From the Land of the Palm Trees

This article was originally published in SEVENSEAS travel magazine, a new free publication designed to bridge the gap between marine conservation and tourism.

By Kate Maloff

It’s Saturday night on the Malecón. Couples and friends perch on the great sea wall that at various times throughout history has been both a barrier and a launch pad for the makeshift rafts that slowly, painstakingly carry their weary passengers 90 miles north across the Florida Straits. Musicians perform for a peso and a promise that that you’ll upload their videos when you get home. Even if the tired telecommunications infrastructure could accommodate the bandwidth, YouTube is blocked in Cuba. You take their email addresses. You’ll let them know if their song breaks the Internet. They’re soon replaced by someone who better knows his audience and is crooning standards for the tourists. You’ve now heard Guantanamera for the eighth time that day, but it’s getting better with age.

Yo soy un hombre sincero
de donde crece la palma
Y antes de morir yo quiero
cantar mis versos del alma

These lyrics come more or less from Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses), a collection by the poet and Cuban independence hero José Martí. “I’m a truthful man from the land of the palm trees. Before I die I want to share the poems of my soul.” It’s not just the sea air, or the Havana Club, or the fact that everything sounds better in a romance language. Havana remains shrouded in magic and mystery. You can’t help but fall in love.

The rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba marks the beginning of the end of one of the greatest policy failures in Western Hemispheric history. U.S. visits to the island have increased by almost 40 percent since the announcement of bilateral talks last December. Havana’s hotels are busting at their worn-out seams, the city’s capacity to absorb this influx of tourists clearly limited.

Real estate developers from around the world cast a speculating eye at the crumbling mansions along the Malecón. It’s only a matter of time before this underutilized space will be repurposed to house novel combinations of retail, commerce, and residences – until then, good luck getting a hotel room.

The sun hangs low over the sea as you drive west toward Vedado. You’re in a 1958 Impala, and under the hood is the motor of a 2007 Kia. At the Plaza de la Revolución, a parade of antique cars waits for a fare under the watchful eye of the iron Che Guevara sculpture that emblazons the Ministry of the Interior. Mere kilometers yet architectural eons from the breathtaking colonial majesty of Old Havana, here you’re surrounded by the functional charm of socialist modernism. Within the city’s boundaries it is outdone in its starkness only by the Soviet, now Russian, Embassy across town in Miramar.

Would Che have been disappointed to learn that these taxi drivers were for hire, shuttling tourists around the city in these relics of a foregone time? I’d like to think that Che would have appreciated the industriousness of these and the other entrepreneurs who in one way or another were capitalizing on the glacial opening of the state-run economy. With 60 years of entrepreneurial energy finally allowed to flourish, if not outright encouraged to do so, you can see private enterprise seeping into the city’s daily fabric.

Paladars, or private restaurants, were among the first private enterprises, begrudgingly sanctioned as a way of invigorating the struggling economy. Far more interesting is the grey market, or the informal economy. The great cable TV and Internet heists are a frequent topic of conversations. Covert satellite dishes and a well-oiled grassroots machine deliver the “weekly package,” external hard drives and memory sticks filled with the most up-to-date television shows, music, and movies. The price is highest on Saturday, when the distributors first rip the package. If you’re willing to watch your shows a week after everyone else, you’ll get a better deal.

Havana can be easily romanticized, but by the light of day you’re asking yourself some tough questions as a bottle of Guatemalan cola floats past in the ocean and a plastic grocery bag flutters across the street. More people, more trash, more imports of poor environmental stewardship. As Cuba welcomes more visitors and foreign investment than ever before, what trajectory does this development take?

There’s no use comparing Cuba to the Asian tigers – the Chinese transformation of a much bigger and arguably more backward economy won’t be replicated on this island nation of 11 million. Slow privatization is painful, and it’s hard to imagine that Cuba’s threshold for pain can be stretched any further. The dissolution of the Soviet Union put an end to the heavily subsidized oil imports and sent the Cuban economy plummeting. The country was in a near famine during this “special period” – prohibitively expensive petroleum meant no cars, no mechanized agriculture, and no way of distributing food. The intensification of the U.S. trade embargo further blocked food and pharmaceutical imports. Special is right.

No one longs for the days of the “special period,” but with 20 years hindsight it’s worth examining some of the unintended effects of austerity. Cuba could be seen as a laboratory, albeit a reluctant one, for leapfrogging over some of the worst mistakes of rapid industrialization. Without another option, Cubans had to rely on what they could grow and find on their own. Agro-chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides were no longer available. Meat and dairy products essentially disappeared from the markets. Cuba was, in effect, forced to go green and organic.

As we grapple on a global scale with the question of how to feed ourselves as water becomes ever scarcer and food prices soar with population and demand, can the Cuban experience teach us something about 21st century agriculture and food security?

It’s safe to say that the jury’s still out on that one. Cuba is by no means poised to be the clean and green leader of tomorrow. Today, 5/6 of the land is fallow, semi-arid, salinated, and depleted of resources. In layman’s terms that’s non-arable.

Perhaps the larger lesson here is how incremental grassroots action can spur widespread societal shifts. When the government couldn’t feed its people, locally-driven solutions bridged that difficult half-decade. The failures of state-controlled agriculture policy are still fresh on everyone’s mind, as are the values of decentralized decision-making –giving families and communities a seat at the table. It doesn’t take a quantum leap of the imagination to see how amplifying this mindset and applying it across industry and society can provide a helpful compass as the country shifts towards a hybrid economy.

As it continues on its meandering journey, you’re rooting for Cuba to preserve its healthcare and education systems, the undeniably shining successes of the half-century revolution, even as it only begins to grapple with economic stratification and income inequality.

The island nation has surprised its neighbors time and time again. Whatever direction this new chapter takes, it’s a sure bet that Cubans will choose their own partners and set their own terms. The contours of tomorrow’s Cuba defy definition, but they are certain to be molded with a singularly Cuban imprint.

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Kate Maloff is Executive Director at the World Policy Institute. In May 2015, she joined the Institute’s Board on an exploratory trip to Cuba. The delegation sought to open new dialogues with Cuban leaders, examine the achievements of 55 years of revolutionary society, and explore increased avenues for collaboration.