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Three Steps Back: Reinventing Cuba
| Article
# : |
20186 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1992 |
3,906 Words |
| Author
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Marie D. Price and photographed by Rob Crandall
Marie D. Price is assistant professor of Latin American
studies in the Geography Department at George Washington
University. Her husband, Rob Crandall, is a free-lance
photojournalist. They have worked and traveled extensively in
Latin America, and this story was researched in part during a
visit to Cuba in April 1990. |
Stalled beside a cane field, an old Chevy refuses to start. Its driver peers anxiously underneath its mammoth hood at an engine that is a monument to ingenuity and geopolitics. Decades of improvised repairs have melded parts from Berlin, Detroit, and Moscow. Out of necessity this vehicle and other cars like it have been refitted again and again. The end result is a customized Cuban creation--big on style but inefficient, unpredictable, and tied to the past.
Until recently, the Malecon, the busy seaside street that is Havana's most famous boulevard, rumbled with the steady flow of 1950s American Chevys, boxy Soviet-made Ladas, and Hungarian buses. But now the thoroughfare is virtually empty. The once-congested back streets of the city are also quiet, lined with infrequently used parked cars. In fact, apart from the occasional cyclist, tourist taxi, or government vehicle, the nation's highways are rarely used. During a trip to Cuba in the spring of 1990, we traveled along the main four-lane highway that links Havana and Santiago. At most, we encountered perhaps one other car every half hour. Meanwhile animals leisurely grazed along the roadside and horsemen crisscrossed the highway without hesitation.
While owning a car is relatively easy in Cuba, keeping it running is a struggle. Spare parts are continually scarce, and gasoline is strictly rationed. (In April 1991 private owners were allotted about twelve gallons a month, and those allotments have since dropped. Available black-market fuel costs eight times the official rate.) These problems have effectively cleared most private vehicles from Cuba's roads and streets. "Look around," said one taxi driver. "The only taxis you see are for tourists; private ones no longer exist."
Cubans have no choice. The geopolitical shifts of the last three years have forced the island into reinvention. Today, Cuba's economic patron of the past, the Soviet Union, is no more. Imports of grain and oil have declined drastically and may soon disappear. Castro is warning his countrymen of an approaching "zero option": no fuel or food from Russia. Strapped for cash, unable to supply the country's energy needs, the Cuban government recommends and forces energy conservation by regulating consumption. And as the crisis grows, Cubans are being asked to ride bikes, pick fruit, endure blackouts, and wait . . . wait for everything.
The utility of bicycles
Without the use of private vehicles, waiting has become
...
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