They help Claudia because they know that she is "struggling" too. Claudia doesn't care what they call her; it's all a show, a staging, night after night. A peddler of cocktails who is in on the arrangement, an incidental character who recites her lines so that the rum keeps flowing down the customer's gullets. In the 90s the Government allowed the first limited forms of private property in Cuba, but it was not until that the categories of licenses were greatly expanded, to None specified the founding of bars.
It didn't matter. Havana lit up with new neon signs. By the end of the city had more than paladares, or private restaurants. Many of them simply set up a section for nights, where there would be a bar. Like moths to a flame, people showed up for the music; sometimes recorded, sometimes live. Websites and mobile applications such as "A la mesa" promoted well known businesses, registered with restaurant licenses, as "bars".
For to the Cuban State, they did not exist, but for everyone else they did. And for Claudia they constituted an opportunity to make more money. And the girls bring customers, usually with money. They don't care what they call them; few definitions fit them so well. Jugglers of desire, a link in the chain between Cuban macro and microeconomics, between the ascending numbers of the Ministry of Tourism and the private bars. The videoblogger was offered women "as if they were worthless. The average salary in Cuba is less than The places where Claudia has worked slap astronomical prices on the products they sell.
When a group of Cubans enters, everyone from the bartender to the bouncers scrutinize what they are wearing. Expensive clothes? They're in. Then they have a line that scares them off: "Good evening, the only tables available come with a bottle that costs CUC". The invaders go away, annoyed or giving excuses. The bar is often empty. A priori , on the socialist island the distances between the haves and have-nots are aggravated.
We let them sit at the bar with the same drink all night, so they can throw out the hook. Security knows who everyone is, and why they are going to the bar. In September of , the Government in Havana decided to temporarily suspend the issuance of licenses, to open its own paladares.
