Supply and Demand 

Obispo Street in Central Havana begins near the Museo de Bellas Artes (fine arts museum) and runs east toward the Bay of Havana, ending at the Plaza de las Armas and San Francisco Square.  It's narrow and congested, so the city made it a pedestrian street.  Sixteenth century cannon are partially buried in the street forming immovable iron sentries through which cars cannot pass.  Cars can cross Calle Obispo at intersections, but they can't drive in it.  For longer than the Castros have run Cuba, Obispo Street has been dedicated to shopping, its entire area filled with people strolling, window shopping, and lugging their purchases.

Most of the shoppers are tourists, as the street runs near several tourist attractions—museums, the ballet, and the Capitolio, among others.  What also makes this primarily a tourist street is that the shops price their goods in CUC's, Cuba's convertible currency.  This money, roughly par with the US dollar, is used for hotels, restaurants, and taxis and is exchangeable with major hard currencies like the dollar, pound, and euro.  What keeps most Cuban citizens out of Obispo Street stores is that unless one works in a tourist related business and can earn tips, one can't get his or her hands on many CUC's.  You're paid in old Cuban pesos (moneda nacional or MN) valued at about 24 pesos to the
CUC.

The real rub is that those stores, handling sanely valued money can buy any merchandise they want, but for those shopping with only MN, only bare necessities are easily found.  So, not only does the Cuban worker live with the knowledge that workers in other parts of the world are paid salaries many times greater than they can earn, but also they can walk down Obispo Street and see the merchandise they can't afford.

There is a small puppy store on Obispo Street, but like those here at home, there is little effort dedicated to good puppy health, and absolutely no interest in the welfare of the animals.  Cuba has no laws for the protection of animals.

There is also a pet supply store where you can buy (with CUC's) dog food, collars, leashes, etc.  Prices there are steep—I saw a plain dog collar for 14 CUC.  Pet food isn't made in Cuba, so if you can find it at all, it will be in CUC stores.

The largest book store in Cuba surely is La Moderna Poesía (modern poetry), which occupies an impressive Art Deco building on a corner of Obispo Street.  When I was studying Spanish, I used to shop at a store with the same name on Calle Ocho (SW 8th Street) in Miami.  Surely that store must have been run by the same family as the one in Havana.  The Miami store had a larger selection of books in Spanish than any other store in the US—including Barnes and Noble.  The variety was so great; I used to bring home half a dozen books from every trip I made to Miami.

A few years ago, I decided to step into Cuba's La Moderna Poesía just to see what it was like.  The first floor was much larger than the Miami store, and yet the books were very scarce.  There were no bookshelves, only large tables.  Books were laid out individually or in low stacks and all were spread out to take up plenty of room, as if the manager wanted to make his book stock look much bigger than it was.  Not finding anything I wanted to buy, I left after a little while, remembering how I couldn't leave the Miami store without making several purchases.

The shopping experience in Havana is a lesson in supply and demand.  Among citizens, low salaries mean low demand and scant supplies.  Among the tourists, however, money isn't a problem (relatively speaking), so supplies are available to meet their demand.  Like all economic laws, this applies to the haves (mostly tourists) and the have nots (most citizens).  The only problem is most of the haves also have passports and homes and a return ticket to their homes in another part of the world.

 

Les Inglis