Havana Chronicles: Havana smells like gasoline and sewage

Havana/Havana these days smells of gasoline and sewage, of recently transferred fuel and sewage running through the streets. Two smells compete in the city: one announces business and the other confirms abandonment.

In Ayestarán almost nothing is built. No buildings grow, no new homes appear, nor are bags of cement stacked in the doorways. The exception is in the service center near the newspaper polygraph and the Ministry of the Armed Forces, where an excavator removes the earth and opens a huge hole. Half the city, with its needs included, fits in the hole where the new fuel tanks will be buried.

The economy of gasoline coming from the United States moves machines and awakens greed. In the classifieds there already seems to be more diesel than chicken, more fuel than flour. “Tell me how many liters you need” could be the motto of these times. Everyone wants to grab the hose while the sidewalks crumble, the pits overflow and the Guard Corps are dying without medicine or personnel.

Near Carlos III and Ayestarán a woman approaches me with a cat orangey between the arms. The animal has a plush tameness. He asks me for money “to eat him and me.” I pass him a couple of bills. I have seen requests with children, dogs, the elderly, prescriptions and x-rays. With a cat, never.

In Reina, the prosperity of those who control pumps and dispensers has not come. There it smells like a sewer and the end. Next to the Aldama Palace, another ruin that threatens to fall towards Monte, a woman asks for money accompanied by a child with beautiful curls. Further ahead, in front of the remains of the Isla de Cuba hotel, two men dig through a mountain of garbage. Around the overflowing containers there is trading, scavenging, and survival.

I look for some friend’s feet in the market in front of the old La Sortija store, a candonga from hardware store. Those supports that are used to support the boards of a bookcase or hang a plant are not on any of the multiple platforms at the well-stocked fair. Books and nature will have to wait.

Return for Queen. There are Havana streets that are competing to win the biggest prize in the championship from hell. This classifies well, although Monte beats it by a few points.

The parks, meanwhile, have been converted into homes. The ruling party organizes police raids to remove those who sleep among benches and weeds, but they always return. Curita Park, the recent scene of one of these operations, returns this Thursday to be the home of the homeless, territory of dealing and cradle of almendrones and puny tricycles that seem about to tip over in every pothole.

In the portals of Carlos III, the objects rescued from the trash form a false recycling fair: cell phone chargers from a decade ago, a kitchen heater and a black sequined dress share space. Ruin and glamour. Spoils and footlights. Up ahead, a woman offers some guavas so green and skinny that my jaw hurts just looking at them.

Outside the Plaza de Carlos III a man and a woman have camped. He has a bandaged foot; She sleeps curled up. In a city without shelters, public drinking fountains or places to wash clothes for free, the elements end up sticking to the skin and it smells, it smells a lot.

There is no tricycle that goes up Ayestarán so I continue on foot. At times the smell of fuel returns. Havana smells of gasoline, yes, but another stench persists that no excavator seems willing to bury.