i´ve been in cuba. it´s made difficult to write there, but here´s something i saved until now, dated 23 jan. thankfully blogs have a reverse chronology.
I want to find 'the real havana' and punch it in its fat ugly mouth. I''ve never been so frustrated nor furious. My good friend Roberto, the only one not to have ripped me off, or shlurped some toothless whistle my way to the beat of baby, hey lady, was just arrested as he embraced an Italian friend about to get the hell out of here. Probably pertanent to mention that the police car (889, officer 26914) nearly ran us all down in the process. Guidebooks have hinted at the 'hastle' Cubanos sin identity card can recieve when seen associating with foreigners, one would think they'd make allowances for those with a valid passport. No. Handcuffed and thrown in the back of the car, aside an old man who had been similarly dragged, though he appeared to have come from his own house. What to do? Irony of ironies the road was blocked off to traffic as some sort of film set was constructed, and there I am, my camera incapable of capturing any of it. The best, try and ring his cell phone later, and not tell his mother or sister for another few hours for fear of worrying them unduely (the italian's advice, which i begrudgingly am going to take).
I've heard that between 1/3 and 1/2 of all people here are police. Their usefulness I'm unable to calculate in any logical way. The dual currency, pesos for cubans and convertibles for foreigners has resulted in streets of shop windows utterly out of reach for anyone living here. The temptation and desperation is enough to trap anyone new, and i've certainly been caught out. Perhaps the most naive, 'the milk scam', whereby a sack of skin asks you to buy milk for her hungry children, mutters something about protein, and later, one discovers on making a few 'friends', sells the milk back to the store. And when you're able to make a months wages returning ill gotten milk, why not? The inability of people to move, due to travel restrictions and poverty have created a city trapped in its own year book photos, or if you will, bright paintings of old cars. Your home town, forever. Though, it has allowed me to dish some dirt on some of the more suspicious characters of my travels here, primarily the man that helped us find cheap accomodation and persisting in aquiring boxes of unwelcome cigars for our immediate purchase. He burst into my room the other day, perving at my wallet under the auspices of telling me, as if for the first time, what a beautiful woman i am, schlup schlup. nothing on the rich description of the rape scene should i leave my drink around similarly black dudes. It's ironic that the more obvious members of this population take pains to appear as the worldly ones.
I hope Roberto's okay.
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