Life in the Special Period
Calderón, Mirta Rodríguez
People outside Cuba-friends and enemies alike-spend their time speculating about how much we spend on the black market to eat, bathe, and wash our clothes, and whether, indeed, all of us take...
...an egg for seven cents instead of 25...
...They want to know how much weight we have lost, or how many times a week we rage against those whom we hold responsible for our misery...
...This drainage is at the heart of the black market that operates around the "shopings" (the markets that sell only in dollars), in all the residential neighborhoods, and even from door to door...
...Day-to-day demands determine the rest...
...Many people outside of Cuba enjoy imagining what life is like for us in this "special period...
...My friend's greatest worries have to do with hygiene...
...If there is a child with diarrhea, the popular astringent tuber malanga appears from another family's scarce supply...
...Roberto shares a house with his mother, an honored veteran, who receives supplementary food benefits for breakfast, lunch and dinner...
...He lives about 15 blocks from his office, so he does not have to deal with the uncertainties of public transportation...
...On the black market, one can get a pork leg for only $15 or $20 that might legally cost $45...
...When I think of how bitter things have become, I also remember my friend Daisy, a black internationalist nurse and daughter of a one-time maid...
...If the old lady on the corner needs some medication, the necessary amount of tablets or antibiotics will invariably appear from many houses on the block...
...I am almost certain that NACLA readers have no idea what it means to live like this...
...He doesn't, however, always have the chance to eat a second decent meal...
...Those who are lucky enough to obtain a license to work for themselves-a possibility that opened up about two years ago-make and sell a great many other things...
...One of Daisy's daughters has a scholarship in a center for pre-university studies which covers most of her basic material needs...
...At times he simply doesn't have the food, and at other times he lacks the fuel to cook it...
...Yet our children are also growing up in the shadow of a great many expressions of solidarity and open displays of human generosity...
...At midday, he goes to his office cafeteria where, for 80 centavos or a peso, he eats enough to get through the rest of his workday...
...We have few conflicts of conscience over the double standard implicit in considering ourselves good revolutionaries and at the same time participating in the black market...
...People in any other part of the world who know about these things don't buy magazines and don't know how to read them...
...perhaps having been an internationalist, prepared to fight and die for foreign peoples...
...All this gives coherence and internal force to the decision to resist...
...Solidarity redistributes what little there is...
...The list of items available in the black market is enormous, and it evolves in relation to the legal agricultural prices...
...We all resort to the underground market because the authorized quotas in the state stores are sufficient for perhaps 12 of the 30 days of the month...
...Can someone tell us how to get rid of them when we can't get imported insecticides...
...To understand would require having been immersed in superior ideals...
...NCA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 18REPORT ON CUBA especially the tiny ones...
...True, many people worry about ethics, myself included...
...If the essence of the transformations we Cubans face today could be summed up in anecdotes and examples of the infinite misfortunes of daily life, things would be quite simple...
...I know of many, in fact, who walk more than 60 blocks a day...
...Friends and enemies alike spend their time speculating about how much we spend on the black market to eat, bathe, and wash our clothes, and whether, indeed, all of us take part in clandestine trade...
...I could tell you, for example, about my friend Roberto, a white lawyer with a high salary-300 Cuban pesos a month-but no access to dollars...
...The people solve this problem-the verbs to solve, to get and to look for have moved into the foreground of popular discourse-by reselling their quotas of cigarettes and rum for dollars, by supplying a wide variety of services for dollars, and by producing and selling crafts, weavings, sweets and knick-knacks on the dollar market...
...This is also something that many NACLA readers may not understand...
...On top of all this is the increasing appearance of jineterismo (prostitution for dollars), the spreading anxiety of unemployment, and the plight of the elderly who cannot compete according to the laws of supply and demand...
...When I ran into her yesterday, she was exhausted after standing in line for three hours to buy pizza for her family of four...
...This is because we face the choice of surrendering or surviving, of maintaining pride in our nation or imagining ourselves formally or informally in a state of "free association" or annexation to the United States...
...Roberto routinely lacks cooking oil, spices and even salt...
...and a loaf of bread for two Cuban pesos instead of 10 U.S...
...The oldest of her daughters is about to finish her course work to become a schoolteacher, and receives 40 pesos a month to study...
...The reason for this control lies in the tacit understanding that many of the materials necessary for private production are taken from state warehouses and the official stores that sell in dollars...
...With all the good and all the bad, this Cuba is ours...
...Absolute hunger afflicts no one...
...Her apartment, for instance, is infested with cockroaches, 18NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Mirta Rodriguez Calderon is a founding member of MAGIN, an association of Cuban women in the communications field...
...a pound of powdered milk for a dollar instead of $4.50...
...Usable clothing and shoes change owners, and voices of encouragement and friendship rebound in the neighborhoods...
...It's not easy to get one of these permits, however, because the government wants to avoid the proliferation of private producers...
...How, we ask ourselves, are the public servants, intellectuals, teachers and workers of the future being molded if our children see constant robbery, and at times see their parents participatBai5as...
...When one doesn't have dollars, this food is obtained with a ticket given out by a delegate of the National Assembly of Popular Power or by the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR...
...ing in it...
...having believed in the possibility of the "new man" that Che Guevara thought we could create right here...
...Daisy's elderly mother has not yet been able to retire, and lives with the family in a small apartment which, though nicely furnished, has only one bedroom...
...I hardly know an adult who hasn't lost between eight and 15 pounds-the men more than the women-or who, for lack of a car and/or gas, walks less than a mile a day, especially if he or she works outside the home...
...Translated from the Spanish by NACLA...
...For this reason, there are very few suicides in Cuba...
...Roberto frequently goes without running water, which in his municipality-Central Havana, the scene of last year's rock-throwing protests-is very scarce...
...As head of a ward in an important hospital, Daisy earns a very high salary-over 400 pesos a month...
...The necessities which never cease to grow more acute quiet the protests of the heart...
...It belongs to no one else as long as we can preserve it...
...She is a regular contributor to the Cuban biweekly, Bohemia...
...As life becomes more difficult here, people think about these things...
...My children-and sometimes I myself-bicycle five to 10 miles a day, and ride long distances each weekend to go to the beach or simply to get around...
...cents...
...The family-size pizza costs five dollars in a restaurant, but with the ticket one can get it for eight Cuban pesos...
...Being short of salt is a growing irritant for Cubans who are already dealing with a scarcity of sugar...
...o live without hard currency-not even enough to exchange 15 or 20 dollars a month on the black market (at 30 to 40 pesos per dollar)-is to People line up for milk rations in San Diego de las be absolutely out of luck...
...People outside Cuba-friends and enemies alike-spend their time speculating about how much we spend on the black market to eat, bathe, and wash our clothes, and whether, indeed, all of us take part in clandestine trade...
Vol. 29 • September 1995 • No. 2
