We met in Alameda de Paula, in Old Havana, and decided to go to the shops of San José, which today has a large craft market for tourism and the company of actor and theater director Osvaldo Doimeadiós is based in the highlands A successful season of performances of El Baile has just ended, a work by the great Cuban playwright Abelardo Estorino, which speaks about emigration and divided families, loneliness and also the precariousness (material and spiritual) in which the living remain.
These old sugar warehouses, built on the shore of the bay in the mid-19th century, offer one of the most beautiful views of the docks and are part of Cuban history. Lázaro explains that the island was then one of the most important sugar producers in the world and that when capitalist technological development and the increase in international production made it necessary to compete with lower prices in the market, docks, warehouses and railways were unified around time and to save labor in transporting and loading sugar, and then these imposing buildings were built that changed the image of the port of Havana.
Facade of the San José Sugar warehouses converted into a handicraft sales center, on the 21st in Havana Yander Zamora
Located along Calle Desamparados near the Church of San Francisco de Paula, the shops of San José, after their restoration, now house two or three hundred craft stalls that small groups of tourists browse in this morning. Lázaro talks to a Spaniard who is buying souvenirs adorned with the Cuban flag; He tells him what those gigantic deposits looked like 150 years ago, with which the Port of Havana increased its influence on the country’s economy, since it received large quantities of sugar directly from the railways and from cabotage ships.
“Hey, what kind of tooth are you giving him,” I tell Lázaro before taking his arm and leading him to a nearby cafe. The topic of harvest and the debacle of sugar production make him hot. He asks for a coffee but they add rum and it turns into a carajillo and then the mill gives it to me.
“In 1894, a year before the Third War of Independence, Cuba was producing almost a million tons of sugar. In 1959, 156 sugar mills were grinding and producing 5.6 million tons. In the 1980s, Cuba managed to produce an average of eight million tons a year, but this year it won’t even reach 400,000 tons, it’s a national disaster.” Remember that last year’s harvest already broke all negative records, as the island was only able to produce 480,000 tons of sugar, its worst result in a century and a half.
Farmers weed a sugar cane field in Madruga (Cuba) in April 2021. Ramon Espinosa (AP)
Fidel Castro’s dismantling of the sugar industry began in 2002 with the aim of making the sector more efficient again. To this end, more than half of the mills then in operation (156), directly employing half a million people, were closed and resources concentrated on 70 to carry out smaller but more productive harvests. “The experience was a failure: tens of thousands of people lost their jobs, most factories disappeared and production collapsed. Last year they only ground 36 plants and this one, 23″ my partner explains. “The forecast for the current 2022-2023 crop was to produce 400,000 tons, which is hardly enough to guarantee national consumption, but even that will not be met,” he says, pulling out a Monday edition of the Granma newspaper.
The official organ of the Cuban Communists interviews Ángel Luis Ríos, director of the state group Azcuba, who admits that at the moment a “deficit of 95,000 tons is reported, contrary to forecasts”. The official cites among the reasons for the new debacle the “financial difficulties” to ensure the necessary inputs, breakages and breakdowns, as well as the lack of fuel and spare parts to support the means of transport and the cutting of sugar cane (wheels and batteries, among others). to ensure. in addition to the known effects of the US embargo. “The most interesting thing is this,” he says, and then read the following statements from Ríos to Granma: “The problems aren’t just related to financial difficulties and parts. Like other sectors of the economy, the sugar industry suffers from understaffing for various reasons, mainly the aging of the workforce and the impact of migration. The current economic situation in the country, which is characterized by inflation, also has an influence. For example, a mill’s production problems prevent workers from receiving decent wages, and many leave.”
The handicrafts and souvenirs market in the old sugar warehouse in the port of Havana on Tuesday.Yander Zamora
It’s Lazarus’ turn. He assures that this month in his neighborhood they “just gave a pound of sugar for the food book” when the prescribed amount is four per person. “In the bodega, at subsidized prices, a pound costs eight Cuban pesos, but since there is no sugar anywhere, people have to buy it on the black market for 100 or 150 pesos. Introduce yourself! A pension in Cuba is between 1,000 and 1,500 pesos!” Lázaro gets it and gets philosophical, quoting the famous phrase of a Creole landowner who said: “Without sugar there is no land”. “Well, we’ve reached the point where there is no sugar in the land of sugar.”
When I see that he wants to step in and give him a telele, I invite him to a snack in the beautiful square of San Francisco where the Café del Oriente operates. We ordered a sandwich but not for that. He is very angry and starts spitting out data: “In 2021, 35.2% of total government investment went to building hotels and only 0.4% to the sugar sector. Investment in health was only 1.7%. This ratio has been maintained for years, so it is not surprising that there is no sugar and infant mortality has almost doubled and life expectancy has fallen by 7 years in the last decade [de 78,5, a 71,25, según cálculos del demógrafo cubano Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos]“. “Eat your sandwich,” I tell him. But he keeps going. He gets stuck on a number and goes to Google on his phone, but mobile data isn’t working. It explodes: “Above all, we have a banana Internet.” Connectivity has always been poor in Cuba, but lately it has been worse than ever. That same week, the monopoly phone company in Cuba, Etecsa, reported a drop in communications on many numbers and recommended users “if they are having trouble navigating or making calls, turn on and off airplane mode to re-register on the network.”
“Do you know what they call ETECSA on the street?” Lázaro asks the waiter, and I know that next is one of his jokes. “Quite simply: we try to communicate without haste,” he blurts out, and the employee almost drops the tray laughing. He saves her and replies to the shot: “Damn, don’t tell me buddy, I’ve put the phone on airplane mode so many times it’s already asking for my passport number.” To degrease, I tell both of them not to complain that Cubans didn’t have mobile data until 2018 and that there were wifi zones only in a few parks and public places where people had to walk to connect and on to sit on the curbs.
I see Lázaro smiling, he starts to relax. “It’s true,” he says, recounting the anecdote of the Kardashians’ trip to Cuba in May 2016, following Obama’s historic visit. Back then, everyone who played the Rolling Stones came to Havana and big celebrities from the United States came in a stream, from Madonna to Beyoncé, and also the famous Kardashian sisters. Kim, Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian traveled to the Cuban capital to do their reality show from there. They drove along the promenade in a convertible, ate in a Palate, visited the Rum Museum and took photos everywhere, but almost all the time they were in a bad mood due to the lousy quality of the internet. “A friend who was a friend of the driver who drove them told me they were very upset because they couldn’t send their files over Snapchat [una aplicación móvil de mensajería instantánea que entonces permitía tomar una foto o video y enviárselo a tu lista de contactos]“. Lázaro says: “Since these people make a living by uploading their stories to the networks, they were frustrated and preferred to return, they fled. They weren’t prepared for Cuba.”
Kim Kardashian with then-husband Kanye West, sister Kourtney and daughter North in a convertible in Havana in 2016. Desmond Boylan (AP)
Finally, he concedes that we’re better off now than we were before (“although the internet is still bananas”), noting that “to be fair, we have to admit that Americans are screwing up everything they can” , the US Department of Justice said in December The Judiciary recommended that the Federal Communications Commission deny a permit to install the first undersea telecommunications cable that would connect the United States to Cuba — though it’s still true that here if they If you feel like it, or there is a political protest like on July 11th, the government blocks the internet all over the island and it stays that way”.
I tell him not to start again and he gives me a sideways glance. “Okay, I’ll shut up, but then borrow me a little sugar book until the errands get back to the store.” Oh, Lázaro, you don’t change!
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