horse-drawn carts, a primary means of transportation, we saw only a few ox teams pulling plows.

Zunzun singers, twin sisters, with Don at a paladar

What is so clear is the spirit and ingenuity of Cubans as they manage their lives and work.  When foreign investment from the U.S. finally returns (I believe early investors will be in pharmaceuticals, medical R & D, scheduled airline services, transportation and tourism—especially hotels and resorts), the Cuban economy, with the benefit of a mostly well-educated population, is likely to grow rapidly, greatly improving the lives of Cubans.  Right now, in many of the smaller towns we drove through, there were dozens or even hundreds of people wandering around the central plazas and streets, out of work.  At the same time, there were musicians, craftsmen and artists everywhere, earning a little money in the plazas and restaurants, and enlivening daily life.