Musings on Halloween and Christmas, Havana-style
By Aurelio Pedroso
In Spain, the start of the Christmas holiday season is set off by the El Corte Inglés megastore. It fires the starting gun and triggers the shopping spree. In Cuba today, the Hard-currency Stores (TRDs) operated by the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, launched the sale of Christmas goodies and motifs.
They are all “Made in China,” without exception. For about four dollars, you get a little tree with lights on its branches that blink brightly, thanks to triple-A batteries. The problem is that there’s a shortage of the blessed batteries.
I might mention at this point the recent flood of Chinese people. On the street, at farmers’ markets, seafood stores and Internet cafes, we never find fewer than three or four Chinese folks. There used to be a saying about “beware the Chinese behind you.” Could it be that they’re coming at us head-on?
If we had a political-satire publication (and, to our credit, Cuba was once the hemisphere’s master of political satire), this week’s headline would read “The Army Launches Christmas.” Man your posts, everyone.
Halloween is another story. Throughout the island’s history, that holiday was never-ever celebrated. Let us say it was because of our devotion to Spanish customs. What’s more, (and I’m not trying to foresee like Nostradamus) I daresay it will never be celebrated. And I say this for one major reason: a pumpkin costs 2 Cuban pesos, and a couple of candles cost a lot more.
Still, I’ve just learned that in Cuba, in Havana, in the Vedado sector, there is a private school – I repeat, a private school – the locals call “The Little Bilinguals,” whose children have been asked to partake in the singular celebration of Halloween because, quite simply, they study English.
I just talked to one of those children. Pedrito Prendes, a member of that peculiar educational center, has reached the wonderful age of 10. He grew a little nervous and couldn’t quite explain what the event is all about. He could barely tell me that it is something that’s done on the eve of All Saints Day.
Whom he’ll trick or who will treat him is something he will tell me the day after.
The place where he studies is not connected with the Ministry of Education but with the International School, attached to the British Embassy. It is a school for the children of diplomats, businessmen and assorted Cubans involved in a “mixed” marriage. It issues diplomas that are internationally valid, under the sponsorship of the prestigious University of Cambridge.
Crêches, or Nativity scenes, are conspicuous by their absence from state-run stores. A slant-eyed baby Jesus would be an embarrassment, not to say inadmissible, because of our respect for such a beautiful tradition. Next thing you know, the Chinese will want to put a panda in the manger, in exchange for the raw materials they send us.
That seasonal, eminently Catholic decoration, must be sought and bought in churches and crafts shops, but neither the priests nor the craftsmen nor the Christmas flowers themselves seem to realize that the Army beat them to the draw. These military folks never sleep.
Because this is a country of daily surprises, where on occasion we must explain to a German visitor that he should be ready to accept the absurd on a daily basis, a private salesman authorized by the government to sell pork told a friend of mine that he has been forbidden to do it during the month of December.
The first thing that comes to mind is that the ban is a trick to sell more pork. Before I finish this article, I’ll doublecheck the report. Common sense tells me that the ban is intended to keep the private sector from taking advantage of us consumers.
Santa Claus is nowhere. Has no visa, no popular support. I think it’s the only case where the Immigration Department and the people are willing accomplices. Instead, Melchior, Gaspar and Belthazar become more important every year. As children in the late 1950s, we wrote letters to the Magi; as grown-ups, we thought we’d never do it again. Wronnnng.
Times change, Pelencho. Almost 50 years later, the same messages, the water and hay for the camels, and those few moments when a child’s imagination goes beyond cosmic research. Blessed guano behind the doors and rosaries hanging from the rear-view mirror. That’s what I see.
Right now, I predict a Christmas Day and Year’s Day more filled with hope than in previous years.
Before I close, let me return to the topic of the pigs, the porkers, the swine. The word is that, beginning on Dec. 1, cooperatives will go into action.
Let us look forward to that development, which ranks as a national security issue, because pork for the holidays is a serious matter. Even the most “Europeanized” or “Americanized” Cubans will turn down serrano ham, goat cheese, and even the cheap caviar sold here in the days of the Soviet Union, in favor of delicious, crunchy chicharrones that even folks with dentures can enjoy.
Will we set out one egg or two?
Aurelio Pedroso, a Cuban journalist, is a member of the Progreso Weekly team.
