Otherworldly Cuba is poised to transform

Otherworldly Cuba is poised to transform
As Cuba loosens its internal restriction and relations thaw with the
U.S., the island nation is adrenalized and vibrating in transition
between the Castros and a country anxious to erupt.
By Kevin Spear
Orlando Sentinel

A Cuban with a shop next to a state-owned sugar cane field re-engineers
classic American autos into hybrids
Orlando Sentinel reporter Kevin Spear made the trip to Cuba, see what
his experience was like
The first part in a three part series on Cuba
HAVANA — Cliches about Cuba as frozen in time — with vintage cars,
prestigious cigars and crumbling antiquities — gloss over that Cubans
are educated and ravenous for opportunity.

An urbane nuclear engineer earns a living in Havana renting nicely
appointed rooms in his impeccable, fifth-floor casa particular, or
private home.

A street vendor with a tiny table rehabilitates disposable lighters.
Another rebuilds umbrellas. Yet another performs surgery on cellphones.

And a man with a dirt-floor shop across from a state-owned field of
sugar cane re-engineers classic American autos into international hybrids.

"We find a way, always," promises a Cuban guide, with confidence.

With an easing of Cuba's internal controls and thawing relations with
the United States, the island is stirring with expectation. Last month,
my wife made her third trip and I visited for the first time.

The blink of a flight from Tampa to Havana takes 52 minutes and quickly
reveals a country rendered otherworldly by isolation from the U.S. and
adherence to socialism.

Shortly after we arrive at Jose Marti airport, an immigration jefe with
a radio pulls me aside for an interrogation over travel plans. It
somewhat unsettles my Spanish-speaking wife, who must explain.

Apparently I stand out at 6 feet 4 inches on a plane of Cubans and
Cuban-Americans. Our reception is a Latin version of going into East
Berlin back in the Wall days.

Next are women officers in uniforms of tight skirts and black-patterned
stockings, and X-ray machines scanning bulging bags brought into the
country.

Then we push through doors into the steaming outside. A waiting crowd
presses against barricades. It's clamorous, disorienting and begins the
adventure.

A 60-year-old Rambler takes 30 minutes to get us to Havana.

The first thing we notice is mesmerizing and eclectic architecture,
heavy on balconies, arches, iron railing and Spanish persuasions. Much
of it is melting with disrepair.

Trees and shrubs sprout from cracks in exterior walls above streets,
competing with fluttering laundry. Tangled electric wires clutter
foyers. Sewage drains to streets.

Yet cocooned within buildings condemnable elsewhere are homes and
restaurants of refinement and elegance. Stairways rise from grimy chaos
to immaculate calm of a casa particular, with rooms costing about $35 a
night.

Unisex bathrooms in La Guarida, royalty among paladares, or private
restaurants, glow in purple-blue lighting. Food and service, at $60 for
starters through dessert for two, is surrealistic.

You want to pinch yourself: Este es Habana?

Cubans in old Havana live their lives openly and on the streets in front
of their homes. Kids here play dominoes on a board supported by their
knees. (Kevin Spear / Kevin Spear)
Existence of such addresses, with hot water, toilets that flush, air
conditioners that cool and artistic portraits of nudes, leaves me amazed
over the effort and ingenuity they must have required of workers who
often make $1 or $2 a day.

A least one meal should be taken in a government-owned restaurant for
perspective on socialist fare, though some do occupy the most venerable
settings.

But paladares aren't hard to find, and a posh one in the embassy section
of Havana features an arresting view of ocean and of adjoining resorts
that began disintegrating years ago.

Look toward Florida, toast the scenery and kiss your wife. Glance right
and observe a Mad Max setting. It's a romantic combo of love and seaside
desolation.

In Cuba, gritty and glamour go hand in hand.

A 1954 Oldsmobile taxi, a gorgeous thing in azure, had its gas-guzzling
V-8 replaced with a 1960s-era British diesel. It also was refitted with
a Hyundai truck transmission and Mercedes disc brakes. It buzzes along
like an agile tractor.

A mechanic converts American classics into Cuban road warriors by
fabricating parts and precisely welding engine compartments into new
configurations.

A German leans under a hood of one and proclaims with German authority:
"This isn't possible."

The aging diesels, however, belch thunderheads of exhaust, a noxious
reminder Havana is urban in its peculiar, developing-nation ways.

Tap water isn't drinkable, Cubans say, and groceries aren't readily
available. Street scamming goes on with cheap rum, cigars and something
involving salsa and sex. A Bucanero beer costs about $1 but dollars
often aren't taken.

Tourists use the CUC, or "kook," the peso traded for foreign currency
worth a bit more than a buck. Official changers take 10 percent cuts,
while the black market for money is sketchy.

Narrow streets in the capital's old section may suggest "Ghetto:
danger!" It's false alarm.

Cubans in the city live open lives, lacking air conditioning, and you
may glance into windows and see Mom, Dad and the kids as if you were in
their homes.

They aren't muggers but may ask where you are from: "De que pais son?"

You kind of don't want to fess up because they can get animated over
Americans.

Hundreds of them in Havana line up each day to apply for a U.S. visa
despite little chance of getting one.

They will want to tell you about their sister who lives in Miami, a
balsero father who rafted to Florida and lives in California, and a
cousin in Georgia.

Then they will press for why the United States won't take its foot off
Cuban necks, especially given their fondness for their northern neighbor.

Perhaps best of all in Cuba is how easy it is to connect with Cubans,
which was prohibited not many years ago, and hear their take on
U.S.-Cuba relations.

"We loooooove you," an amazed driver of a three-wheeled, bicycle taxi,
or bicitaxi, proclaims when he realizes his passengers are American.
Another bicitaxi labors by, an American flag clipped to its handlebar.

Americans are rare among the Canadians, Europeans and Russians who come,
say taxi drivers, for beer, rum and hot chicks at Varadero, Cuba's
version of Cancun.

We encounter few free-ranging Americans and mostly tour groups such as
underwater archaeologists and religious somebodies.

It's startling anybody loves Americans enough to proclaim it so loudly.
Yet many Cubans aren't shy about complaining the U.S. is punishing Cuba
with its embargo.

"Why?" implores a charismatic waiter serving a whole snapper at an
elegant paladare filled with older Mexicans and young lovers.

He points out that 50,000 young Americans were killed in communist
Vietnam. "You made friends with Vietnam," he stresses. "It is one of
your most important trading partners in Asia."

In fact, no Cubans suggest the embargo stresses Cuban leaders. Many,
possibly dozens, told us it stresses them personally.

"I'm 44 years old already," the waiter says. "Why do we have to suffer?"

It's not obvious if he is angry or acting. He has a Russian name, as do
many Cubans. Looking at my snapper, I consider a safe answer.

Otra cerveza, por favor.

Many Cubans are well-traveled and talkative — to the point of
pontificating — but are nervous about politics, even when knocking back
Bucaneros. They imply negativity about Fidel but won't articulate a
culpable point.

You learn quickly Fidel is, or was, a demigod not to be messed with.
Cubans revere and revile the bearded one.

He introduced water, electricity, free housing, free health care and
free education. Literacy, life expectancy and infant mortality rival or
better those in the U.S.

About medical care, a guy in Playa Larga at the Bay of Pigs suggests
"sometimes it's better to pay."

A guy in Havana makes a big show of appreciation that Fidel's brother,
Raul, now in charge, has made ownership of cars and homes possible.

"Thank you, thank you, after 56 years," he pronounces in faux prayer.
It's theatrical and hard to say if sarcasm or sincerity.

A lot of Cubans have been jailed for political expression and everywhere
is propaganda printed or painted on walls such as Patria o Muerte
(Country or Death)!

After sunset, however, politics and polemics soften along the photogenic
Malecon sea wall, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Cubans in the fresh
breeze that brushes across the Florida Strait from the direction of Florida.

Horns of swanky convertibles that roll at night don't honk; they toot or
trumpet. The moment is transcendent.

If you are not drawn to the understandable anger of Cuban-Americans of a
certain age, who were terrorized, run out of the country and lost a way
of life, you may want to admire and cheer for Cubans.

Their nation is adrenalized and vibrating in transition between the
Castros and a country anxious to erupt. More affluence. More modernity.
More Americans. More good and more bad.

After it happens, and Marriotts and McDonald's brand an island within
reach of a ferry ride, history surely will ask of the last decades:
"What was that about?"

The story is the first in a three part series on Cuba. Check
back tomorrow for Part II.

kspear@tribune.com

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