The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

“ P ssst. Tengo papas” (I have potatoes), says the Cuban vegetable-market guy in a stage whisper, as he comes out of the shadows. You would think he’s using some sort of a code to try to sell you cocaine, or ask your help to migrate out of Cuba, but he really is just trying to sell you potatoes. Shoppers at Havana’s agro-merca- do, where many fruits and vegetables are for sale, must go through this secretive drill for potatoes, which are a more tightly controlled product than, say, green peppers, onions or bananas. Those products are permit- ted to be sold there, so long as pro- ducers supply the official market quota to the government first. Potatoes, by contrast, are legally produced and distributed only to the food-ration stores, where they are sold at heavily subsidized prices to average Cubans. But that doesn’t stop the potatoes from falling off the supply trucks and making their way to the murky basements on the fringes of the agro-mercado. Cuba is the hemisphere’s most screwed-up economy, like a failed laboratory experiment that the mad scientist in charge doesn’t know has failed because the results fit his basic plan: keep Cubans poor and scam- pering around for food all day so they have no energy left to protest their lack of fundamental human rights. Every ordinary citizen understands the official system is a failure and does what he can to hustle on the side. (The official wage is the equiv- alent of about $15 per month.) Restaurant employees steal food and resell it. Drivers of official cars steal gasoline and resell it. You can go to a hardware store and buy hammers but not nails, because “Hammers are something Cubans buy; nails are something they steal.” Anyone with farmland will hide as much of his output as possible from the production-quota police and sell it on the side. And, as regards potatoes, truck drivers in the food distribution system misdirect part of their cargo to black markets. Some of these people get caught and are made an example of. The fol- lowing dialog could be heard in any of the many Cuban prisons: Prisoner A : What are you in for? Prisoner B : Armed robbery and murder. You? Prisoner A : Handing out copies of the International Declaration of Human Rights. How about Juan over there? Prisoner C (Juan) : Trafficking in potatoes. You’re aware of this as you go to the market, having learned that the official policy of “socialism or death” has done nothing in 50 years to undo the hard- wiring for creativity and entrepreneur- ial talent in Cuban DNA. This strand is right next to another that makes Cubans love the United States, despite 50 years of daily anti-American propa- ganda. The seller knows from your license plate that you are an American, but he wants to sell you those potatoes just as badly as you want to buy them. So, if it’s potatoes you want, you nod your head to the guy from the official state-run car-parking mafia who ap- proaches you with “Psst. Tengo pa- pas.” Or, if he’s slow on the uptake, you can wait for the bag-carrier guys who pretend to be political dissidents to get bigger tips and who can also be potato middlemen. Third choice (my favorite) is the wizened old man who sometimes shows up at the back of your car with his potatoes in a little red wagon, hawking them with the promise that they are the best in all of Cuba. Finally, if none of these sellers materialize, you learn to walk around the perimeter of the market area with a look on your face that says: “I’ve got hard currency and I need potatoes.” And, in a matter of less than a minute, a seller will appear. Guaranteed. Robert Blau, an FSO since 1983, returned in July from a two-year tour in the U.S. interest section in Havana. He is now deputy director of the Cuban Affairs Office in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. 96 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 7 R EFLECTIONS Buying Potatoes in Havana B Y R OBERT B LAU Every ordinary citizen understands the official system is a failure and does what he can to hustle on the side.

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