Havana/From a balcony in El Vedado, Joao Henrique, 28 years old and a native of San Salvador de Bahía in Brazil, says the building where he should stay every night. “My scholarship is there, but the conditions are not good, so my parents helped me rent this place.” The house where he lives while a postgraduate degree in a specialty of medicine is more comfortable and safe than the state shelter, but has strict standards.
For $ 300 a month, the Brazilian student has a sleeping room, a well equipped kitchen, a bathroom, a balcony and a living room. The small apartment is the result of the division of a major house, so the owners live on the other side. “I can’t receive visits and much less make parties,” he says. “It is a safe place, but the owners have warned me that nothing to come with Cuban friends, because then they cannot guarantee that things are not lost,” he details 14ymedio.
Tourism, which has fallen almost 50% since the beginning of the pandemic, has pushed some housing owners to rent their spaces for a long time to foreign students. Unlike the rates per night, which can exceed $ 30, rent a room or an apartment to foreigners with temporary residence ranges between $ 250 and $ 500 per month, depending on the conditions and location of the house.
The most attractive spaces are those that combine comfort, security and closeness to hospitals
The most attractive spaces are those that combine comfort, security and closeness to hospitals where students perform their practices or the faculties where classes receive. Better valued than national clients, because they can pay more and do not accumulate “any right” on the property, foreign fellows, however, they often ignore the characteristics of certain neighborhoods and cost them more to read the alert signs, possible scam or danger.
From rooms inside a house where the family is shared with the family, to comfortable independent apartments that include hot water and air conditioning, the variety of options is adjusted to the budget of each. “This place is close to the hospital where I do the practices and it is also quite central, so, although I pay a little more, I find it very practical,” says Joao Henrique.
As part of an agreement with Havana, Brasilia has financed the transfer to the island of students to which the tickets by plane, the classes of each specialty and the accommodation are listed. The Brazilian was located at the Comandante Ramón Paz Borroto Student Residence on 25 corner Street to G, in Habanero Vedado. However, only the first month passed after arriving at the island. “There are many problems with the water supply and they stole me twice in my room,” he explains.
“This apartment has better conditions, but it saddens me that my friends cannot visit me, I would like the owners not to be so present in my life and have a little more privacy,” he acknowledges. “The Cubans have very bad opinion of each other, the lady of the house warns me every week that I can not have a Cuban girlfriend because she is going to leave me ‘without feathers and cackling'”, he says imitating the habanero accent.
The owners of Joao Henrique’s apartment have a license to rent rooms to foreigners, something with which many owners who are dedicated to the same do not count. “I was in a house where they told me that I could not greet the neighbors so that they did not notice that it was not Cuban,” he recalls. “That place was cheaper, but one day the owner told me that I had to leave because they had put a fine of thousands of pesos to rent without a license.”
The owners of Joao Henrique’s apartment have a license to rent rooms to foreigners
Others, far from their home, prefer to live more closely with a local family, as is the case of Claudia, German geography student who arrived from Bremen with the desire to “know Cuban life.” The young woman took a pause at her university and enrolled a semester in the hill. There he met a Habanera student who proposed to rent a room at home.
For $ 250 per month, Claudia got a room in Centro Habana, about ten minutes walking to her classroom. “I learn a lot living with a family but sometimes everything is very complicated. The house only has a bathroom, the kitchen is small and when I go to the market and buy food there is only a refrigerator where to store it so it ends very fast,” lists the German
“I can’t wear visits but the girl who rents me and I left a lot together, she has taught me many parts of Havana and introduced her friends.” What is most strange about his life in Bremen is to “be able to eat vegetables more frequently and more intimacy in my room, which has a door that I can’t even close inside.” His experience summarizes it in “an accelerated course of Cuban life”. Geography says he has not been able to learn much: “Teachers are missing quite a lot of classes without giving explanations.”
European one and Brazilian the other, Claudia and Joao Henrique do not stumble with some of the walls that rise in front of African students, who have to deal with prejudices and racism on the island. For them, the rules can become much stricter.
Manuel, from Angola, and Nicolas Suminwa, from South Africa, have had to learn, by force of stumbles, to dodge those obstacles. Both have been residing in Havana for a couple of years while studying medicine. “They give me a stipend to finance my transportation, my accommodation and the food I need,” says the South African, a native of Pretoria. “What I can pay me are cheap spaces, because here in Cuba life is very expensive.”
For 200 dollars a month, supplied a bathroom with bathroom in a house in the neighborhood of El Cerro
For 200 dollars a month, supplied a room with bathroom in a house in the neighborhood of El Cerro that other compatriots recommended. “It is quite safe but in the room, which is not very large, I have to have everything: an electric pot to cook, a table to study, the bed and my belongings.” By the time I return from your next vacation, you will have to rent something bigger. “It will not be easy because I read an ad, I call and tell me that the apartment is free, but when I’m going to see it they tell me that it already took care of.”
Supplwa believes that there are many prejudices with African students. “They put more prohibitions than others, I have spoken with Mexican, Colombian and other countries that are also studying medicine here and that does not happen as much as me.” South African has lived experiences that would be comic if they were not so lacerating to human dignity. “One day the owner of the house key the door in my room because he heard some laughs and thought he had come with a guest in hidden, but it was something that I was watching on television.”
Similar stories has lived Manuel, a 27 -year -old Angolan who claims to have “a diploma in understanding Cubans.” Now, after many bad times, he has been able to rent for $ 300, along with his girlfriend, from Luanda as well as him, a two -room apartment in New Vedado. The house, owned by a family that recently emigrated to the United States through parole Humanitarian, is well equipped and enjoys privacy.
“The owner’s mother comes every time to know if everything is fine,” says Manuel. “We have a washing machine, the water is missing from time to time but there is a tank to store it and the building is quite quiet.” Of course, some detailed some that the Angolan knows very well: “No high music, of parties or Cuban visitors.”
