It is a stupid bomb that punishes regular people
HAVANA – The news that not one more cruise ship loaded with American tourists would dock in any port on the Island crossed the 90-mile puddle with the speed of light.
In fact, it had yet to be reported anywhere, and still, by word of mouth and bouncing from the ancient walls of Old Havana to its cobblestone streets, to its alleys and columns, the word on the street was that it was not the end, but it smelled the same and just as scary…
When hard times were being prophesied from the ivory towers, and even after seeing and experiencing empty refrigerators in the shops and bare counters in the bakeries, no one foresaw this. But now after witnessing the last luxury cruise ship leaving port, retreating in the afternoon rain, reality became a sadness that was painfully true.
The streets of this city had never looked emptier or the squares near the docks quieter. Where once roamed the classic convertibles, they now sat with their engines turned off, parked side by side and not a single tourist approaching them.
The mobile phones of the guides who worked (under the table) for private agencies suddenly stopped ringing. Nobody was calling with a desperate urgency in the middle of the night — after a hot day of walking between the city’s Cathedral, to its Bellas Artes museum, El Floridita, La Bodeguita del Medio and the Plaza de la Revolución — to ask them, beg them, to please, and just this one more time, excuse the unforeseen request to take a group early in the morning to see the Finca Vigía.
Artists, painters, artisans and photographers opened their studios like any other day, just in case, by pure and blind faith, only to get the breeze, the flies and the smell of the dawn. By midmorning they had already convinced themselves, accepting it: the “it’s over” is just beginning.
Just yesterday the green and constant dollars passed from hand to hand, over and under the table, and even after so many commissions to Pedro, María, Juan and José, they still filled their pockets and their open drawers from which they now took new bills just to count them, and recount them, and seeing less where before they thought they saw more, and trying to guess how long they could stretch those dollars.
Private restaurants, all more or less making it, were left with their white tablecloths, shiny cutlery and empty glasses, like an abandoned bride. Goodbye to the clink and clash of spoons, knives and forks against the delicious background of the dishes. Bar owners, in an attempt to control the damage, and without a tear being shed, closed their freezers full of Cuban beer that for now will be sold to national customers. Beers that were bought in whatever way possible, and for the price of gold, in the state markets.
So many — from collaborators to employees, assistants, suppliers, freelancers of all kinds, but also their parents and children and grandchildren — now find themselves jobless in what seems like overnight. That good run of the past few years that seemed endless has been cutoff by an obtuse and distant stroke.
And of course it will hurt the state coffers in the medium and short term. But an immediate, terrible and impoverishing effect has been imposed on the private sector, the entrepreneurs, the self-employed workers, cooperatives and so many others who were now starting to breathe.
Like a very stupid bomb that does not distinguish between ways of thinking, ideologies, dreams or desire, the new sanctions have been heaved on the back of the people who have been beaten so many times, tying their hands again. In the end, and as always, it is the ordinary people who are being punished.
