4 ms·

> I think normal salary was USD5 per week, so they would have taken ages to pay it. Pretty sure they would have made that money and more with just one foreign

> I think normal salary was USD5 per week, so they would have taken ages to pay it. Pretty sure they would have made that money and more with just one foreign client for whom they were the scene

robocat 6y ago
AFAIK you could go to jail for having tourist money or USD if you did not have an official reason for having it (or it probably would get “confiscated” by police if they found it). That said, virtually anyone you met in Havana would be after something from you, even if just a drink. It seemed cultural, far beyond the normal percentage of hucksters a tourist might expect to find in a tourist area of a foreign country. They were sometimes after money, but were taking risks of jail to get it (due to desperation). Hard to blame them when my disposable income might easily be more than 1000 times more than theirs. What I casually spend on a night out at home might be a year or more of savings for them. I do try to be generous, especially in poor countries since it is easy to do so (I absolutely loath tourists bargaining over a few dollars when they are effectively millionaires in a locality, often bargaining with someone who really needs the income to feed their family). You soon learn to recognise when a person is truely desperate, versus locally very well off from tourist income.
- bonzini 6y ago
  > AFAIK you could go to jail for having tourist money or USD if you did not have an official reason for having it (or it probably would get “confiscated” by police if they found it). That's the theory, in practice see the article. One thing to know is that owners of private houses with tourist guestrooms will make you huge portions so that their family can eat some yummy CUC food, even if they are leftovers, rather than the state rations. So it's absolutely not bad manners to finish everything!

> I think normal salary was USD5 per week, so they would have taken ages to pay it. Pretty sure they would have made that money and more with just one foreign client for whom they were the scene

robocat 6y ago

AFAIK you could go to jail for having tourist money or USD if you did not have an official reason for having it (or it probably would get “confiscated” by police if they found it). That said, virtually anyone you met in Havana would be after something from you, even if just a drink. It seemed cultural, far beyond the normal percentage of hucksters a tourist might expect to find in a tourist area of a foreign country. They were sometimes after money, but were taking risks of jail to get it (due to desperation). Hard to blame them when my disposable income might easily be more than 1000 times more than theirs. What I casually spend on a night out at home might be a year or more of savings for them. I do try to be generous, especially in poor countries since it is easy to do so (I absolutely loath tourists bargaining over a few dollars when they are effectively millionaires in a locality, often bargaining with someone who really needs the income to feed their family). You soon learn to recognise when a person is truely desperate, versus locally very well off from tourist income.

bonzini 6y ago
> AFAIK you could go to jail for having tourist money or USD if you did not have an official reason for having it (or it probably would get “confiscated” by police if they found it). That's the theory, in practice see the article. One thing to know is that owners of private houses with tourist guestrooms will make you huge portions so that their family can eat some yummy CUC food, even if they are leftovers, rather than the state rations. So it's absolutely not bad manners to finish everything!