A Brief History of Cuba's Public Restrooms

A Brief History of Cuba's Public Restrooms
May 6, 2013
Daisy Valera

HAVANA TIMES— In 2011, when I skimmed through the list of 178 trades
which the Cuban State had authorized its citizens to practice on a
freelance basis, I was left with a number of questions and a general
sense of bewilderment.

I still wonder how those who've secured licenses for such unprofitable
trades as upholstering buttons or pruning palm trees manage to pay their
taxes.

Of all the taxable occupations with which this scheme, aimed at pulling
jobs out of a hat and throwing a bone to the unemployed, has been
meticulously woven, the livelihood described as "public bathroom
custodian", I must say, struck me as a rather distasteful joke.

For the longest time, the search for a public bathroom around Havana
frequently ended at a dark walkway surrounding the Capitolio, a derelict
corner of the Manzana de Gomez commercial complex, the space behind a
large concrete bus stop or, of course, an abandoned building – places
where the stench of human feces, urine and wet newspapers combine to
offer us one of the city's hallmark odors.

The fact my bladder is the size of a pea and the intense heat has me
guzzling water at every corner may explain why I've followed the
evolution of this new occupation so closely.

Today, one has less trouble finding a public bathroom, not because a
network of such lavatories has been set up around the city's more
frequented places (such as pedestrian boulevards and parks), but because
these restrooms, be them at a restaurant, a cafeteria or a movie
theatre, have become something akin to small businesses.

Now, every trip to the bathroom you make at a cafeteria, where you are
likely to spend several hours and go more than once, will cost you. The
same holds for ice-cream parlors and pubs.

The minimum amount you can get away with paying has, of course, been
re-adjusted because of the taxes that the custodians (elderly people,
for the most part) must pay, and any prospect of using a lavatory for a
quarter of a peso has already become wishful thinking.

The public restrooms we come across now cost no less than a peso and up
to 0.25 Cuban Convertible Pesos in touristy areas.

The former aren't exactly bathrooms, not in the strict sense of the
word, anyways (they often have no running water, nor faucets, for that
matter). They are, rather, places for the writing of amorous, sexual or
political manifestos, four walls covered with reams and reams of graffiti.

The latter are something of a blessing. The sliver of soap next to the
basin and folded-up strip of toilet paper that the custodians offer
outside the restroom as part of their "services" continue to be
unexpected luxuries which people regard as rather outlandish.

For now, the State has been spared the burden of having to invest in
public bathrooms, the salaries of these custodians can oscillate between
500 and 1,000 Cuban pesos a month and the city, all in all, probably
smells a little a better.

To make use of one of these restrooms, however, one must always have a
peso handy, unless one wants to incur the disfavor of the custodian, the
contemptuous expression which is one of the faces of this precarious
process of privatization.

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