The Riviera is quite a site; the architecture doesn’t resemble anything one sees in the modern day U.S. ; It’s sort of like a multi-winged jet plane turned-on-its-side. My companion - character explained that it was the brain-child and baby of Myer Lansky (I started remembering who HE was later that evening)... He was the only gangster that “they” never got. By the time he was brought to trial he was 92 years old and the jury felt sorry for him and let him go. He’d built the Riviera after he was sure that his new Mafiosi empire was surviving and prospering. After his brainchild, Las Vegas, was off the ground, but faltering, he’d convinced the mob to move to Cuba where Batista had promised him a carte blanche operation. All I know about it I saw in the movies...

The lobby ceiling seems to be 100 feet minimum with crystal chandeliers the size of Cadillac’s adorning. Just inside the main entrance is the door to the “Palacio de Salsa”, next to the Copacabana, probably Havana’s most famous club and show. I never went; $25 seemed steep, though I really don’t know WHAT I missed.

That first night in the suite, after a quicky visit to the Plaza de Armas and a couple of Mayabes, my room-mate, Frank, handed me one of the Cohiba’s he’d bought on the street and lit up the other. I took 2 or 3 tokes, got dizzy as hell, and fell asleep for the rest of that evening. I never dared to puff on a Cuban cigar again, but wondered how someone could smoke without inhaling (almost all vices remind me of Bill Clinton anymore...). Frank spent most of the evening in the Palacio, woke me up when he stumbled in at 4AM, and then proceed to watch TV at a high volume til I screamed for mercy at 6.

I woke up, thick-headedly, at about 9 and we went out searching for an orange juice squeezing stand. We might as well have been looking for purple elephants. There were no businesses open, certainly none with anything to sell, food or drink wise, and surprised and “starving” we returned to the hotel dining room for the $7.00 breakfast of canned juice and cold scrambled eggs. “This is the “upper-class tourist meal-method?”, we thought. We wondered what the Cuban people were eating that morning... 

I felt quite uncomfortable with my rich, party-hound friend, Frank, and even more with the fancy hotel, so, I finally called my special contact, Carlos’ sister, Aida. She naturally was delighted to hear about her long-lost brother, and sent her husband Raul over to get me right away. We talked the day away, and, by 5 that afternoon, I was not only a bonfide member of the family, but was established in my own, very nice apartment in Chinatown.  This was really the place to be; within 3 blocks of my split-level pad, with TV and all the furnishings, including kitchen-ware and orange-juicer, were at least a dozen of the best restaurants in Havana. The Chinese, as usual, were getting along fine with what was available (also, probably since their families are SO tight, this seemed to be 4 times as well as OTHER Cubans). Their neighborhood market had 10 times what other ones did. I never found out for sure, why the disparity, but was thinking of the Chinese in Africa and Indonesia, who were regularly slaughtered by the ethnic majorities there because of THEIR great successes... 

I stuffed myself later that night on the best sweet-sour pork I’d ever had. 

The next afternoon found me seated with a “Mayabe” at Manzano de Gomez, one of the only outside beer gardens in downtown Havana. A lovely woman walked by, slowly, and asked me the time. I told her,“4:15”, and tried to think of something, lacking inanity, to say back to her. She seemed to be going to pass right on, but hesitated long enough for me to ask if she would care “... to sit down for a moment?” She seemed not to be offended, and did indeed sit. I was gratified; this was the first time I’d successfully “flirted” in years. Her name was Yuleimis, and told me she taught kindergarten at a nearby school and that she was off that afternoon and was looking for her cousin to accompany her to a movie. To make a short story shorter, we talked away an hour and a half, downed a couple of soft drinks apiece, and then I asked her to dinner in Chinatown, which was only a four 4 blocks walk away.

After a pretty nice meal of noodles and fish, as I was wondering if she would consent to date me in the future, Yuleimis broke the “spell” for me when she asked if I wanted her to accompany me to my apartment... and mentioned a small amount of money in the same breath; I hadn’t realized til that moment that she was a hooker.!  Later that evening my friends explained the style of life that was becoming popular in contemporary Cuba, and that those in the trade were known as Jinateras, or “cow-girls”. I didn’t feel very good... 

After a few days in Havana I still hadn’t figured out what Carlos had been talking about; all his arguments concerning the repression of his people and their hardships remained outside of my tourist vision. What impressed me most about this country was what one DIDN’T see.
Remember I had come directly from the “third world”, in this case Honduras, one of the most economically depressed regions in North America, and was inured to the sight of appalling events. These were some of the things I gratefully never saw in Cuba: Infants, blind children, and paraplegics, begging on ALL city streets by day and sleeping under pieces of cardboard at night (side by side with HUNDREDS of non-cripples); clouds of petroleum-gas pollution blocking vision and burning your eyes (I KNOW that many of these things are a direct result of NOT having a modern culture, BUT I appreciated them never-the-less), trash EVERYWHERE on the streets and parks, rampant arrogance, in the form of incredibly rich people invariably pushing their way to the front of the “line”, with exceptionally meek folk, seemingly everywhere, with their weak hands held out for help, Machine guns every 10 feet (minimum), which goes along hand-in-hand with major robberies of banks and stores (hourly, some days), NOISE, crying of the hawkers, crashing of the jack-hammers, trucks all over without mufflers, and the explosions accompanying the robberies...

So, I was having a ball my first few days in Havana, and anxious to go back and tell Carlos I’d won the debate; this was, and not for the first time in MY life... premature! I don’t know about other people but, when I travel I seem to carry my impressions with me. What I mean is that for the first few days in a new place I’m not really “all there”. For instance, when I leave the Midwest, for a week or so I avoid making any eye contact with the inhabitants because this is seen as “impolite” where I live. Many of these traits, put together, usually start annoying me after a short while since they isolate me from what is “really”, probably, going on.

This happened again, in Havana. While I was merrily enjoying Chinese restaurants, hot-rods from the 50’s, and street music, stories from the people I was meeting began to filter down through my tourist perceptions. This didn’t happen all at once; I STILL thought Carlos was a tad crazy. In fact, three days after I arrived, while watching “Carnival” from a balcony next to the “Inglaterra” hotel, I was having so much fun that I decided then and there to return to Honduras after this trip ONLY so I could tell my Cuban expat friend HOW wrong he was, and that things must have changed...

Carnival is a spectacle like which I’d never experienced. It reminded me of movies of the one in Rio de Janeiro but this was live and exceptionally powerful. Each Barrio had put together its own team of drummers and dancers, the mothers of the performers obviously devoting many days to making up unique and extravagant costumes for them. Flaming purples and sizzling pinks and shocking blues leapt and strutted before our eyes, throughout the night. I was exhausted just watching, and excused myself after only 5 hours of it, and went home to bed. I guess that must have been the last time I really thought I was in a perfect paradise...

It wasn’t that the people of Havana were telling me everything was fine and dandy; the miserable truth was, that after speaking Spanish for some 15 years, though badly, and priding myself on being able to always communicate with the locals, after several days here I still hardly understood a word anyone was saying. Certainly I wasn’t letting it ruin my vacation; I was having a fine time. But, after a 5-day period, and “letting go” to the rhythms and flow of the Cuban language, I finally realized that folks were actually speaking Spanish, after all. I also reminded myself of having the same problem years ago, in Jamaica, when I discovered that the people were speaking English!

So, to my surprise, I began hearing how the locals really felt about things. The story was literally the same everywhere I would go: “...we’re barely making it, and it’s getting much worse.” was what I was now hearing. I thought mainly about my new friends Aida and Raul. They were both teachers, she at a primary school not too far from their home, he a College chemistry professor, worked at a campus so far away that he had to rise at 4 every morning just to be able to arrive at 9AM at class!

This alone seemed unpleasant, and then REALLY made its impact when I saw the “camels”. Maybe you know, but gas and vehicles have been so scarce that the government has had to put into service a number of semi-tractor truck cabs, who pull around the city all day a series of mammoth trailers packed to the brim with city-dwellers, who seem like sardines when seen passing by, but who definitely rouse sympathy when seen standing, seemingly for hours, waiting for their color of “bus”.

Carlos made the equivalent of $18 a month, Aida $16. It seems the “camel” drivers and the butcher and the bakers fell into this similar pay spectrum. Everybody, apparently, outside of the new tourism-sector, made about the same $15-$20. When things were going well, people scraped by without getting sick, on their basic rations. When, as happened regularly, the Nation was out of something (eggs disappeared for several months last year) people hurt, and most everybody shared the experience. I don’t think I spoke with anyone for quite awhile, including my friends, who hadn’t already quit their jobs, or who were seriously thinking of it... to what(?). To just walking around... finding something to sell on the blackmarket... or just hoping to meet a tourist and guide him somewheres, or other...

Then I started to notice the police. I hadn’t at first, probably because there were so few compared to Central America. I kept looking for sub-machine guns. I didn’t see any and at first I thought the street cops didn’t even carry any. Then I looked closer and saw the small automatics, which seemed to be enough; there was apparently plenty of “respect” for the uniform (sufficient at least to account for the miniscule armament). The very first time I saw a cop he literally had me flabbergasted. He wasn’t more than 5 feet 6, and he was walking toward two black men who were, to put it mildly, giants! They also looked like they would murder someone for a centavo if they had half a chance. He got their attention when he was 15 feet away and motioned slightly with his finger. He pointed to a dark space, between 2 buildings and they moved deferentially toward the indicated zone. I “knew” the cop was dead! I’ve been to a few places and never had seen a tiny policeman disappear into the darkness with that kind of “bulk” arrayed against them... and return! But he, and they, did, after a few minutes and he completed his “lecture” by pointing down the street, where they dutifully began to stroll, nodding their heads to the officer and seemingly apologized for something or other. Apparently the law had more respect here than one would suppose.

I learned from my chats with friends that there were serious reasons for this respect, not the least of which was fear; I hadn’t thought about it before but was regularly informed about it thenceforth. In fact there were more cops than I’d thought... by a long shot. Commandocops cruising in trucks, detective-cops rolling along in new sedans, and secret police-cops were pointed out to me on a regular basis... now that I’d asked!.

So I’d started to notice things which had been passing me by before: I watched as various cops, some in uniform, would stop people on the street, apparently to ask for their I.D.’s, but I wasn’t sure. I wondered if they’d been walking too slow; or fast. If they fit some kind of “profile” that would provoke the authorities. I thought and thought about it but couldn’t come to any conclusion; I certainly couldn’t ask the uniforms themselves! My friends and acquaintances seemed reluctant to talk about ANY people in power themselves. They, almost all people I encountered, DID complain bitterly about what was happening to them. The poverty and regular hunger because of shortages bothered hell out of them, but, somehow, didn’t approach the level of rage one might expect from an immanent revolution, or evenserious protest, yet...

I’d decided that this had been an apple/orange comparison project again; these people hardly resembled those in Central America. There, 2/3ds of the population were indigenous, “Indian” peoples, having had lived under near-total repression for several centuries. They’d ALWAYS been hungry. Always they’d stood without hope of improvement in their lives. And, perhaps most importantly, they’d never had much, if any, education.

Obviously the situation here on the island was closer to the opposite: Nearly everyone was HIGHLY educated and had had in the past many varying opportunities, cultures, and comfort-levels. This probably was a significant contribution to their becoming what they are: one of the most articulate, bright, and passionate peoples THIS observer had ever had the pleasure to encounter. If they’d been of weaker character one might have imagined them to be severely depressed and/or in misery. Not so this; they exhibited daily their tremendous joy in living. Without the comforts which most of the world enjoys (TV, computers, magazines, presidential sex-scandal-entertainments, etc) they resort to music and dance, poetry and art, dialogue and personal interactions... life as we used to know it. I never decided if Carlos or myself was more “right”, but I knew I didn’t feel “sorry” for these incredible people.

This tale is nearly over, since I didn’t stay on much longer, and I really had no chance for knowing someone well enough to present their character with sufficient color. I do know that after being there a few days I began to feel that most things and events observed WERE NOT AS THEY SEEMED...

Being a doctor of Oriental Medicine I’d been looking forward to visiting some of the many Acupuncture & Herbal clinics scattered throughout Havana. “Dropping in” unannounced turned out to be another unusual experience. As you know, here in the States it usually takes weeks, if your lucky, to get an appointment with ANY sort of Therapist; well there, it seemed, that at any given hour on any day, MOST of the doctors on duty at the clinics were totally available. Immediately! I would arrive, say around 2pm, and within 5 minutes, would be walking through the facility with 3 to 7 doctors taking me on a complete guided tour! It turns out that this state of affairs is completely normal all over Cuba.

With the same reverse psychology that drove 1/3 of the American public to Alternative Medicine the Cuban People have almost unanimously rejected the Government-sponsored program of “Complementary” Medicine it put in place when our embargo began to threaten supplies of “regular” medicines. This was certainly the greatest disappointment of my visit; for a great many years I’ve worked for change in our profit-oriented, pill-pushing “Traditional” Medical establishment, and here, the entire populace has refused to reap the benefits of a Natural healing system because of their political alienation. What a drag! 

For the rest of my trip I did my best to dredge up sufficient “missionary” zeal to argue the case with any local who would listen. And they did; Cubans are not only some of the most articulate people I’ve run across but the most thoughtful. They think plenty, about everything. I guess they’d prefer decent jobs and TV but somehow I felt them lucky...

Lucky or unlucky... is that the question? I was more confused now than I HAD been before I’d even come, about what REALLY was going on here. ‘Seemed the people were as stumped as I was; on the one hand they felt held down, usually hungry, without opportunities for advancement and without the freedom of travel that most of “us” enjoy, on the other, nobody appeared over-worked or stressed out from their jobs, and in fact most didn’t even have to show up at their work, at all or ever, as far as I was told. They had no more wars to fight so no danger there. A lot of great music was available on the streets and fantastic conversation... so, be that as it may... and I doubt that it was, I remained stumped concerning the question. I just wished that Carlos could have been allowed back in the country to continue our debate.

So I finished my vacation with the original questions going unanswered, but with a new appreciation for what had never concerned me before: Can/DO good intentions pave the path to hell? And visa/versa? Has our “embargo” contributed to something “good”... or “bad”... or indifferent...? I wish I knew. I do know that one man’s impressions amount to about a hill of beans in this “new” age.

The Dutch Fokker airplane that met us on the tarmac was a surprise. Coming over, with a monster plane and hundreds of passengers was quite a contrast with this tiny propeller-driven “toy”. Most of the other 20 passengers agreed and we shared jokes about it to allay our apprehension. It was anti-climactic however; we made it... back to the “civilized” world of Cancun, with its many Mercedes’ and live jaguars pacing the walls of opulent hotels... at least HERE I could stand for an hour under a thousand gallons of hot, hot water.
...End