A Babalawo Doctor and Currency Trader in Havana
HAVANA TIMES – My European colleague and I were walking through Centro Habana when he remembered he needed to exchange foreign currency for Cuban pesos. We were in a relatively “well-lit” area near the University. To avoid the frequent scams, there was no one better than someone trustworthy, an old acquaintance. He contacted him by cell phone, we walked a few blocks and went up to his apartment.
While the host offered us water to ease the summer heat, I noticed that in front of the sofa on the floor there was a mat, along with various magical-religious artifacts.
The mats are what babalawos use to sit on, and the person seeking their consultation sits on the floor in front of the oracle specialist. Babalawos are the priests of Ifá, the oracle of Orula, one of the Orishas (ancient heroes turned deities) in the pantheon of the people now known as Yoruba. Ifá is one of the main branches of the Yoruba religion (the other is Regla Ocha, also called Santería here). This religion came to Cuba—especially its western region—in the 19th century, brought by enslaved people from present-day Nigeria, and today it is practiced by people of diverse colors and origins.
For their services, the babalawo must charge a fee called derechos (“rights”).
Professional Pride
While my colleague and the babalawo-currency trader carried out their financial operations (at an exchange rate three times better than the State’s), I took the time to observe the well-kept apartment.
Right in front of the entrance door, framed and under glass, there was a university diploma in Medicine, issued in 2013.
I politely asked the babalawo-currency trader—let’s call him Pedro—and he confirmed that he was indeed also a doctor: a very respected profession in Cuba. He had worked as a general practitioner, the initial stage of medical practice. He said he quit because “today it doesn’t solve anything.”
In Cuba, displaying university diplomas on the walls of one’s home is typical of those who were the first in their family to graduate from higher education.
There are many babalawos who are also doctors (or vice versa). They tend not to mix the practice of both occupations. It is common here for a babalawo to send someone seeking advice to visit a doctor if they have health problems. Generally, there is no conflict between the two bodies of knowledge.
In addition to practicing the Ifá oracle and doing currency exchange, Pedro also works for several digital money transfer platforms to Cuba, which are booming today, as he told me: he rides his electric motorcycle to meet people who hire his services, usually moving considerable sums each time.
Fewer Options for Doctors
Many doctors and dentists in Cuba have chosen to leave the profession or the country, seeking better opportunities, especially if they haven’t obtained state missions abroad, an option for material and professional advancement.
Obtaining a medical specialty requires intense studies, but specialist doctors are often regulated: their private trips abroad are restricted by the State.
It is an option for “prosperity” they see disappearing.
The Babalawo and His Trade
For each question presented before the Ifá oracle, the babalawo throws an artifact called Opkuele (or chain), which yields a representation of 8 binary digits. Each sequence, among 256 possible ones, refers to ancestral Yoruba stories that the babalawo knows how to interpret in relation to the question. He is also responsible for giving each new initiate in the religion their Itá, a personal ethical code.
Unlike other Yoruba priesthoods (Ocha), babalawos cannot enter trance or mediumship. It is a rational practice: it requires much traditional memory and experience. The training of a babalawo should take years of dedicated study, although since the 1990s, expedited initiation practices have become common.
Since the 1990s, some assume that being a babalawo has become a good business: “godfather” babalawos seek to initiate wealthy “godchildren” inside and outside Cuba, creating transnational networks of influence and financing, mediated by fees and gifts of loyalty and reciprocity. Usually, the more godchildren and the greater their economic power, the better off the babalawo lives, and the higher his religious and community status rises.
Some “old school” babalawos criticize this situation: they see it as a distortion of the original purpose of their mission. In Africa, and in Cuba before 1959, the babalawo was presumed to be above all a wise man. The oracular system offers information that must be interpreted, just like clinical analyses. The babalawo is like a general practitioner. And what—according to experts—characterizes a good babalawo is his “problem-solving power.” Almost like a good surgeon.
Some babalawos try to engage in dialogue with secular science. The endearing Tato Quiñones sought bridges between Ifá and Freud’s psychoanalysis; I never knew why not Jung’s, which I consider closer to Ifá’s symbolism.
Currency Exchanges and Transfers: Tolerated but Dangerous Trades
The exchange of foreign currencies for Cuban pesos (and vice versa) is an increasingly sought-after occupation in Cuba, though technically illegal and punishable. Official exchange rates are abusive: practically a scam, according to most people.
Private networks for transfers from abroad have grown due to this situation, and the expansion of the Internet; also because of rampant inflation and rising emigration from Cuba.
Clients—locals, tourists, and expats—want to avoid being scammed. And vice versa: a job like Pedro’s requires a lot of street smarts; he could also be robbed or assaulted.
The government “lets slide” these off-the-books exchanges and transfers to keep selling in its retail stores.
Precariousness and multi-jobbing are spreading in Cuba. Freelancing in contemporary societies is almost always self-exploitation. Cuba would be an extreme showcase of that point.
Although Pedro’s case is a success story: he has foreign contacts, his own means of transportation, organizes his own work, and has money. Not all his colleagues’ stories are like that.