10: Life is a carnival

Life in Cuba is a carnival, the apotheosis of the unconscious, an asylum where even evil seems infantile. A paternalistic perpetual State makes us as irresponsible as a herd of children. We no longer act as citizens; we are now the orphaned puppets of the puppeteer.

Centro Habana and Habana Vieja are two of the most densely populated areas in the country. There life is lived on the streets, with doors wide open, spur of the moment, manual labor earning centavos that will hopefully add up to hard currency pesos. Unlicensed work is preferable, as it’s very late for the State to suggest that people pay taxes, when they are the same men, now octogenarians, who destroyed our banking and financial system. Flattening soft drink and beer cans with a stick before recycling them is a labor that excites those at the extremes of age; I’ve only seen kids and old people doing it.

To the rhythm of the flattening blows we can dance a conga of misery. And this is exactly what the can crushers do when a tourist—or a Cuban with a camera—passes by: dance, conga, rumba, wiggle and shake, elated to be captured in a photo that could become famous out there. All this is no longer the vanguard of the proletariat, but of the clownetariat: brave new clownetry! Thus, my neighbors believe, they will pass from the provincial anonymity of the neighborhood to the front pages of the world’s press.