Day 3 in Havana

…which was really yesterday, but we were running around with no time to write.

Early morning, my bedroom in Monty’s apartment

I don’t want to give the impression that everything’s sunny here and the reports in the press are from some alternate universe. Last night we went to a concert in a club in an area that was black out. They were ready with a generator which they didn’t turn on until the musicians — Monty’s young cousin on bass — were ready to start, so for the hanging out having a drink part before the music it was all flashlights. The club was tiny, really the downstairs of someone’s home. So, blackouts, yes, but young people at a club on a Saturday night, also yes.

Tobias, Monty’s cousin, whose father is a famous Cuban musician and who’s just starting his own career, on the right.

People have been emailing asking about protests and demonstrations they’ve been hearing about. That may be happening in other parts of the country, but we haven’t seen any sign of it in Havana. The grouchiest groups of people we’ve come across have been the ones waiting on lines at the banks. People have pre-filled government debit cards, but to get cash, which you need for most transactions, you need an ATM. The government seems to be restricting the amount of cash available each day, because with few tourists — although again, not none — there’s little hard currency coming in. This means you stand in line at the bank, stand in line at the grocery store to spend what you got, and then stand in line again at the bank tomorrow. And hope that when it’s your turn at the ATM the electricity doesn’t suddenly go off.

Another thing we’ve seen that I didn’t see in my previous trips here: beggars. People will follow you in the street asking for money. That happens to tourists in many places but it never used to happen here; Cubans were too proud, and too welcoming. They didn’t see tourists as prey, but as guests they were happy to have. Now my sense is everything has slipped down a notch. People have a little less than they used to, which means people who had almost nothing now have nothing. So they beg, and also steal. This was the first time since I’ve come here that I was warned — only in Central Havana, but still — to keep an eye on my stuff.

We spent the afternoon with Monty’s cousins, who told us Cubans are scared of a US invasion. The tightening of the embargo also scares them, because they’re afraid things can’t get much worse without causing economic disaster.

La familia. Monty’s in black, his sister Luisa beside him. The OG revolutionaries Olimpia and Carlos Manuel are on the right.

But economic disaster isn’t here yet. Everywhere we’ve gone we’ve seen local stores open, farmers in from the country with fruit and vegetables, Cubans strolling, talking, eating ice cream, drinking beer. We’ve been to a couple of art galleries and collectors’ homes. Yesterday we went to the old Barrio Chino — research, of course — and though the restaurant we ate at should have been more crowded, we weren’t the only people there. This has been true pretty much everywhere, with two notable exceptions, where we were, in fact, dining alone, at places where the food was really good and in the past — pre-Trump — you needed to call the day before for reservations.

So things are undeniably tough. This is definitely not an economy in free fall. But it could be on the brink of it, depending on the Cuban amd US government actions in the next couple of months. The news people have been telling me they’re seeing in the US press, though, about starving people on the verge of bringing down their own government, about desperate Cubans hoping the Americans will invade, is crap. From taxi drivers to farmers to shop keepers to intelligentsia, it’s absolutely not true. People here agree something has to change, and soon. But no one wants us to come in guns blazing. No one wants Cuba to give up any independence or self-determination. No one wants the madman in the White House to have anything to do with Cuba.

And meanwhile, life goes on.

Street market, old Havana

Painted walls

Monty in front of an Anish Kapoor and looking at a Harold Ramirez, details below, at the Galleria Continua. The gallery’s in an old movie theater. They leave the walls and floor unfinished and ask the artists to engage with them.

This piece, entitled “Numero,” is made up of the bands you use to identify pigeons.

More tomorrow.