Cuba, the precipice and the pending change

We haven't seen each other for months and as soon as we met, Lázaro fired one of his depth charges: "I was in the catacombs, which is the best place to be today in Cuba."

I tell him, man, things are bad, but don't go too far, and he answers me making a face like “I'll tell you right now”.

As a preview, she blurts out: "Look Galician, when you left in the summer the dollar was 100 Cuban pesos, today on the street it is exchanged for 175 and it has reached 200. We are screwed."

We meet in Plaza Vieja, one of his favorite places in Havana restored both for the history it treasures and for the urban and popular environment that surrounds it.

Emerged in the second half of the 16th century, after the original Plaza de Armas was occupied by the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, it was originally called Plaza Nueva and was conceived as a space to house the market and public festivals.

“Unlike most colonial plazas, it never had a church or council, its function was different,” says Lázaro, always allergic to faith and power.

"The Plaza Vieja was always somewhat anarchistoid," he jokes.

We sat on the pleasant terrace of Café Bohemia, one of the private businesses that set up shop here shortly before the thaw with the United States began during the Barack Obama era.

In those years the city was filled with North American tourists and restaurants, bars and lodging houses, and then it was almost impossible to get a table in the paladares of the Historic Center, everything was packed.

Then came the mess of Donald Trump, who backed down the rapprochement and intensified the suffocation measures against Cuba, and later the pandemic landed, and Old Havana was left empty.

Today some children play next to the fountain and some clueless tourists stroll through the area, but they are few, since the main Cuban industry has not just picked up.

Lázaro, who is a Google mouse, checks on his phone: in 2022 the official forecast is that 1.7 million travelers will visit the island, barely 37% of the 4.5 million travelers received in 2019, while the Cuba's competitors in the area (mainly the Dominican Republic, and Cancun and the Riviera Maya, in Mexico) are already working normally.

Reflection of the facade of a building in the window of a store where there are hanging two biographies of delegates to deputies of the Assembly of Popular Power.Yander Zamora

He shows me the state brewery next to Café Bohemia, which used to be crowded.

It has been closed for several months for renovations.

Opposite is the cafeteria

El Escorial, also state owned, where the best ground coffee in Havana was sold to take away.

“Oh, my son, that was years ago.

There is neither here nor will there be, and it is better not to make me talk that I am going to complicate myself ”, answers a waitress when you ask her.

Sitting in Café Bohemia, Lázaro begins with "I'll tell you right now", which he also calls the "worker's lament".

He proposes to forget about the blackouts of up to 12 hours a day (outside of Havana), the public transport that does not work, the queues for everything, the critical situation with medicines, etc.

“We are going to talk only about 'jama', about food, about how to fill the plate”.

She passes close to us at that moment Irma la Dulce, a picturesque Afro-Cuban woman who makes braids and bows for tourists when she catches them by the band, quite a character in the Plaza Vieja.

-"Irma, has things improved a bit?"

-"Child, you are wrong.

Change those glasses.

We are on the edge of the precipice and about to take a step forward.

There's no use here."

He continues: "What a few months ago cost 200 pesos, is now worth 300. The carton of eggs is already over 1,800, a bag of chicken [two kilograms, approximately] 1,600, a liter of oil 700 and a kilo of powdered milk, that is not found, can go from 2,000 pesos.

He will tell me ”.

Lázaro interrupts her and looks at me: "You have to say that the average salary in Cuba is 3,800 pesos and that a lawyer, an architect or a doctor does not reach 5,500."

Now I'm the one who stops him: hey, we're going back to the usual monotheme, everyone already knows that, give me three other examples that serve to reflect how things are.

"I'm coming for you," he says.

"Imagine that recently the Cuban churches were about to run out of hosts for the masses because the State was unable to supply the nuns who make them with a few sacks of flour."

That is one.

“Another: gives a concert at the Casa de la Música de Galiano, a salsa group called El Niño y la Verdad and, at the end, when they were going to sing a new song about the need for changes to take place in Cuba, The manager of the venue goes and takes away the audio, and then they censor various presentations on television ”.

And the third?

“It is from this week: as there has been a total shortage of supplies for two years, which has encouraged the black market, queues and hoarding, someone came up with the idea of ​​creating a so-called Fight Against Coleros (LCC) body.

Well, it turns out that the Government has just reported that the LCC has been dismantled because corruption was worsening, and that now the regulated distribution of what little there is will be done in another way.

People wait their turn to buy food, in one of the streets of Centro Habana.Yander Zamora

He tells one more, which hurts him especially, because he has an architect nephew, in addition to his love for the city.

Since the creation of private micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) was authorized in Cuba a little over a year ago, nearly 6,000 have already been approved.

“One in four are from the construction sector.

But it turns out that the Government does not allow architects and engineers to become MSMEs for fear of an exodus of professionals from the state to the private sector.

There is a letter with the signature of 700 architects who demand the private exercise of their specialty, with the irrefutable argument that, for the good of the city, their work is essential in the project phase.

But so far no one has paid attention to them.

They have warned that if the lockdown continues,

the exodus is not going to be from the state companies to the MSMEs, but they are going to leave the country”.

He says so, and advises me: "Investigate."

Lázaro has emboldened himself and calls Irma la Dulce again.

"Girl, did you go to vote in the municipal elections on Sunday?"

Irma looks at him as if he's gone crazy and shakes her head.

Irma La Dulce, a self-employed worker, poses for a photo in Havana's Plaza Vieja.

yander zamora

We are now entering one of the important issues that my friend wanted to address.

The elections, held on November 27 to elect 12,427, represented a "remarkable blow" to the Government in the midst of the current crisis that the country is experiencing, considers Lázaro.

Abstention was 31.5%, and null and blank votes more than 10%, "that is, four out of 10 Cubans remained outside the official call or rejected it."

An unprecedented result in Cuba, where participation rates were 95% in the time of Fidel Castro, which in his opinion gives an idea of ​​"the growing popular detachment."

It goes further, and exposes the data from the capital, where abstention was 45% and null and blank votes almost 7%.

"There is not much more to say, what happened only has a reading that the Government cannot hide, and that it should take into account for its own good."

In the Plaza Vieja, Irma la Dulce does not shut up.

"But what are you waiting for, beautiful, if people are already tired."

Lázaro recalls the referendum called in September to approve the new family code, which opened the doors to equal marriage in Cuba.

25% of the population abstained and 32% voted against the law sponsored by the authorities.

“How is it possible that the same law was approved unanimously in Parliament?

Do the 600 representatives of Parliament really represent the different sensibilities that exist in society?" asks Lázaro,

I tell him that's enough, that's enough for today, and we order a good Cuban rum at Café Bohemia.

The Plaza Vieja, although empty, looks beautiful.

Irma la Dulce winks at us, grabs her belongings and leaves to make braids.

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