What Just Happened?

by Nathan Walpow

I tell people I went to Cuba, and the first thing they say is “Oh, through Mexico?” and I have to explain that we went legally, on a general license that states that we ... well, I still don’t get what we were. We couldn’t say we were journalists because then we would have had to get some kind of special visa that would’ve taken months. We weren’t full-time academics, which was another choice on the affidavit we had to fill out, though that’s the box we ended up checking. But we had a travel service handle the whole thing, and I got the impression a lot of people do this kind of thing, and I’m glad we did. I just wish I could explain it to people better.

Oh, and when we got to Cuba we had to tell them we were tourists, because that’s how it works.

The second thing they say is “I’ll bet the food was great,” and I have to say it wasn’t, and then they ask if it’s because I’m a vegetarian, and I say no. Because Cuban cuisine—and we were warned of this—is pretty miserable. About which you’ll be reading much more over the next two weeks.

The third thing they say is “Why did you go?”

The frivolous answer is that Jon Webb, our executive producer and the man behind the site, up and said one day, “Let’s all go to Cuba.” Which he did. But there’s much more to the story.

We started FourStory as an affordable housing advocacy site, and as time went on we added transportation and a decent environment and equal treatment under the law and anything else we could think of to shove under the umbrella of Fair Living for Everyone, which is what it says up above under our name. And though some of our stuff is only tangentially related to our mission—mainly a bountiful supply of left-wing rants—we try to never lose sight of what it is we’re trying to do here.

So the real reason we went was this: take a society as far removed from our U.S. one as you can. Go there. See what people have to do to acquire shelter. See what they have to put up with to get around. See how the government provides for them (or not) and see how that plays out economically. Oh, and see about justice too: social and legal. Then cogitate on that for a while, and compare and contrast with the good old U.S. of A.

Sneak preview: the bottom line is that some things are better and some are worse.

As I read the feature stories we’re going to be publishing this first of our two weeks of nearly-all-Cuba-all-the-time, I detected a through line. It wasn’t one I expected, simply because it’s a situation I didn’t know about. This is all I’m going to say about it now: One nation, two economies.

Behind that through line, though, and beyond housing and transportation and the like, we’re going to cover everything we experienced in Havana and environs. Music, because you can’t go to Cuba and not talk about the music. Art too, and religion and fashion and that heinous food.

Today we have Jon Webb’s take on what you realize about Cuba after you get home, “Who Lives Better Than Us?”

Tomorrow, it’s Jim Washburn with the first part of his synthesis of all things Cuban, “Our Lovely Enemy.” Part two runs next week.

On Wednesday, Gary Phillips discusses Cuba today versus Cuba in the 1980s, when he last visited, in “Cuba, Oh Cuba.”

Thursday, Tony Chavira’s Cubano Masterplanning! is entitled “A Cut of Capitalism in Communist Cuba.” It starts off being about green space and takes off from there.

And on Friday, Rebecca Schoenkopf, in “La Ciudad Mi Corazón,” discusses being A Perfect Ambassador of American Goodwill. Or maybe a not-so-good one.

(Plus, to keep things grounded, on Saturday we’ll run Donna Schoenkopf’s story about things breaking down. Which, come to think of it, fits in nicely with Cuba.)

the staff: Shervin Saedinia, Jim Washburn, Tony Chavira, Nathan Walpow, Gary Phillips, Rebecca Schoenkopf, Jon Webb

Next week, besides part two of Jim’s story, we’ll have “Tony [Chavira] and Shervin [Saedinia] Get Hustled in Havana’s Chinatown,” plus pieces by two new contributors who were on the trip: Mary Watson on “Growing Old in Cuba” and Sara Wall’s social-justice study, “Dear USA: Take a Lesson From Cuba.” Plus another article by Gary and stories on the Cuban National Symphony and on Havana’s Jewish community. And some stuff on music.

Besides all that, people will be blogging about random stuff that pops into their heads. Like the cab ride from hell (the source of this story’s title), and the coco taxi ride from hell. Speaking of hell, there was that food ...

Two things more: first, the photo albums. As you might expect, we took about a gazillion pictures in Cuba. We’ve distilled it down to “only” 888, broken up into semi-manageable chunks, and will put up a chunk a day until they’re gone. The gallery index is here, and here’s today’s selection: A Plane, a Bus, a Hotel.

Last, there are some videos, which’ll appear a bit later in the week.

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