It may be hard to believe (or all too easy, depending on your experience and perspective), but there are days I rue my decision to live here. You’d think 14 years would be time a-plenty to know whether a place is for you. Alas, I descend from a long line of slow learners…
But Cuba is a confounding place, at equal turns bewitching and bitchy. Sometimes, on those twilight evenings when the full moon is on the rise, the air perfumed by gardenias and a stranger offers to heft your burden three flights to your door, it feels like you snagged the brass ring. Other times, when you awake to a blackout and there’s no coffee in the stores, when a stranger lets fly a snot rocket, sprinkling your sandals with phlegm, it feels like someone just poisoned your childhood dog. Today is a dead dog day.
I’d be lying (not like a rug, but like a Cuban!) if I said I’ve had a string of dead dog days – sure, my manuscript was rejected by yet another agency and half of my friends are in the midst of existential crises (the other half, meanwhile, have left the country). And while things are feeling a bit chronic lately, I’m living more for the moment, in the moment than usual, having a bevy of new experiences – like driving a motorcycle for the first time, a 1956 Harley no less, and producing my first short. I’m also getting better at looking on the bright side, like when my pap smear came back clean. So I’m doing ok, but Havana is in its summer throes and it ain’t particularly pretty.
Being poor and from NY, I know how much of a burden summer can be, when the days are too hot and long, when tempers run just as hot and way too short. After so many interminable summers, you’d think I’d be used to it. I should be used to it (I’m from the slow side of the family, remember). Maybe it’s because a life lived in Spanish is still hard for me. Or because I miss my people, my family – both Cuban and Yuma – almost all of whom are not here. Maybe I need catharsis. I definitely need a break. Since the latter is too long a ways away, I’ll settle for the former.
Here are some of the reasons Havana is anything but fun in the summer:
The heat: There are songs, stories, eulogies written about Havana heat. It is legend. It is horrid. These days, Havana is Hades hot and pea soup humid. It’s thick and clinging like a dim only child or the not-too-bright girl whose cherry you popped. When there’s a breeze from the sea, it’s tolerable, but when Havana’s still, the heat steals sleep and robs appetite. Sex lives stall and it’s just one more excuse not to work (most Cubans don’t need another, believe me). Havana also proves that climate change is real. If you’re one of those who needs proof, you’re as dumb as that once-upon-a-time virgin. When I moved here in 2002, July and August were intolerably hot. Now, May through October is like the old August – mercury approaching 100°F and humidity so dense breathing is hard. That mouldering stink you sense from the other five people crammed into the collective taxi? It’s the humidity: newly-laundered clothes (not to mention towels) never completely dry. And beware and prepare your olfactory sensitivities if you board a bus after a summer thunderstorm – the stench wafting from the hundreds of passengers will permeate your clothes, memory, soul.
When I made Havana my home, I was of the belief that complaining about the heat just made things hotter. Like many of my beliefs once firmly held (women over 40 shouldn’t wear mini-skirts; flip flops are indoor shoes), this has fallen by the wayside. I challenge anyone – whether here for a vacation or a lifetime – to pass two days here in summer without griping of the heat.
- ¡Hay que calor!
- No soporto este calor…
- ¡Que calor hace, mi madre!
Now you’re as likely to hear me complain as earnestly and often as a native Habanera but with my NYer potty mouth: El calor está de pinga mi hermana. Maybe if I had air conditioning at home or at work. Somewhere.
Blackouts and gas rationing: That air conditioning we USED to have at home, work, somewhere? Adios, amigo. Some two weeks ago, information started leaking that we’re headed once again for rolling blackouts a la Periódo Especial (maybe not that bad, but bad enough). I was here August, 1993. A month of 12 to 16 hour blackouts was plenty for me. Little did I know that by the time I moved here in 2002, things had only improved a little (this was before the Venezuela-Cuba pact brought cheap oil to our shores). The time without lights was a few hours fewer but the heat was just as intense. At least this time around I wasn’t working in the fields under a blazing sun, kept upright by periodic shots of milordo (sugar water).
These days, the rolling blackouts have already hit certain Havana neighborhoods, but where they’re causing real distress is in the state sector. Stores, offices, and agencies previously chilled by the pingüino, are now without air conditioning. Along with internet, air conditioning is reason enough for people to cling to their shitty salaried state jobs. Now folks are even less motivated to hit the daily grind. To save energy, some places are only working half time these days – either half the hours five days a week or full days only half the week. However you do the math, it means less efficiency, less gas for the economic engine, less optimism, less hope. And more sweat. Though I’m sure some people welcome the time off – after all, it doesn’t affect their salary.
What people are NOT welcoming is the 50% cut in gas rations. Here is Havana in a nutshell: the global price of oil, combined with the political shakedown in Venezuela means there is less black gold to go around in these parts. Cuba has had to adapt (luckily, Cubans are more adaptable than Darwin’s case studies). In response, the government cut all gas to state enterprises in half – from now until October if word on the street is to be believed. The effect this is having on daily life is hard to overstate. To understand it – and we’re still trying – you have to know a bit about the ‘mecánica’ Cubana. I can say with confidence that every recipient of a gas ration for their job sells a portion on the black market. They make a little extra for their family, the buyer gets cheaper gas and everyone is happy. Those days are over. Families have less of a supplement, people are only driving when necessary, and the authorities took measures to prevent price hikes by boteros. These drivers of collective taxis (known as maquinas or almendrones), buy their gas on the black market for 40 cents cheaper a liter than at gas stations. Have you ever seen one of these taxis filling up at the Cupet? I thought not.
One of these taxi drivers became overnight famous when he stupidly, ingenuously blurted out on the nightly news that his business is being crushed because of the higher black market gas prices. Within 24 hours, the government announced they were enforcing a set tariff for collective taxi rides. Anyone caught violating it would get fined and risk losing their license. Passengers were encouraged to write down the license plate of any violators and report them to the authorities. Oh this is rich! What happens when the cheated on husband reports his wife’s lover, the taxi driver to the cops just to screw him? Knowing el cubaneo, I’m sure this is going down as I type this. And what happens when these drivers realize they can band together and agree not to work for two days, paralyzing Havana? Then we’ll be screwed.
Vegetable drought: The hot summer months are truly shitty if you like vegetables. Right now, you’re lucky to find a cabbage or some limp green beans – and please don’t write in about the abundance and variety if you shop at 19 and B – the ‘boutique market’ as it’s not-so-fondly known. In regular, run-of-the-mill markets, the only thing you’ll find are tubers and cabbage and garlic so tiny you need a loop to see the cloves. Meanwhile, onions are so expensive people have stopped eating them. Our usual summer consolation – avocado season – is no consolation this year: early summer winds sent the bulk of the harvest to the ground to rot. What’s left are not the quality or quantity we’re used to. Normally by this time in the summer, we’re sick of avocadoes, having subsisted on them for months. I ate my first avocado this week. To make matters worse, the ambulatory vegetable sellers have disappeared. Their prices were usurious but at least it allowed us to resolve a cucumber or two.
Super slow season Tourists are flocking to Cuba, I’m sure you’ve heard, but the flow slows to a trickle in the summer (see The heat, above). This is creating desperation in la calle that’s palpable and uneasy. We’ve had half a dozen people come in to Cuba Libro looking for work, while we struggle to pay our bills. The tourists have trickled out, Cubans have little extra cash for coffee, and our expenses pile up. The slowdown is also noticeable since people are selling anything and everything they can: books older than me, raggedy ass magazines, used clothes, underwear (not used, thankfully), fish, powdered milk, plants, art – you name it, someone’s selling it. Everyone is feeling the pinch – except the Cuban 1% who continue to drive, party, and consume like they’re in Miami.
There’s more, but why beat this dead horse? We still have three months of summer to go. It’s going to get hotter, mis amigos…
