Trust me, I’m a priest

Nope, trust me; I’ve had it all before. A priest wanting to show me churches that didn’t exist, a baker insisting to show me around La Havana, and a Mexican coming out of nowhere to take a close up of my eyes. If only I could get hold of some brown ones whilst I’m here – that way I just be able to experience walking down the street without every second man, woman and child stopping in interest or to mutter something under their breath. Never is it particularly threatening, and I appreciate in many ways I’ve asked for it – I’m white, western and have blue eyes for starters, and secondly I’m staying in the least
touristy suburb of Havana - the only way you’d run into a foreigner here is if their tour bus got lost en route to a beach on the East coast. But it can be tiresome and uncomfortable regardless, and hiding behind a pair of sunglasses or looking like a drowned rat in a waterproof forms very little in the way of camouflage.

Having said that, however, if for me it’s tiresome it’s still nothing to what Cuban’s have to go through each day to appease myself and the other Canadians, English and Europeans in their country. The state of tourist apartheid penetrates every aspect of daily Cuban lives and fills me with a mixture of embarrassment and shame whenever I come up against it. It’s time to talk about the bad stuff.

Most uncomfortable is the way a Cuban will be treated when walking around with a tourist. Take the baker wanting to show me around Havana. I can’t say I was super keen to oblige at first – I’d escaped Alamar for the afternoon and was looking forward to mooching around town, possibly checking out a few galleries and having a coffee or mojito in the afternoon sun. I should have realised I was stuck when he squeezed me onto the overcrowded bus and stopped me from getting squished every time the door opened. When I got off the bus we started to chat a little and I discovered he’d lived in this part of town for 10 years before – a bit of local insight seemed like a small price to pay for some lost peace and quiet.

And it was insightful – we wandered the streets, him pointing out things every so often, stopped briefly for an espresso which I was treated to (Cuban’s drink strong incredibly sweet espressos on the go) and then again for a beer which was 24 times more expensive (at $1USD) and I paid for. But, during the 2.5 hours we spent together we were stopped no less than three times by the police wanting to know what he was doing with a foreigner. To them Deni (24, dark and handsome) was either my boyfriend, prostitute or uninvited and unwelcome tag along. Each time they asked to see his ID card and on the third attempt they
detained us for a half hour whilst they recorded his card number and began the Spanish inquisition. In the end they reluctantly let him go with a simple warning; should happen to me (they’d also asked for my passport details), it would be his fault.

When I questioned him about this technique of policing the streets he simply denounced, “This country is a shit”. What happened to us is common and whilst it might be helpful in instances when tourists are being scammed by locals or have unwelcome foreigners, this lack of respect for a Cuban’s rights seems unpardonable. And a similar thing happens when I walk around with Isis in town. The other day she was about to buy an apple when the grocer looked through her and asked me what I wanted. I was standing well behind Isis and had not made a peep. “It’s the same in the hotels, in restaurants and pretty much anywhere”, she exclaimed, “It doesn’t matter if we are spending the same amount or not…it’s the same.”

If you grew up in the 60s to 90s, you feel it hardest, but many Cuban’s don’t know it any other way. In 1959 Castro spoke to the American Society of Travel Agents of the “sea, bays, beautiful beaches, mountains, fish, game and sun” the country had, but Cuba went
almost thirty years without tourism. Today numbers are recovering – some 2.43 million arrived in 2009 and contributed $2.4bn to the economy the year before – but the figures have since fallen and they remain a long way off Castro’s target of five million visitors by
2010.

What adds insult to injury is that the majority of maltreated nationals will not be able to experience it any differently, because they simply won’t be able to travel. A Spanish programme ‘Caballeros Viajeros’ is very popular here – it televises Spaniards travels to
major towns and countries around the world from every large to every small detail. Many people here are fascinated by it, but not Isis. “It depresses me, seeing all these places that I’m unable to visit”. Perhaps because she has been one of the lucky ones to experienced life in another country she finds it more painful than those who are (not quite) blissfully ignorant. There is a chance she might be able to go to the Slow Food reunion in Italy again next year, but when I asked if we might be able to work out a way for her to visit me in London, she simply raised her eyebrow and sighed. “This county would have to
change for me to be able to visit you in the UK. For starters they’d have to pay me a real salary for what I do.” Her lack of rights and possibilities mock her again.

Some people talk of change on the horizon. It is possible that both the USA and Cuba will relax travel restrictions, but who knows when or if that will happen. And until it does the country cannot (afford to) start to get its infrastructure up and running to cope with any influx – in high season its 47 000 hotel rooms don’t meet demand and many tourists continue to be put off by the poor food, outrageous prices and lousy service.

If Alamar is a microcosm of the less touristy areas in the country it will be interesting to see what happens when Helen arrives and we set off to explore. I already anticipate that any comfort her arrival will bring in numerical reinforcement will be lost by her blond hair and pair of bright blue eyes!