#jinetero

LUIS

Photo/ Bobby Bethancourt Montiel

Madrid

One of the more unfortunate realities of Cuba is the existence of "jineteros", or scam artists. Jineteros are Cubans who look for tourists to take advantage of- either in the form of selling fake cigars, offering illegal services and taking commissions, or offering their companionship in return for drinks food and money (sounds like soft-core prostitution to me).

Whenever I saw a Cuban walking with a foreigner, I assumed it was a jinetero, which is equally fucked up on my behalf. They could very well have a real friendship or relationship, but the reality is that more likely than not, it's a jinetero just looking for a little something something. And what's even more fucked up, according to my friend, is that this is a totally accepted way of earning money. Not necessarily respected, but accepted. 

For example, my friend told me that he's been out at a club, flirting with a Cuban girl, and if a foreigner shows up that she's gonna go prey on, she'll excuse herself from the Cuban, ask for his number to continue their flirtation later, and go to the foreigner. And this is totally normal. Or, even crazier to me, is that many of these jineteras have boyfriends, called chulos, or essentially their pimps from my understanding of it. And these chulos are totally ok with their girls going out night after night looking for foreigners to entertain. These all seemed absolutely crazy to me, and somehow a completely normal way of life to the Cubans I spoke with.

We realized early on that the overly friendly Cuban that approaches you is most likely a jinetero and meant to be avoided. The honest Cubans, the ones who you want to be friends with, normally won't approach you first. Why? I think they are so conscious of not being thought of as a jinetero that they don't really have interest in befriending foreigners. 

Travels in Cuba, Day Three

Photo by Ross Humphreys.

We invited Walter and Betty Parks to join us on Tom Miller’s Literary Tour of Havana in early January. Miller published Trading with the Enemy in 1992. It is the best single piece of writing we have seen on Cuba in the Castro days. When we returned, Walt (The Miracle of Mata Ortiz, Rio Nuevo Publishers) shared his personal trip journal with the other travelers in our…