Yoya and the changes

By Manuel Alberto Ramy
ramymanuel@yahoo.com

From Reporter’s Notebook, Oct. 7

At a press conference during the Tenth Catholic Social Week held in Havana last May, I heard Professor Omar Everleny Pérez, an academician from the Studies Center of the Cuban Economy (CEEC), say the country was going through a moment of intellectual debate he called the broadest and most intense in the history of the Cuban process.

Although I did not question his assertion, I thought the debate of ideas in academic literary circles was vital and worthy of contributing to policy formulation. So were the letters written by readers to the media, all beneficial, confined to opinions on what should be done. Ideas and opinions to be concretized. Everyone, academics and citizens, made proposals. At the time, last May, there was a broad national consensus that “things” could not continue as they were. The stubborn reality had written on the wall of the island words like “change,” “reform” and “actualization.”

Now, just five months after that statement by the economist, the first measures of deep importance in national life – the reduction of half a million jobs in six to eight months, the expansion of self-employment (private sector) that will become a labor market, the impending appearance of cooperatives in some sectors of small industry, the large-scale implementation of a tax policy, etc., the discussion of ideas as embodied in every person – become an element of life in society as a whole, which is good, because it energizes people.

It happens that the debate of ideas has become the impact of the proposed measures in the lives of millions of compatriots who are already being affected. Some, being displaced from their workplace say they feel hurt and seem to be stepping into a gelatinous reality, unsafe because of its newness, and they express it thus: “Me, surplus? And now what?”

Others glimpse in the aperture a chance to raise their living standards, not only because they have certain skills and resources needed to achieve that, but also because the new legislation provides the legal framework for what they were doing under the table (illegally.) They were positioned. This is the case of Yoya.

Yoya, “as they’ve called me since childhood,” migrated to Havana from another province with her parents and younger siblings. Now she is 60, has a lean and wiry body, and the vitality of an 18-year-old when she talks about what she has accomplished and her aspirations. Graduated as a bookkeeper’s aide, she worked for years for a company in Havana. Married, divorced, without children, (“God rewarded me”) she is surrounded by nieces “who fill my life and need my help.”

In the 1990s, she quit accounting and the company she worked for and “had to get into the kitchen (I learned from my grandmother) and get ahead working in a paladar [private restaurant] “where I was paid in dollars.” During the ’90s, those places flourished and Yoya thought about opening one. “But I didn’t. It was a hassle. The authorities allowed only 12 diners, the workers had to be relatives (in theory, because almost everyone lied). I was not a relative of the owner, supplies were a problem and certain products (beef and seafood) were banned, but were served at our discretion,” usually to regular customers.

She looks at me with her clever little eyes and says she did well for a while as a cook in that restaurant. A lot of paladares opened and all did so with the certainty of success. That didn’t happen because they didn’t know how to compete and, before her restaurant closed (“I saw it coming”) she left with an idea in his head: “No restaurants. Meals delivered to workplaces.”

With the little money she saved, she spoke with a neighbor who has an old car and hired him to transport the meals and a relative to deliver them. She bought two gas stoves, a second refrigerator and had a freezer made to order. Thus began a business that can be described as catering, serving businesses and foreign firms based in Havana. “Luncheon for employees, and meals for parties of all kinds.”

“I have served hundreds of weddings and quince parties,” the menu depends on the customer’s tastes, and “I make a good margin of profit.” For lunch in the office, “I call and tell them the two offerings of the day, they choose and we deliver.” She tells me that her menu for office workers generally ranges from chicken to pork to fish, plus rice, salad, a potato or sweet potato and dessert. The maximum price is 1.50 CUC. “Most foreign companies or joint ventures give that money to the workers,” she says.

But over time some problems arose: security guards at some places prevented the carriers from entering the premises. However, “there is always a way to deliver the food. Everyone wants to eat, right?”

Despite the difficulties, she did well. Her house, built in the 1940s, has been fully renovated. Inside, there is no luxury, but the furnishings reflect a decent life. “I never aspired to wealth. I do not forget that I come from the working poor. Still, I defend my right to live the way God commands.”

Now, after the new measures – “which I support because they were needed” – Yoya enters legality and has decided to examine the law with a lawyer “before applying for my license and getting my legal and other papers” because “now I can hire my services, even to the state, deliver luncheons anywhere, officially hire employees … I do not mind paying taxes, but I want to get good legal advice.”

She will have to pay personal income tax, sales tax, taxes for the labor force contracted, their social security and retirement. “If I add to the years I worked for the state the years that I’ll work in my little business, I could achieve a good retirement income,” she smiles.

Do you not think back to the 1990s, when competition was so strong that it caused the failure of dozens of your countrymen?

“There will be competition, there has been competition for a while, but having done my homework helps me,” she says. “Many try to fleece their clients. I do not, I charge less and attract more customers. Volume is the key,” she explains. “Oh, and quality, all the more now that I can include seafood on the menu.”

Cheerful, willing Yoya, a survivor of the illegal world of the ’90s that continued into the 21st Century, sees promising possibilities ahead. The experience of this enterprising woman leads me to ponder: If she has a vehicle for transportation, an employee to make deliveries and another to help with the kitchen chores, if the demand increases she will have to hire another cook. What are we talking about? She calls it “my little shop.” Aren’t we looking at a small business?