Cuba.
When people think of Cuba, they think of beaches, palm trees, bright blue
waters, sunshine and colours. Colours of happiness and vacation. However,
that is only one side of it. One side involves the working, middle-class;
another consists of the tourists, diplomats and other visitors. The Cuban
citizens do not make very much money by tourist industries, so they have to
work long hours every day to make ends meet. They are forced to live without
the things we, as modern day citizens, take for granted such as dollar stores
and the payment of gas. But people in Cuba don’t need to buy gas. The
majority of people in Cuba can’t afford cars, let alone gas. Even if
they could buy a car, there are hardly any places for them to purchase one.
Most of the cars in Cuba are neglected, decayed and run-down. They are American
cars that were built around the 1950’s.
Lazaro Solano who is a shopkeeper in lesser Cuba makes $8 as his monthly
salary. Some people in Miami spend over $8 on their coffee in the morning
and their fast food lunch. And food is almost as hard to get as cars. The
people in lesser Cuba get rations from their government each month.
In Havana, monthly, per person:
- 6 pounds of rice
- 3 pounds of brown sugar
- 3 pounds of refined sugar
- 20 ounces of beans (green peas or lentils)
- 12 ounces of coffee
- Half a liter of oil (every two or three months)
- 10 ounces of salt
- One quarter pound of ground beef/soy mixture
- Half a pound of mortadella (every two months)
- 1 pound of fish
- 6 eggs
- 1 bar of laundry soap (every two months)
- 1 bar of bath soap (every two months)
- 1, 80-gram, loaf of soft bread, (daily)
- 1 tube of toothpaste (every two months for three people)
As
you can see, it is not much. One dollar is equal to about 21 Cuban pesos.
The average person makes about 210 pesos a month. The average taxi driver
(one of the only ways to be self-employed in Cuba) makes about 340 pesos a
month. A pair of shoes costs about 250 pesos and an avocado 10.
The list of what people receive in the rest of lesser Cuba is a little bit
less than what the people receive in Havana.
Monthly, per person: (outside Havana)
- 5 pounds of rice
- 3 pounds of brown sugar
- 3 pounds of refined sugar
- 16 ounces of beans (green peas or lentils)
- 4 ounces of coffee
- Half a liter of oil (twice a year)
- 6 ounces of salt
- One quarter pound of ground beef/soy mixture or of luncheon meat
- 8 eggs a month
- 2 pound of fish (every two months)
- 2 bar of laundry soap (every three months)
- 2 bar of bath soap (every three months)
- 1,60-gram, loaf of soft bread, (daily, in the capitals of provinces and
municipalities)
- 1 tube of toothpaste (every two months for three people)
To be blunt, a life in Cuba is not all sunshine and beaches.
The lives of men, women and children are constantly a nightmare. They have
nowhere to go and no one to turn to on this small island that everyone calls
paradise. They don’t know what their future holds. All they know is
that they don’t want to be dragged down by the weight of their lives.
They can only wait for a miracle.
Images: Top Right: taken from Cars
in Cuba. Bottom left: taken from Don's
World Coin Gallery.
Sources:
Daily Life in Cuba
Life in Cuba
Cars in Cuba
Don's World
Coin Gallery
Home • Religion
in Old Man and the Sea • Fishing in the 50s
• World Politics
Life in Cuba • Baseball:
The Great DiMaggio • Characters in the
Story
About Ernest Hemingway • About
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