VILLA CLARA, Cuba. — Back in the 1980s, at the height of Soviet handouts, they inaugurated an amusement park in Santa Clara assembled at the Mechanical Plant, which they named Carlos Marx. It had been conceived in the image and likeness of “Lenin” in Havana, on a smaller scale and full of mechanized devices that gradually lost their luster over time until their final demolition.
It was then in the 1990s when a series of mobile parks and Creole-made parks began to proliferate in remote towns and neighborhoods that came to make up for children’s recreational deficiencies. Those sudden fairs were known by various names such as “los caballitos” or “los cacharreros” and they not only arrived in the towns of Villa Clara during the partying season, they also toured various central regions of the country.
A long time ago, when he was barely in his twenties, Ibraím González moved from carnival to carnival along with a caravan of owners of carousels, little stars, “gut-busters” and other iron artifacts for which only one Cuban peso was charged for each turn.
“Getting a hundred pesos out of a team in one day was a tremendous profit,” specifies this man from Sancti Spíritus, now dedicated to renting children’s cars, a new business similar to the previous one that is gaining strength in almost the entire country, although Ibraim prefers to name it as “entrepreneurship”. “I like being recognized as an entrepreneur, because it was something I founded with a lot of effort and without stealing from anyone,” she specifies.
Ibraím started his company with two or three cars that he bought from various families that emigrated from the country. With the profits obtained with the first ones, he was able to invest to send for others until he reached six, which are quite similar to big brands such as Toyota, Peugeot or BMW.
Currently, this businessman rents his fleet of vehicles to other people who transport them to the municipalities where popular festivals are organized. During the nights in which the carnivals are prolonged, the workers take turns sleeping in a trailer where they also tend to clean up and even cook.
“I’m not here for that anymore,” points out this 60-year-old man who receives a few thousand monthly for the rental of his strollers, but who must also invest a lot of money in their repair and in the rent of state spaces.
“The chassis break easily, I have to send the lights, batteries, and motors to the United States to buy them, which means paying 180 dollars on the street, plus what the person who imports it demands from me. In carnivals, for example, the State charges you more than 200 pesos for the area”.
Because of the danger posed by lithium batteriesThese cars only use lead or gel tires, which can reach a price of 68 MLC when they are put up for sale in Cuba, and the tires, which often break, exceed 1,500 pesos per unit in the informal market.
Also in the middle of the central park of Santa Clara, more than twenty small toy cars converge daily and on weekends there can be many more, up to thirty. They have acquired them in various ways: by importing them or by people who come there to offer theirs for more than 20,000 pesos. The cost of one of these vehicles out of country It ranges between 200 and 250 dollars.
Within the section on toys and recreational items, the General Customs of the Republic (AGR) allows the importation into the country of bicycles, skateboards, electric strollers and other parts, pieces and accessories that are valued individually and based on the established reference value. In addition, it authorizes the entry as luggage of up to two items of the so-called electric mopeds with up to two seats or one of these by way of shipments.
All the self-employed who are dedicated to renting motorcycles or cars in the center of Santa Clara pay a license of 400 CUP and for each return to the plaza they charge 30 pesos as a fixed price. None of them knows how to discern for sure the moment when competition increased in this area. The truth is that overnight, many of those who operated in the zoo area realized that there was a greater influx in the park and, therefore, better dividends.
“Before, there were parents with money or families abroad who brought their children here to speculate with their cart and did not lend it to anyone. Now all children can get on one because thirty pesos can be had by anyone”, explains one of these self-employed, knowing that there are very few options for children’s recreation in the city. As a general agreement, all of them decided to offer free spins to the children of the houses without filial protection.
“The boy rides his car, he accelerates it by himself and lives the illusion that he is driving in a real car,” argues Lázaro Antonio Reyes, 33, one of the first to start renting cars there. “Many people criticize the price of going back to the park, but it is that with thirty pesos no one can eat a single piece of bread and pasta.”
For several kilometers, these self-employed trace a daily route carrying cars from their houses on foot or on their shoulders until they reach the park. They remain in the sun all day and often have to push them until they complete the rented tour, when the “drivers” are under five years old and do not know how to drive them.
“You have to guide the little ones in a position that is quite uncomfortable, with one hand, half crouched and hold them so they don’t collide with people walking by,” explains another of these young people, who claims to repeat this operation twenty times. up to date.
To get the net profit from renting second-hand cars, many of them have had to work more than four months, seven days a week. “We have had some complaints from inspectors who are upset and who have come to complain to the provincial government. For now we are still here, and if they kick us out, many people will protest. They have left us because they know we are solving a problem.”
