Returning To Cuba

Returning To Cuba

As a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps, Carlo Bruno spent time in Cuba
during WW II. After 69 years, Bruno returned to the island as part of a
cultural exchange program.
by Dennis Hannon


April 05, 2013
The brothers Raul and Fidel Castro, notorious as keepers of political
prisons, might not make many lists of the world's most gracious
hoteliers. But, in the sixth decade of their iron rule over the island
nation of Cuba, the brothers seem to be extending their somewhat creaky,
octogenarian fingers in a gesture of "come hither" to American tourists.

Beneficiaries of this sea change in international diplomacy were Carlo
and Betty Bruno, two frequent travelers from Des Peres who jumped at the
opportunity recently when they saw an advertisement for a packaged tour
of sunny Havana.

The tour, arranged by the Road Scholar program, included hotel
accommodations, all food, door-to-door transportation to and from every
venue, and even bottled drinking water. Guests, therefore, were assured
of enjoying some of the world's most genial winter weather (average
January temperature, 70 degrees) with complete immunity to the
discomforts that beset ordinary Cubans - bad (or no) water, monotonous
diet, unreliable transportation and squalid housing. The Brunos were
wise enough to understand that this was a bargain too good to pass up.

And that's the way it turned out. The Brunos, along with Betty's sister
Irene, found themselves in the equivalent of a modern four-star hotel,
ferried about in a well-equipped Chinese-made bus and served
well-prepared meals in elegant restaurants featuring very good live music.

"Almost everywhere we went for lunch or dinner, there was music,"
recalled Carlo. "On the streets, the sound was beautiful."

In short, their hosts barred no hold and unturned no stone, and the
weather was as advertised.

Havana is a marvel, Betty said, but not because it is a bustling
metropolis - it is, in fact, a depressed "Sad Sack" of a city.

But "I have to give Castro credit," she said. "Anytime you can keep a
city going well without cars - without traffic - with two million people
in it, you've got to be doing something right."

But, interjected Carlo, "not very much, though. Not very much right."

Public transportation consists of "strange buses," he said. "They have a
tractor-like affair that hooks onto three cars - like railcars on rubber
tires - and people stack in there so tightly you can't believe it."

These caravans are the only motorized transport, other than
privately-owned cars that must be maintained by their owners without
benefit to a market for parts or repair service.

"Street mechanics is all they have," said Carlo. "If you can keep your
car running, you're lucky. Most of them don't have their identity any
more. They been modified so much you can't really tell. But some of them
are really well maintained. Most of those are used as cabs."

Tires must be imported from the U.S., however, as they cannot be
bootlegged. The trade is conducted by agents who hand carry tires four
at a time from Miami back to Havana, under the careful watch of both the
Cuban and American governments.

The Havana of Yesteryear

Carlo remembers a far busier Havana - the one he visited as a young
soldier in 1944-45. At the time, he was a radar mechanic, not yet 20
years old, stationed in Tampa in the Army Air Corps. When on leave, he
and his buddies could take their Army paychecks, bum a ride on a B-17,
and live lives of luxury in Havana's hotels and casinos, he recalls.

"It was a different city then," he recalled

Betty said Havana was "a Las Vegas kind of place.

"Everything was beautiful," she said. "The Italian mafia was there. They
ran the country with (Cuban dictator Fulgencio) Batista...there was this
Meyer (Lansky, a former kingpin in the New York underworld)."

Havana Today

"Now everything is owned by the government and it is gray and dirty and
deteriorated. The beautiful buildings with hundreds of porches showing
are all awful looking."

During his recent trip, Carlo was surprised at the utter lack of
maintenance of public structures, even residences.

"I didn't expect everything to be so depressed," he said. "It's like a
Pruitt-Igoe."

Though they never were shown the interior of a home, glimpses through
the occasional open door invariably revealed a squalid interior, the
Brunos said.

"Everybody owns their apartment in those buildings, but no one owns the
building - except the government," said Betty.

And the economy seems frozen, she said. "You can't buy anything. There
are no stores. In spite of these huge squares, there's not a show window
for any store.

"I don't know where you could buy your clothes or your shoes. You can't
buy anything except little junk," she added. "The stuff we bought was
just little trinkets."

It doesn't matter much anyway, said Carlos. "You can't bring anything back."

Only works of "art" are permitted out of the country. The Brunos
exchanged about $500 for Cuban pesos on entering the country, and
exchanged back nearly as much on leaving.

Remarkably, the Cuban people do not seem downtrodden by their economic
plight, the Brunos said. They saw no sign of depression on the faces of
people walking through the squares, or dejection in their posture or
demeanor, the couple said.

One unique cultural feature: "there were no police and no military"
visible on the streets, Carlo said.

On their visit to China a few years ago, "we saw soldiers on every
street corner, and they stayed in sight of each other," he said. "We
didn't sense the presence of any military, no guns, no cops, nothing
like that."

The streets, nevertheless, were quite orderly; "there wasn't even any
begging," said Carlo.

But Cubans are not allowed out of the country. The Brunos were warned to
lock their passports in a safe in their hotel room. And at the airport,
security was heavy, complete with police dogs.

"I talked to one woman who wanted to see her sister who left when she
was a little girl," recalled Betty. "She told me she wasn't allowed to
go because she was too young (and hence might not come back). She was 45.""

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