13th Street of Holguín, Cuba
HAVANA TIMES – Before leaving for the United States through the lottery in 1998, my father lived on 13th Street in the San Fiel neighborhood, right behind the interprovincial bus terminal. It was a street like many others in most of Holguín’s neighborhoods. Dirt, without sewage, with its potholes and stones, logically warning you to be very careful while walking. A generally quiet place. That’s how I perceived it every weekend when I went to visit them.
Many years have passed since then, and the transformation has been, in my view, radical. It remains dirt, without sewage pipes, with its potholes and stones. However, it has become the most important commercial artery in Holguín. There was no possible forecast regarding this topic because it is by no means a main street for anyone.
And although we already know: “everything is subject to change,” this remains surprising. I speculate that it started with one person put some items for sale on a small table in front of their door. Nothing to be astonished about. This happens in many places throughout the territory since licenses were allowed to sell from homes. In cases where there is no license, it is not considered one of the worst offenses in the country since 2012.
Another neighbor set up another small table, I continue speculating, with other items. Someone more ambitious decided to convert their living room into a clothing store. The latter is no longer mere speculation because they are indeed there. The truth is that it has gradually transformed into the most important buying and selling space in the city. We are talking about a sea of people going back and forth. In all the houses, all the garages, all the hallways, all the corners of 13th Street, something is for sale.
Its proportion is such that when you ask about something you need to someone in this city, the response from the person is most likely: “Have you been to 13th Street. You will surely find it there.” And reality shows you that they are right. Pushing through the human mass that seeks and sells, you can hear the cries of everything or almost everything. Like that alley called Francisquito in Camagüey that impressed everyone who visited it.
I went with a friend to 13th Street not long ago. One of these cheerful cries I heard while walking through said: “Come here, there’s everything!” My friend jokingly replied: “What if there isn’t?” The girl shouting the cry responded in the same tone: “We’ll look for it.” We had to laugh. That experience, those reactions, those responses so different from those we know in state-run shopping centers! It’s something else; it’s another thing.
We are talking about a phenomenon that the Socialist State of Cuba surely wanted to avoid at all costs but has formed in an undeniable and astonishing way. Against all controls. It would be impossible to recognize that street from years ago. What should have been changed by the government, such as paving it and installing sewage, for example, has not been done. But what has been accomplished by the people is incredible.
It shows that despite everything, the country is transforming. Unstoppably. Like any society, with its virtues and flaws. With its dreams, aspirations, and past. But it continues day by day betting on its survival, not as they were told it should be done, but in the way that life allows it. Let us not view everything with disdain. Hope persists.
A good news story from Cuba. Amongst all the hard aches Cuba has been suffering to date, Lien Estrada sees a glimmer of hope from the ashes of despair. It’s rather ironic that the trickle of hope emanates not from anything that the totalitarian communist government has done, but from ordinary Cubans exercising capitalism at its best.
From a poverty stricken neighborhood with municipal infrastructure neglected year after year after year, Lien Estrada explains candidly: “What should have been changed by the government, such as paving it and installing sewage, for example, has not been done. “ That sentiment can be extrapolated to the entire country. Neglect knows no boundaries on the island.
What has been done, though, by the enterprising entrepreneurial Cuban residents of 13th Street is to gradually transform the Street, as Lien states: “ . . . into the most important buying and selling space in the city.” And to boot, much to the chagrin of the totalitarian government rulers.
Again, Lien knows full well the attitude the totalitarian government has towards successful enterprising entrepreneurs when he writes: “We are talking about a phenomenon that the Socialist State of Cuba surely wanted to avoid at all costs.”
To the totalitarian rulers capitalism rising from poverty stricken neighborhoods leading to economic success for those entrepreneurs willing to take a risk is antithetical. To them a market economy is not prescribed in their ideological way to socialist nirvana. Capitalism is to be avoided at all costs yet, again, ironically, it is the only way economic progress is being made in a hopeless economic situation.
However, “Hope persists”, as Lien Estrada concludes. One entrepreneur at a time, in one neighborhood at a time , in one municipality at a time, Adam Smith’s invisible capitalist hand may be the catalyst that overthrows the entrenched ideologues.