Saturday, August 27, 2016

Havana through the eyes of two food vendors...

Although it is 3:35am, Jose and Leo aren't sleepy. They've had enough rest to begin a new day.

They wear the same pullovers as the day before - or perhaps clean but worn-out ones, which will become the dirty pullovers of the days to come, olive-green army trousers and boots. Jose's are short, leather ones that cover his ankles. Leo's are knee-high rain boots.

They open their apartment door, descend three storeys down the sinuous stairs of their colonial building in Old Havana and go out in search of the carretilla (pushcart) from which they will sell fruit and vegetables for the next 16 hours.

They look like a pair of tin soldiers walking down a desolate street. At this time, Havana is a city of sleepwalkers - a strange, deserted place. There are shadows and murmurs that come as if from nowhere.

In a few hours' time, San Rafael Boulevard will turn into an incessant stream of people coming and going, buying and selling; but for now, it is a long, wide corridor, its cavities visible, its cracks exposed.

Just around the corner from the boulevard, a cat paws a dead chicken wrapped in a nylon bag. A police patrol surfs slowly along Prado, the street dividing Centro and Old Havana. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. ‘Havana is now the big cake – and everyone is trying to get a slice’
  2. How times are changing in Havana...
  3. This is Cuba's Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify – all without the internet...
  4. Cuba has an illegal 'Internet' that connects thousands of computers...
  5. How Fidel Castro lived like a king...
  6. Castro the commie hypocrite who lives like a billionaire...
  7. The truth about Cuba's communist 'miracle'

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