We awake to crashing dumpsters being emptied by a loud truck in the middle of the night, and just before dawn and again shortly after, a rooster crowing two lots away at a small farm plot with no visible dwelling - right here in the city. Although the adults had none, Adele woke with several mosquito bites - we left the unscreened window shutters open during the night for fresh air. We will close them from now on. Mosquitos carrying dengue fever, a potential threat especially in the daytime during the rainy season are more likely found near remote beaches, but we're unconfident and inexperienced, so it still elicits some concern.
We're in an area of Havana called Miramar, a nice section of the city but still significantly in physical decay. Our house is directly across from the ocean. The majority of the waterfront structures along Avenida Primera, the oceanfront street, look abandoned and derelict. Each waterfront lot in this neighborhood, situated like Long Island is to New York City, would be worth millions in the USA and would be maintained to very high standards. Everywhere we look, Cuba is disintegrating, buildings, roads, sidewalks, and vehicles are in decay, but yet one can see timeless beauty hiding everywhere in architecture, landscapes, structure and organization, and of course vehicles.
After breakfast, I return to the lower level kitchen area where I ask for the return of our passports. To the best of my spanish interpretation, I conclude that our lady of the house still can't reach the proper department charged with recording our information and she needs to keep them longer. It takes some persuasion, but I manage to convince her to give the real ones back in exchange for photocopies that we made with this kind of situation in mind. Now, with passports in hand, we rode with our friend toward his office in downtown Havana, past dozens of embassies on Calle Cinco or 5ta. Many embassies and consulates, like the Laotian, Pakistani, Yemeni, and other third-world countries are staffed by only one or two persons and rarely visited. Many, perhaps the majority are in or very near our neighborhood, within walking distance - no photos allowed. The ever-present embassy guards are very cold and official looking and don't look you in the eye, but rather sort of gaze right through or just slightly past you. I never once saw one smile.
We drove through a tunnel under a river and onto the Malecon, the wide and rather high-speed boulevard and walkway along the oceanfront, downtown to the Swiss Embassy in the district of Vedado, which houses the US Interests Section. Cuba provides embassies to any country who wants one excepting the USA of course. It is said that the Castros desire as many embassies as possible located and clearly visible here, to legitimize the existence of their republic. USA of course has no embassy due to our over half century of political conflicts.
There is a heavy presence of SEPSA police guarding the zone around the embassy building. Hired by the Swiss embassy, they are actually employees of the Cuban government, a special police force expressly for embassies. Very nearby is the Cuban refugee center - Cuba is the only place in the world where its citizens can officially be refugees within their own country. It's fairly early in the morning and there is already a long line outside waiting to enter the building. We are deposited on a street corner across from the embassy - we aren't allowed to ride through security and our friend tells us not to move anywhere. He eventually returns to escort us in. The guards know him, allowing us all to pass through without questioning. I feel like we could be in a documentary spy film.
Once inside the embassy lobby, near the back wall, we are greeted by a life size freestanding cardboard figure of smiling president Obama, apparently used in photos. We are told that they also have a figure of Mit Romney, now in storage, ready to oversee the lobby just in case he had won the election. We surrender our passports and get badges and all is well. A padded elevator takes us several floors up to the US section. Our friend is the American Citizen Services Chief. He works in the US Interests Section (USINT) of the Department of State. He deals daily with lost passports, injuries, deaths, Americans arrested and jailed or imprisoned and other such troubles involving American citizens. While we were there he was handling a stabbing, someone who was decapitated in an auto accident, and another death as well as other less consequential incidents involving Americans. He and his staff had to coordinate everything for the families, release and transport of bodies, medical evacuations, etc.
All Americans receive help if they ask for it and are treated the same regardless of whether they enter Cuba legally or illegally. Also, he visits Americans in Cuban prisons and is in charge of the staff processing Cuban rafters who try to cross the Straits of Florida but are caught. He makes sure they are not harassed by the Cuban government. He is one of only a few people allowed on the coast guard cutters when they arrive in port. Upon returning, he explains to the detainees their rights, what to expect, and that he or his staff will visit them within a month to confirm that the government is not harassing them in any way - an agreement in force between USA and Cuba. The rafts are described to us as typically crude crafts made of rough lumber, styrofoam, and other available, usually recycled materials, usually powered by a small engine. He says when you see the rafts, you have a hard time believing they'd actually brave the ocean in such vessels. Most don't make it across the Straits of Florida - they're often happy to be rescued with no food or water left, and/or a disintegrating raft.
The US State Dept. occupies 2 floors of the complex, employing 51 Americans - the maximum Cuba will allow us. We were given a tour, visiting our friend's section, the section where Cubans apply for political and religious asylum status, and also a few other places including the commissary. It was surprisingly emotional for me, witnessing some of the interviews occurring as we walked by, learning what everyone goes through to get an American Visa for emigration. It takes months, three interviews, and is not easy to prove one is deserving of political or religious asylum. Cuba plans soon to reduce or eliminate the restrictions on how many of its citizens are allowed to receive American Visas and leave Cuba, now agreed at around 20,000 annually. It is an apparent civil and friendly gesture, but Cuba won't likely allow for more US State Dept. staff which are already worked to their limit, so the emigration numbers may not actually increase at all. The lack of improvement will probably be blamed on the US State Dept. I don't infer that the USA is without fault, I'm just reiterating what I gleaned while here.
Just outside the Embassy to the east, in what is now the Jose Marti Anti-Imperialist Plaza, there is a massive and imposing forest of flagpoles, known as The "Mount of Flags". They were placed there in 2006 by Fidel's orders and are supposed to carry black flags with single white stars. The poles are meant to obscure the US Interests Section's fifth floor electronic billboard, which was used to communicate with Cuban citizens, in a not very Castro-friendly way of course. The billboard was turned off in 2009, because it was determined to no longer be effective. The 138 flagpoles are 20 meters high, about six stories, ridiculously close together and staggered in several rows - they have replaced a parking lot used by the US Interest Section staff, who now have to park their cars scattered all about the nearby streets. The flagpoles also serve to obscure the view of the US Interests Section staff. We never saw any flags on the poles. I read that many are corroded and no longer work. It would take someone a day or more to raise a flag on every one. On a side note, the US flag may not be displayed in Cuba. The political head butting between our two governments reminds me of a couple of 11 year-olds fighting over who gets to be boss of the neighborhood tree house.
We gave up our badges and walked out past the imposing guards and set out on our own, taxiing to Havana Vieja (old Havana). In Havana, there are two predominant categories of taxis, CubaTaxis and local (private) taxis. The CubaTaxis are typically "relatively" newer (1990s) Russian Ladas or Skodas, occasionally newer Japanese cars. CubaTaxi is a conglomeration of many companies working under one, probably controlled by the government. The local private taxis are either old American cars 1959 or older, or Ladas or Skodas usually from the 60s and 70s, and occasionally Volgas or Moskvich 1500s. Cubans have recently been allowed to ferry tourists in their private taxis, which before was restricted to Cuban residents. A small minority of newer CubaTaxies are the only ones with seat belts in the rear - patience to locate one is essential if you require that amenity.
In Havana Veija we walked, ate, and relaxed. Everywhere we looked were beautiful old buildings, plazas, narrow cobblestone streets and other appealing eye candy. This is an area frequented by tourists therefore better kept than many other areas of the city. There is some sporadic restoration work going on, but very slowly and seemingly exclusively on parts of buildings that desperately need it, in lieu of a thorough and complete job. We had mojitos and lunch at Santo Angel restaurant in Plaza Vieja, Jake bought a sombrero for sun protection, and I thought about buying a baseball cap for a souvenir, but decided against it thinking that it may not fall within the bounds of items we are allowed to bring back to the US, limited to only art and literature - on hindsight I should have risked it.
Being in a tourist area, I began taking lots of photographs but still cautiously. There are SO many things we are told not to photograph, and in many areas with official buildings, we are not allowed even to stop walking or linger - autos are required to maintain minimum speeds while passing many of these locations and taxis will not stop anywhere on those streets. Sometimes we have to walk a long way, or move to a more remote street just to hail a taxi. At night, you may not see a taxi on those more remote, quiet streets.
These restricted places and people seem to be pervasive, so, along with occasional taxi issues, I am also somewhat hesitant if not afraid to take out my camera much of the time. Others in the family often caution me as I pull out my camera. Many times I wanted to photograph old cars and interesting sights and architecture, but there would be a police or a SEPSA guard or official building or official vehicle in the frame so . . . no photo. It would be nice to have a hidden camera in my hat or somewhere, but if I got caught with that, I'd be thrown in jail for espionage, possibly with a long sentence. Our friend has been visiting a US man, Alan Gross in a Cuban prison hospital. Gross was arrested for setting up internet in a Jewish community - he was contracting for the US Agency for International Development. He has served three years of a 15 year sentence - charged with "Acts against the Independence or Territorial Integrity of the Cuban State". The day after we returned to USA, a review of the four-hour State Department assisted interview aired on National Public Radio. The Cuban government only allows the political prisoners one visit per month, and with little or no warning they say, "your day is here", so the embassy staff have to drop everything and prepare for the trip, sometimes to remote prisons.
Leaving Havana Vieja, we walk along the eastern section of the Malecon which runs northwest along the Havana Bay Harbor then turns west for several kilometers, exposed to the open ocean. Across the harbor at a high point at the entrance is a huge fortress, Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro or Morro Castle, guarding the access to the bay. It was built in 1589 while Cuba was under the control of Spain. Apparently you can rent it for a very reasonable price, a few hundred CUCs, for weddings and the like, of course most Cubans can't even dream of affording such luxury. Some days, the seas break over the top of the Malecon wall, making walking and even driving here impossible, but not today.
There are lots of beautiful old American built taxis from the 1930s through the 50s here because Havana Vieja and several other tourist attractions are nearby. We struggle every day with taxis - Liz needs a seat belt (cinturado de seguridad atras) in the back so she can buckle in and safely hold Adele. But any taxi driver without that amenity will claim that there are no taxis in Cuba with seat belts in the back. They look dumbfounded when we tell them that we have managed to find one every time we travel with Liz, although we don't expand on the patience it requires. Strange unidentifiable short grass grows in small lumpy plots in a few tiny parks along the Malecon - almost looks like very uneven golf course greens.
