By Peter Gellert
HAVANA — Cuban women bear the lion's share of the burden of the island's economic crisis, because they are responsible for keeping the household going and making do amid widespread scarcities.
"We are facing a triple blockade", Milagro Hernandez, general director of Radio Havana and mother of two children, told Green Left Weekly. "We face the US embargo and now the Torricelli Act, the loss of trade with the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and a fall in world market prices for raw materials we traditionally export."
Cuba is about to enter the third year of the "special period in peacetime", a series of draconian measures to deal with the combined effects of catastrophic circumstances.
Statistics provided by Cuban authorities indicate economic losses from the US embargo are about US$30 billion.
With the collapse of the USSR and the eastern European regimes, which represented 85% of Cuban trade, basic products that all small, trade-dependent Caribbean nations must import — paper, manufactured goods, wood, construction material, spare parts, milk, wheat — stopped arriving.
Cuba's overall imports have fallen by almost 60% since 1990. Since most of the undelivered imports are raw materials and intermediate goods, their absence reduced production.
Most damaging, however, has been the two-thirds drop in oil imports. The island depends on imported oil for generating electricity and for transportation fuel.
Finally, Cuba — like most developing countries — has been hard hit by the drop in world market prices for raw materials and the rise in prices for manufactured imports.
Moscow formerly purchased Cuban sugar at 22 cents per pound. Today, Cuba receives 9 cents per pound on the world market for her main export product.
While impressive growth rates were registered until 1984, in 1990, the economy declined was 10%; in 1991, 20%. In the first six months of 1992, the decline was 25%.
The situation is made more difficult by Cuba's geographical
location and climate, which limit the variety of agricultural products and number of harvest periods. Thus, when produce is available, it often arrives all at once and then disappears until the next harvest.
"Virtually everything is rationed. We get one dinner roll a day; four eggs a week; when it's available, half a litre of cooking oil, half a bar of soap, a roll of toilet paper, six pounds each of rice and sugar, five ounces of detergent a month; a quarter-pound of chicken or chopped meat mixed with soy every 21 days", Cristina, a Havana housewife, recites from memory.
Some items — such as butter, cheese, pork and milk (available only for those below seven years of age or for adults with special health problems) — are simply absent.
Several factors partially alleviate the situation. An ambitious program was launched last year to cultivate private or neighbourhood gardens, particularly in cities. Such locally grown produce can make the diet more varied.
Children 7-14 usually have a hot meal each day at school, including a glass of milk. A hot meat dish is provided once a week.
Many workers still eat at their workplace dining hall, although this has been cut back. In addition, fishermen and women can sell their catches to individual customers.
Finally, a large, albeit illegal, black market flourishes. If a Cuban family purchased everything available each month under the rationing system, only $60 would be spent out of a $120-360 wage. Not surprisingly, many Cubans purchase everything from basic food items to the latest in stereo equipment on the black market although prices are outrageously high.
Cuban women have become masters at inventing new dishes and substituting products where scarcities dictate. "Daily conversation quickly passes from a mere recital of food obtained or not obtained, to a list of inventions, which fill Cubans with pride", journalist Ana Maria Radaelli says.
"'Invent'. If the word didn't exist, Cubans would have invented it", she continues. Every day, the local press and radio report how housewives, factories, companies and hospitals improvise with what is available, in the process saving much-
needed foreign exchange.
"Such inventions can run the gauntlet from simple spare parts for children's toys to sophisticated products based on genetics and biotechnology", Radaelli adds.
In Cuba's weekly magazine Bohemia, itself printed on newsprint manufactured from sugar cane pulp, readers are treated to a continual series of articles on new types of cement used in housing construction, cooking recipes, use of home-grown plants and fruits for medical purposes and do-it-yourself home repairs.
The September 25 issue of the magazine reports, for example, how workers at the Sugar Ministry hope to generate all the industry's energy needs by 1996 by using sugar cane waste to produce electricity.
Even beauty salon employees get into the act. While commercially produced shampoo, deodorants and facial creams are unavailable, medicinal plants, propolis, honey and chamomile have been used to produce cosmetics.
"On a personal level, all this has not been easy", Hernandez explains. "It is difficult to get people to change deep-rooted eating habits." Despite a heavy workload at the office, Hernandez has managed to come up with her own inventions: she reports that she bakes eggplants, hangs them up for a few hours and then uses the oil which drips out in place of cooking oil.
According to Beatriz, a Havana doctor, the population's health has never been better. Polyunsaturated animal fat and cholesterol levels have been drastically reduced, and the massive introduction of bicycles to compensate for cutbacks in urban transportation has "reduced many a pot belly." But no-one can deny that these positive by-products are the result of huge sacrifices the population must make every day.
People are terribly inconvenienced by long queues for virtually everything. Hernandez estimates that most women spend about 2
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For those whose work schedules do not allow wasting so much time, the government has instituted a second, shorter line. Some with high-paying jobs actually hire housewives to stand in line for them, for about $60 a month. In some places, geographically based markets have been divided into smaller units, cutting down on queues.
While the situation is difficult, government policy has avoided a complete collapse of the economy. Dozens of Third World nations with considerably greater natural resources, and which do not face the wrath of the most powerful country on earth, are incomparably worse off.
The Cuban planned economy has allowed equal distribution of what little there is to all strata of the population, thus avoiding
starvation or mass unemployment. When energy shortages force cutbacks in production, laid off workers receive at least 70% of their salary.
At the same time, the planned, centralised economy — while difficult in the presence of supply uncertainties — has allowed the country to mobilise and concentrate resources in priority areas that will rapidly bring much-needed foreign exchange. International tourism, nickel and biotechnology are thought to be key.
For problems of everyday life, authorities try to lessen the impact of shortages. Three times a week power cuts last several hours. The times and days are announced in advance so people can plan accordingly. So that Cubans do not miss their favourite TV soap opera, the episodes are repeated on weekends, when electric supply is maintained at regular levels.
While the best hotel space is reserved for foreign tourists, hundreds of thousands of Cubans can still go to the seashore or other resort centres as part of their paid holidays. Modestly priced restaurants are open, with reservations required at least a day in advance. Huge queues are the norm at hamburger establishments or ice cream shops.
The Union of Young Communists sponsors an array of dances, rock concerts and sporting events. In summer, as cutbacks in bus service made a visit to the beach difficult, authorities opened up Havana's shorefront Malecon to swimmers and sunbathers.
The much heralded "social conquests of the revolution" are still available. All children are in school, young adults pursue their university studies as before, all health care remains free. Infant mortality rates continue to decline.
Poverty exists, but not misery. The population is educated, cultured, active. No beggars, children asking for spare change or food, or homeless are to be found in the streets.
Official figures convey guarded optimism. Results for the 1992 sugar harvest — key to the country's economy — were better than expected, despite a 70% cutback in available energy. Vegetable production is reportedly up 24%.
Tourism also grew in 1991 and 1992. In 1990, 300,000 foreign tourists visited the island, spending $250 million. By 1995, officials predict the number will soar to 1 million visitors, spending $800 million.
But such modest successes do not translate into immediate or far- reaching benefits. "We think 1993 will be the most difficult
year ever", Hernandez says. "But we're ready and prepared."