CUBAN TRANSITIONS

While exploring the Hotel Rancho Luna Jennifer and I stumble upon a hotel store that was hidden off to the side in a different building. As we went around the store I notice the coconut crackers that I had been wanting for so long but having no CUC’s on us we informed the nice husband and wife that we would return in a couple of minutes. On our way back to the store it started raining but determined to get coconut cookies Jennifer and I brave the elements and soaking wet begged the store employees to let us in. To break the awkwardness of us walking around the store, me barefoot since it was too slippery to walk with my flip flops, I mentioned how the storm reminded me of home and brought great childhood memories of late afternoon storms. Since they seem genuinely interested in me talking, I, with a bit of hesitation but realizing that the storm outside wasn’t going anywhere soon, began to ask questions about the economic and social changes that Raul had been implementing ever since becoming the leader of the island. Like most Cubans, the store employee believed that the changes were not happening fast enough or that they weren’t impacting him. I asked about the issue of private ownership and brought up the idea of him ever owning the store he and his wife ran, “Ya quisiera yo” was his response and like many things in Cuba, it caught me off guard and I realized that things on this island were far more complex than people like to describe them.

The idea of private ownership to me is capitalistic and thus anti-revolution. I struggle to understand how someone who stated was in suppor of the revolution could express such a great desire to open his own business and run it so that he gets the profits. Interestingly enough this guy was not the first Cuban that I encountered that expressed an interest in private ownership of stores and businesses. One of the first of many controversial statements that Yoel made was that perhaps when we came back to Cuba in the future we would travel using “Yoel’s tour agency”. This one quote of Yoel, along with the fact that if President he would kill all political prisoners, was one that I wrote down and continued to think about in the upcoming days. In another instance, speaking to my favorite book store owner on Obispo street, we talked about the changes to the ownership of cars and I questioned how his small shop fit into the changes that were being implemented. Fernando pays the government a fee for having his store and in many ways it is still a government space. He acknowledges a desire to be able to have his own space but is thankful for the opportunity that he has to sell his son’s paintings.

Cuba has undergone many changes in the last twenty years, among them the private ownership of cars and some restaurants, but from my conversations with many Cubans it seems as if their is a strong desire for more reforms and for the private ownership of  businesses. While I am in no way an economic expert it seems as if Cubans are moving towards embracing concepts that are capitalistic in nature. In hindsight, I realize I never directly asked any of these individuals if private ownership could still fit in with the socialist revolutionary model. However, as I sit here today I have come to the conclusion, who am I to question the authenticity of the future of the Cuban revolution?