Castro, Cuba and Ice Cream

When I heard Fidel Castro passed away, I thought of ice cream. Ice cream was the closest contact I had with the Communist dictator during my recent visit to the island that he led for over 50 years. Some would call him a benevolent dictator, others would call him brutal. The interesting thing is not many people talked about Fidel at all when I was traveling Cuba. They mention his brother, Raul, who was given the reins by Fidel in 2012. But it was like Fidel had already died.

Except for the ice cream. Every restaurant in Cuba, north and south, serves ice cream. Good food in Cuba is hard to find because the distribution and agricultural systems are all messed up from years of Communism. Ice cream became my go-to food because is was available almost every lunch and dinner meal. And it was good ice cream, too!

People love their ice cream in Cuba as much as I did. Fidel loved ice cream too, and built a cathedral of ice cream in Havana called Coppelia's. Here the people can enjoy ice cream just like the elite, Fidel declared. My neighbor and friend who had visited Cuba several years ago told me we had to go there when in Havana.

Coppelia's was not far from the Malecon and our hotel, Hotel Nacional. The first day we arrived in Havana from Holguin province, the Castro brothers' birthplace, I went up La Ramp in the El Vedado neighborhood of Havana to see this monument to ice cream. It reminded me of the Space Needle in the Seattle Center with the Jetsons' style architecture and parklike grounds. Street cleaners,dressed in uniforms, were mopping up the sidewalk and tidying the grounds. In the morning sunlight, the place looked pristine.

When we went back later in the day to actually eat ice cream, people were streaming in for their scoops of deliciousness. I had my camera around my neck, wearing my ExOfficio gear and looking about as much as a tourista as possible so it's no surprise they stopped our group of four. We were a little startled to find security around an ice cream parlor. But this is Cuba, if you try to make sense out of everything, you will soon be making no sense.

The security guard asked if we were paying with pesos or kooks. Here's an example of why you just don't ask why too much in Cuba. The island economy has two currencies-pesos for the people, and kooks for the tourists. They are called kooks because the abbreviation of Cuban Convertible Peso in Spanish is CUC. And it's kooky and not a good deal---for anyone! Local pesos are used by locals to purchase staples but anything else requires the kooks, which is worth 25x the local peso. And kooks are not a bargain for tourists. A dollar is worth .87 kooks. We are ripped off equally.

But the equality stops there. When we said we were paying with kooks, we were ushered away from the crowds enjoying scoops and scoops of ice cream, some of them had ten scoops lined up in front of them. We were brought upstairs to a windowless room. A man behind the counter and wearing another uniform, asked if he could help us in English.  We had a limited selection of flavors and our scoops were served in a traditional glass ice cream dish. Each scoop cost approximately one kook. Downstairs, where the people enjoyed the fresh air and warmth, each scoop cost less than one local pesos.

Now, I am not one to complain about paying more because I'm a tourist. I get it. Tourism is the biggest industry on the island. Cuban people are paid only $25 (local) pesos a month, no matter what they do for a job-be it janitor or doctor. Castro wanted to make sure everyone could afford ice cream. It is actually quite endearing and a little strange that about the luxury Castro offered to the Cuban people was ice cream.

So it was NOT the price that bother me. It was the fact that we could not eat outside but had to stay in the windowless, cinderblock room that was beginning to feel like a cell. I went up to the man serving ice cream. "Please, couldn't we eat outside? I don't understand why we are kept up here? It's a beautiful evening."

He looked at me with annoyance and said no, eat up here. And I responded with a direct "Why?" in an insistent voice.  "No," he retorted. "I feel like we are segregated because we are American tourists," I responded. People don't get straight to the point in Cuba, especially in the tourism realm. I am sure I shocked him with my directness.

He looked at me like I was crazy. "People wait hours, on weekends-- three to four hours for this ice cream. If you could just walk in here and get your ice cream ahead of everyone else there would be riots."

"Now I understand.  Thank you," I said.  I sat down and ate my ice cream with my  friends. It was sweet and delicious but it would have been even sweeter if I had eaten outside with the Cubans. In Castro's Cuba, nothing is straightforward or easy, whether you are Cuban or American. Next time, I am going to score local pesos, one of those mysterious exchanges locals know but don't divulge, and eat my ice cream outside.

I hope that day comes. Fidel is gone. Trump is president. Coppelia, a national institution
immortalized in so many Cubans' memories, probably will survive without its guiding inspiration. The question remains if Americans will be able to enjoy the creamy sweetness of the island.