Cuba, Where You Have to Ask at a Café If They Have Coffee
At the bus terminal, no one knows if the bus will arrive so they can get home and everyone is hungry.
HAVANA TIMES – While Cuban bureaucrats celebrate anniversaries of revolutions and victories with rousing speeches and plenty of patriotic fanfare, bus terminals and bus stops across the island remind everyday people that the truly epic feat is making it home before nightfall. This is evident in the account given by Andy in Sancti Spíritus.
“Yesterday,” he tells 14ymedio, “while waiting for my mother at the old terminal at the exit toward the Jatibonico highway, I experienced firsthand the nightmare that is inter-municipal transport.” Getting around in Cuba has become one of those inglorious epics—full of endurance, sweat, long waits, and of course, scenery covered in threatening slogans.
The terminal looks like it came directly from a clearance catalog of Soviet architecture. In one corner, a group of people huddles in front of a closed door, as if waiting for the ending of a low-budget soap opera: no one knows exactly what they’re waiting for, but they’re all waiting for something. In front of them, some people sit resigned on metal benches—no padding—with expressions that fall somewhere between fatigue and stoicism. Outside, at the roadside bus stop, another human swarm endures the sun, unpredictable schedules, and the complete absence of state-run transport.
One might think this is an exceptional situation—but it’s not. In Cuba, traveling from one municipality to another is a daily test of endurance. “And if you get hungry during the ordeal, you just deal with it,” Andy continues. Cuba is probably the only country in the world where you have to ask at a café if they have coffee. “And this one had nothing: no bread, no pastries, no cold water. Yet up high on the wall, a sign declared: ‘Homeland or death! We shall overcome!’—as if that were the answer to anyone complaining about having to travel on an empty stomach,” Andy says with irony.
The counter, decorated with posters of hot dogs and hamburgers rendered in idealized images, seems like a visual satire. If the “imperialist enemy” were to see those illustrations, they might think Cubans live on fast food. But neither the slogans nor the stickers have anything to do with reality.
“They used to sell fountain soda, and one could doubt the nature of the carbonation, but now it’s just powdered drink mix. And the lack of hygiene is almost as disturbing as the slogans on the walls.”
Outside, to the right, “what used to be a restaurant that sold pizza and spaghetti is now a closed-up place that smells of wood smoke. It’s true the cockroaches were friendlier than the attendants—since they’d at least scurry by and greet you—but at least it used to be an affordable option for hungry travelers.”
“The private trucks, the only ones still daring to drive on those cracked roads, have taken on the task of connecting municipalities.” But they do so as if transporting gold. “From Sancti Spíritus to Jatibonico, the fare is between 300 and 350 pesos. And if you get the idea to go to Trinidad in the afternoon, be ready: the price can go up to 2,500 pesos per person.” For context: that’s the equivalent of many Cubans’ monthly salary, for a trip of just over an hour. “A shared car to Ciego de Ávila, meanwhile, goes for 2,000 pesos per head,” Andy says indignantly.
The bus stop is another chapter in this national tragicomedy. People sitting, standing, sleeping, awake, smoking, eating peanuts, speaking in low voices or loudly, waiting with a mix of Zen-like patience and contained despair. You feel like you’ve entered a parallel dimension where time moves more slowly… or simply stops altogether. Much is said in Cuba about “Chinese patience,” but even in that faraway country, life seems to have picked up the pace. On the Island, time conspires against everything and everyone, testing the limits of waiting every single day. Maybe the regime, so addicted to censorship, should ban watches. Because where no one can manage their own time, there’s nothing more subversive than a watch.
“The bus terminal looks like it was pulled straight from a clearance catalog of Soviet architecture. At the bus terminal, no one knows if the bus will arrive so they can get home and everyone is hungry.”
Ironically, this is an accurate description of almost every Greyhound station I’ve been to within USA (supposedly the “richest country of the world”). Sometimes Greyhound riders have up to 12 hour gaps between transfers. Cuba has embargoes forced on it which give it an excuse. But what is the USA’s excuse?
I guess if long distance bus stations are going to be crappy wherever I live, I may as well live in a country with affordable healthcare and university tuition.
Seriously, how will the situation in Cuba play out? Cuba has remained on the precipice of collapse for a generation. When and if actual collapse comes, what does it look like? Life in the Soviet Union was much better than present-day life in Cuba before it’s collapse. Life in South Africa was exponentially better when the apartheid regime threw in the towel. What needs to happen in Cuba before the refs call off the fight? It’s been estimated that 1.4 million Cubans have emigrated in the past 5 years. Most of them working age in the most productive years of their lives. Inflation in Cuba forces Cubans who can save money, do so in foreign currencies. What else needs to happen?
It’s truly sad that the Americans haven’t been able to forgive Cuban history and enable the country try to prosper or thrive economically. Unfortunately, for the Americans, the US government will always seek ‘revenge’ at any cost. That’s just one of the many reasons why America is disliked by so many people in the world.
Sounds similar to 20 years ago when we spent 4 months there. Tough everything. Feel sorry for the people.
@ Pedro Castro
The Cubans talk too much? They do nothing to better themselves? Can you explain how they might go about bettering themselves under this communist regime??
I spent a few hours with a man in Havana who went to jail for six years for speaking ‘too much.’
I am Canadian. I speak with my Cuban friends daily, almost. We would speak more often but their phones are often dead from lack of power. Boca de Camarioca has been without power for over 24hrs. The little amount of food left in their fridge has spoiled. Their morale has deteriorated, there’s no longer any tourism to support their Airbnb.
When does this get better I’ve asked? They don’t feel it will.
What used to be an island paradise of vacation, has turned into an ethical battle. I will no longer travel to the resorts while my friends in Boca and Santa Marta are starving and desperate. Varadero and the resorts should not be part of Cuba any longer. The resorts do not portray the realities of what’s truly happening in Cuba.
US sanctions have little to do with this. The regime’s inability to pay their import debts has caused Russia and Venezuela to stop sending oil. Their archaic electrical grids rely on oil to function.
Cuba needs help but it would seem as though nobody is interested in helping any longer.
Sick and tired of hearing people moaning about the situation in Cuba. Whether it’s by the ‘gusanos’ venting their anger in front of Cafe Versailles in Calle 8, Miami or Cubans in Cuba, it’s been the same rhetoric since 1959.
Now is the opportunity for Cubans in Cuba to have the mettle to take to the streets all at the same time, in SILENT protest.
The current actors including Raul Castro and the rest of the regime would mount themselves on pre loaded planes and flee to Venezuela. Job done? No because Cubans talk too much and don’t actuality do anything to better themselves and say NO to the corrupt regime.