http://hereishavana.com/2013/05/04/pushing-your-luck-in-cuba/
MAY 4, 2013 · 8:43 AM Pushing Your Luck in Cuba<http://hereishavana.com/2013/05/04/pushing-your-luck-in-cuba/> The querida phenomenon; why locals love iron bars and pure-bred dogs; and the story behind those ridiculous dos: Here is Havana is your go-to resource for the inside scoop on all sorts of Cuban cultural minutiae. This place is so intriguing and complex, Im constantly heeding Moms advice to learn something new every day. If youve been here, you know this perpetual learning curve of which I speak, surely. Or maybe you live somewhere/somehow that, like Cuba, allows indeed forces you to learn something new every day. If so, I salute you. Whats holding my fascination and providing ah ha! moments lately is the long-standing, deeply-rooted Cuban tradition known as La Bolita. >From Ciegos piña-studded *campo* to the listing wooden houses of Regla, Cubans are playing the numbers. Like an underground Powerball, La Bolita is technically illegal but in practice allowed to function (not unlike other things here including the worlds oldest profession; two houses sharing one phone line; and foreigners buying property). Not only does it function, La Bolita flourishes as a twice-daily gambling habit nursed across the country. I was quite surprised to discover how many people I know play La Bolita work colleagues, neighborhood doctors, Harley dudes, government guys, grannies, ballet dancers. So diverse are the Cubans playing the numbers, I think it may be one of the most genuinely and naturally integrated and equitable systems in contemporary Cuba. La Bolita leaps across class, race, gender, and geographical lines and though I havent made a point of asking, Im sure my LGBT friends are also placing their daily bets (see note 1). In short: La Bolita doesnt discriminate. First a little background: Most HIH readers know that until *los barbudos* rolled into Havana in 1959, Cuba was a vipers nest of dissolution rotten with drugs, prostitutes, gin joints, and gambling (no wonder Hemingway called it home!). In those days, fun seekers and neer-do-wells from the US used to hop down to use the island like college kids do Cancún and the ghetto: a place to score, get sloppy and slum, before returning to safe, cushy lives back home. The Revolution put an end to all that (mostly, technically, anyway) and gambling was especially targeted and vilified. Big, lucrative casinos in nightclubs like the Tropicana and Sans Souci and hotels including the Riviera and Capri were shut down, along with smaller enterprises in the back alleys of Barrio Chino and out in Boyeros. La Bolita, however, was a national pastime, a traditional pursuit and while publically and officially banned, has survived all these years. The daily numbers, for those wondering, are drawn in Miami and Caracas, if my sources are correct (see note 2). >From why folks emigrate to how Cubans (mis)behave at all-inclusive resorts, I find all aspects of culture intriguing here. But La Bolita captures my fascination beyond what may be rational. To wit: I recently placed my first bet. I thought this was just a question of picking a series of numbers from the 100 in play and laying down my money á la the NY Lotto. Silly me. This is some really complicated shit and I needed a tutorial from my friend Aldo to place my bet correctly. Heres what I learned: Numbers range from 1 to 100. Nothing complicated there. But each number corresponds to a symbol think Mexican *lotería*. The symbols are key and transcend simple number-figure association, however. For instance, Cubans often play numbers appearing in dreams: if youre chased by a Doberman while dreaming, you should play 95 (big dog), if its a Dachshund, 15 (little dog) is more appropriate. Beware dreams of 63 leading to 8, because that will land you in 78 and finally 14 (murder, death, casket, cemetery). Scary. When this happens, do you play these numbers, just in case? Folks also bet numbers they see in their daydreams Im sure you know someone who hopes to get a 100 or some 38 (car, money) or a Cubana who has already made their dreams come true through a 62 (marriage) to a foreigner. The numbers and their corresponding symbols have also passed into common vernacular. Fidel is called the *caballo* (1) for obvious reasons and for those who doubt my claim that Cuban Spanish can stump even fluent, native speakers, what would you do if your taxi driver said you owe a fish and a nun? Would you hand over $5? $20? $50? Youd be ripping either yourself or him off if you did (see note 3). My life (like everyones if we choose to pay attention) is riddled with symbols and I had no problem knowing what numbers I would play. In fact, I determined not to let this year go by without playing La Bolita as soon as I learned 43 (my age) stands for scorpion (my sign). What could be more propitious? But how to play? I knew Id have Aldo place the bet because I didnt want to show my foreigner face at any of the neighborhood *bancos* Cuban for Bolita bookie lest I make them nervous; it is illegal after all. So Id play 43 and if I needed to pick a bonus number, I figured Id go with 52 in honor of my beloved Frances. Were it that easy. As it turns out, there are all kinds of variations you can play, including the parlé (a type of trifecta); a fixed number with additional jackpot numbers; and other combinations which still confuse me. Theres also a specific way to note your numbers on a piece of paper that needs to be folded a special way when you place your bet. The minimum bet is 1 *peso cubano* (about 4 cents) but most people wager more; payoffs can be huge Aldo recently hit for 700 pesos and another friends uncle once won 5,000. Of course, hed bet much more over the course of his lifetime, but thats the gamblers carrot and curse, no? *En fin*: like many things Cuban, Im sure La Bolita is played differently in different latitudes (see note 4) including in South Florida where it thrives. What I relate here is simply how it went down in my corner of Cuba. I ended up playing scorpion-San Lazaro-machete (43-17-94) in keeping with various symbolic occurrences lately. Alas, my 37 (*brujería*) proved powerless: I lost my 25 pesos. Oh well, theres always tomorrow for learning something new (and placing another bet). *Notes* 1. Let me take this opportunity to wave the rainbow flag: every May, Cuba celebrates the jornada de anti-homofobia known as IDAHOBIT globally and its one helluva good time. This years festivities kick off May 7 and run through May 18 in Havana and this years host province, Ciego de Ávila. 2. Over several years of writing this blog, it has become clear that Here is Havana readers are hip, informed, and sit upon a wealth of knowledge; if anyone has light to shed on the *mecánica* or history of La Bolita, please share! 3. A nun is 5 and a fish is 10; your taxi ride cost $15. 4. While researching this post in fact, a friend of mine and closet bet-placer, told me about La Charada (traditionally *la charada china*). This predates La Bolita, which takes its first 36 numbers (horse/*caballo* through pipe/*cachimba*) from the older chinese tradition. This numbers game dates from the 1800s when Chinese workers arrived on these shores. According to one source, in 1957, Cubans wagered between $90 and 100 million on La Charada, la Bolita and other numbers games. ---------------------------------------- The Impact of Telesur and Cubas Media CrisisMay 2, 2013 | | 81 Fernando Ravsberg* <http://cartasdesdecuba.com/> [image: Cubans watching Telesur. Photo: Raquel Perez]<http://www.havanatimes.org/?attachment_id=92374> Cubans watching Telesur. Photo: Raquel Perez HAVANA TIMES At last I get to see what Capriles looks like and hear what he thinks, a 65-year-old Cuban friend says to me. News reports aired by the station*Telesur *, now broadcast on Cuban television, continue to be a topic of conversation among Cubans, surprising many and raising questions in others. Alarmed, the wife of a mechanic tells me of an interview televised by the station, in which a Venezuelan woman declared she didnt want her country ending up like Cuba, that she didnt sympathize with communism and that all Cuban physicians in the country ought to be expelled. Following 50 years of a biased, grim, monotonous and clumsy way of handling information, the arrival of the new television channel awoke so much interest among television audiences in Cuba that many stopped watching the local news altogether, until *Telesur *coverage stopped being aired during Cuban news hours. To make matters worse, Cubans know that *Telesur *is unequivocally left-wing and pro-Chavez and that it sympathizes with the Cuban Revolution, such that it could never be accused of being an imperialist broadcaster. Nor could its brand of journalism be dismissed as bourgeois. What makes *Telesur *different for Cubans is that, while the Cuban news program recalls a movie with good guys and bad guys (where the bad guys arent allowed to share their opinions, lest they confuse the people), the Latin American broadcaster shows the gray areas inherent to the issues. These subtleties make people think. For example, following the coverage of the Venezuelan elections, many in Cuba are asking themselves: why are political candidates on the island not allowed to campaign, to present their platform and explain what they intend to do if they are elected? Watching Nicolas Maduro tour Venezuela and make campaign promises creates something of a short-circuit in Cubas official political discourse, which condemns electoral campaigns as politicking and only allows Cuban candidates to post a brief personal biography. Curiously, a very close friend of mine tells me that *Telesur *news reports and documentaries exposed him to the extreme levels of poverty and violence that persist across Latin America. He tells me that he hadnt imagined the situation was so serious. [image: ravs2] <http://www.havanatimes.org/?attachment_id=92375> Telesur has had an enormous impact in Cuba. Foto: Raquel Pérez When I remind him that this is constantly repeated on Cuban television, he laughs and replies: thats just bunk (political propaganda), a bunch of Cuban journalists talking amongst themselves about how evil capitalism is. In Telesur, you see how people actually live. By the looks of it, the friendly fire from this regional broadcaster has sparked off an internal media credibility crisis that Radio and TV Marti, stations used by the U.S. government against Cuba, have always dreamed of but never attained. Cubas national media had already lost the confidence of many Cubans and run the risk of alienating the most left-leaning of the lot as well, which can now see the two sides of the coin in programs above all ideological suspicion. *Telesur *could well constitute the sign presaging the restructuring of the political mechanisms which have been used to keep the Cuban press under the strictest control for over 4 decades, mechanisms which are primarily responsible for the creation of Cubas severely deficient media. And there are other telling symptoms: the blog *La Joven Cuba *(Young Cuba), recently censored for its critical stances, has just published an interview with Cuban Minister for Culture Fernando Rojas, who declared that blogs are the embryo of the alternative press we need. The official admitted that Cuba does not have a truly socialist press today and sent out a clear message to the blogs readership: I ask young bloggers to continue to do what theyre doing. I hope you can become revolutionaries on your own, not because any one of us tells you to. Since the interview, a photograph showing the bloggers from *La Joven Cuba *next to Cuban Vice-President Miguel Diaz Canel, standing in front of official portraits of Fidel and Raul Castro, has been circulating around the Internet, a sign that the government is distancing itself publicly from the ideological censors. The gesture is in keeping with the personality of Diaz Canel, who showed an open mind, pragmatism and flexibility when he was Villa Claras provincial leader. These qualities could prove extremely useful in bringing a new way of thinking to the Communist Partys Ideological Secretariat. Cubans know the type of press produced under the vigilance of the countrys protectors of the ideological faith only too well. Attempting to bring about a different kind of journalism, for which critical thought ceases to be a heresy and submission a virtue, would well be worth the effort. *(*) An authorized HT translation of the original posted in Spanish by BBC Mundo <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mundo/cartas_desde_cuba/>.* [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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