Saving the cow
A few days ago, quite by accident, I came across a 5 peso note. Because foreigners only use CUC we get used to thinking in dollars (USD that is – the same rate – less the exchange rate) so it was a new experience for me to have in my hand currency in which Cuban Nationals are paid, and which is probably illegal for me to use.
I was hungry. No, I felt like eating something, hunger is when you have nothing to eat. There is no hunger in Cuba, just a shortage of crops destroyed by Ike and Gustav. There are 24 pesos to the CUC. The price of a tuna sandwich in a hotel is about 3CUC, so I bought a ham roll from a street trader. It cost 10 Pesos. Seemed good value to me, but later in the day, I met a teacher. He paints pictures for tourists. The reason he does not teach is because his salary is enough to buy one bread roll from the street each day. Or perhaps one meal a month in a tourist restaurant.
When I stared in business, we often had a problem funding new development, I would ask ' how do you feed the cow while the grass grows?' Once you understand how this is done, many things are possible. So, how do Cubans manage to survive? If I knew the answer to that question, it would solve a problem that has bothered me ever since I came here. It is interesting to note that in Cuba, the penalty for illegal slaughter of a cow is 30 years imprisonment. But I digress........
A little later I saw a particularly fine, but sadly disintegrating building. I wanted to take a picture, so
I asked the owner. “Go ahead” he said, smiling. “Why not take one of my sister too, she lives here – and our grandmother.” A digital picture is free, but value is a different matter. Everyone was satisfied, and I had a photo that I treasure.
It is difficult see what Cubans have to be happy about. But they are. Ok, they have glorious weather (when Hurricanes are not destroying their homes and crops). They have free health care and education. But in the face of the US embargo, goods and services are hard to find. In many respects life here is not a million miles from what it was like in the UK after the second world war. We had rationing of food and basics, cars were for people who needed them, like doctors, the police, and government officials. Furniture was as basic as it gets unless your rich aunt died and left some to you.
When Margaret Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society” she was speaking about the country of which she was Prime Minister, and she was not far from the truth. Come to Cuba and one sees society functioning in a way that probably only historians or social anthropologists understand.
Now, the UK has a similar standard of living to the US, with many of it's problems. Part of this may be due to the Marshall Plan. The question is, what would life be like in Cuba, if instead of the embargo, it too had a 'Marshall Plan?' Would they remain happy, or would they succumb to the joys of materialism?
I was reminded of the story of the rich American, on holiday in the Caribbean, who on seeing a young man fishing, asked “how many fish do you catch.”
“Enough to feed my family.” The American said to him, “if you were to borrow some money, you could buy a boat, go to sea for a week at a time, catch more fish, sell them at market, buy another boat and employ others to fish for you, set up a company to export the fish, and when you are my age, you could retire to a place by the sea.”
“And what would I do when I am old like you and have my house by the sea?”
“Well, then you would have time to fish.”
Somehow, Cubans have managed to find not only a balance, where the demands for daily food are met and there is time to socialise, but they also give. Nobody goes without, sharing is a way of life, and there is a pleasure in helping that many in the grasping 'greed-is-good' west do not understand. I wonder what would happen if Cuba, as well as sending tens of thousands of doctors, healthcare professionals and teachers to the developing nations, were to give us lessons in 'how to be happy?' But then would we want to exchange it for our view of 'right'?
