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REPORTS: CUBA |
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Survival
Strategies
Dalia
Acosta
HAVANA, (IPS) - Although she considers
herself one of the lucky ones in Cuba,
Sara Abreu, a university graduate with
a good job, is too focused on
day-to-day survival strategies to even
think about the future.
Abreu, who graduated from the
University of Havana two years ago and
was married while still a student, has
no children. She and her husband live
with her parents-in-law, who are over
60 and whose meager pensions would be
impossible to survive on.
''I want to have kids, but I keep
putting it off. If we can barely
support my parents-in-law, how could
we afford a baby?'' wonders Abreu, 26.
''Between my salary, that of my
husband, and the pensions of my
parents-in-law, our household income
amounts to around 600 pesos a month,''
she tells IPS.
It is common to find three or even
four generations living under one roof
in Cuba, and especially in Havana, a
city of over two million, where the
worst housing problems are found.
Buying essential food items is also a
challenge for most Cubans.
Although the socialist government runs
a network of stores that sell
subsidised basic food items in pesos,
a number of essential goods can only
be purchased in the government chain
of dollar-only stores. (The peso
currently stands at 27 to the dollar).
A one-litre bottle of cooking oil, for
instance, sells for two dollars, and a
kg of powdered milk for over five
dollars.
At free farmers' markets that opened
in the mid-1990s, which operate
according to the law of supply and
demand, an onion can cost as much as
four pesos, a head of cabbage five,
and a pineapple 15.
''With our income, we visit the
farmers' market twice a month, but we
can't even dream of buying fruit or
vegetables,'' says Abreu.
But although items like fresh produce
are unaffordable luxuries for her
family, Abreu describes herself as
fortunate. She has a job as a
researcher, without a fixed schedule,
and in the mornings is able to work on
her own, which allows her to earn
much-needed dollars.
''I live across from the immigration
offices,'' she says. ''Every morning I
talk to the people standing in line
outside, and offer my services as a
typist to anyone who has to fill out
forms. There have been days when I
have earned as much as 10 dollars.''
The need to have more than one source
of income to get by is a relatively
new phenomenon for the people of this
socialist island nation, where until
1990, anyone could live well with a
monthly paycheck.
The worst thing, says Abreu, is the
uncertainty. ''I don't have a licence
to work as a self-employed typist. So
if a police officer sees me offering
my services and asks me for
identification, I would have to start
thinking of some other way to
survive.''
As part of the economic reforms
adopted in the mid-1990s, the
government of Fidel Castro began to
grant licences for a list of specific
areas in which privately owned
businesses and services would be
allowed. But many people, like Abreu,
are engaged in free enterprise
activities on the black market.
Abreu's story is not unique, according
to a study carried out in the Cuban
capital on the strategies to which
families resort in order to overcome
the effects of the ongoing economic
crisis, which is in its 13th year.
The study by the governmental Centre
of Psychological and Sociological
Research (CIPS), the results of which
were released last month, found a
broad range of survival strategies,
which tend to be short-term in nature
and short-lived.
Few people think, for example, of
saving up for family vacations.
The government regulations that
tightly restrict personal initiative
also keep many families from
conceiving of a business of their own
as a route to long-term advancement
and prosperity.
The need to focus on the day-to-day
struggle to get by and to constantly
come up with new strategies as they
are thwarted by government
restrictions wears people out, said
researcher Marelén Díaz, one of the
authors of the report.
Although resourcefulness and
inventiveness may appear to be
positive features, they also imply ''a
low level of elaboration'' and
planning, which limits the development
of individuals and of the family as a
whole, she added.
The survival strategies cited by the
CIPS report were mainly focused on
gaining extra income for purchasing
essential items, especially for
children and the elderly.
The study also found a strong tendency
to ''legitimise illegal actions,''
said Díaz.
Thus, buying powdered milk on the
black market, engaging in private
initiative in an area in which free
enterprise is not allowed, or failing
to apply for a licence to carry out an
authorised form of personal initiative
have all come to be seen as
''normal.''
The list of survival strategies is
endless: using a bicycle to get
around, even for long distances;
buying products on the cheap and
re-selling them at higher prices;
handing down clothes, shoes or other
items to relatives or friends; or
raising chickens to sell eggs.
The broad range of options includes
emigration or defection; receiving
cash remittances from family members
abroad; finding foreign tourists who
serve as short-term ''boyfriends'' and
sources of economic benefit; or
choosing a career or study option
merely because it will provide an
adequate income or the possibility of
self-employment on the side.
''Twenty years ago, there was nothing
more highly regarded socially in Cuba
than being a doctor,'' said a
professor at the University of Havana.
''Now there are young people who, even
if they feel the calling to be a
doctor, prefer to be a doorman at a
hotel, where they can earn tips in
dollars.''
Sources at the Centre for Studies on
the Cuban Economy, a government body,
say that to get by, a family in Havana
needs around seven times what they can
earn through salaries.
Studies have also detected a growing
tendency towards the concentration of
income in Cuba. According to the
latest available data, 13.2 percent of
savings accounts in Cuba in 1997
accounted for a full 85 percent of the
money deposited at that time.
The so-called ''special period in
peace times'' -- the government
euphemism for the economic crisis that
broke out in 1990 with the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the east European
socialist bloc -- brought a radical
change of life for most of Cuba's 11.2
million people.
Between 1990 and 1993, Gross Domestic
Product plunged 34.8 percent, and
living standards and economic
indicators plummeted.
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