LUIS LAROSA, CUBAN, HAS BEEN PUNCHING INTO THE US FOR 43 YEARS: "I DON'T FEEL LIKE A TRAITOR. I GO IN, DO MY JOB AND LEAVE"

Twelve Cubans, all of them over 60 years old, can see through tired eyes what no one else - not even Fidel Castro or George Bush - on the planet can: 12 hours of capitalism and another 12 of socialism every day. These men live in Cuba and work in the US. 930 kilometers from Havana, the American naval base at Guantanamo once employed over 10 thousand Cubans during WWII. After Fidel seized power, mass cuts in reprisal of the regime drastically reduced the number, almost to extinction. In 2001, these 12 gentlemen are the last characters in a surreal traffic between two worlds, between two countries, between the least amicable nations in the Americas, between capitalism and socialism. On a very hot afternoon I met two such men. Luis Larosa and Oscar Montoto, respectively 67 and 84 years old, once more stepped down from the small bus - coming from the US - to get home. Oscar works at a market that sells clothes, food products and electronic equipment. Luis accepts to talk and we go to his house, the best looking one on his street. A façade like that of houses from the 1950s in Miami, a new coat of paint, a living room with a modern TV and a powerful stereo - very rare items in Cuban homes. Those who work at the base have ver y high standards of living according to the local norm. Their wages are the driving force behind the city's economy - not to mention 90 thousand US dollars a month paid by the American government to retirees. Each of the 12 makes from 800 to 1400 dollars a month, usually enough to support all their relatives - a fortune by the island's standards. To get a sense of this, a doctor working for Fidel's State makes, at most, 20 dollars a month, which translates into 400 Cuban pesos. Luis invites me to sit down and explains his routine: for the last 43 years he's been waking up at 4:00 A.M., taking the bus (that collects all 12 gentlemen) at 5:00 A.M and, 20 minutes later, getting to the Cuban checkpoint. He leaves the vehicle, is frisked by the soldiers and walks across a paved street lined on both sides with barbwire, the physical limit between sides. In these 30 feet of no man's pavement, Luis leaves behind Cuban socialism and becomes a worker that lives and gets paid according to the rules of American capitalism. On the other side of the street he shows his worker ID and crosses the American checkpoint. There, another bus awaits. He has breakfast - "normal, a sandwich and milk" - and goes to work. Luis, a welder, cares for civilian vehicles (owned by 800 relatives of 1200 officers). At 11:30 A.M. he has Cuban food at a restaurant he calls simple - "I went to McDonald's once and didn't like it" - and continues to work until 4:00 P.M. He then takes a shower in the locker room and starts the trip back to the past.

GRINGO SPRAY FOR COMMIE ROACHES
As the sun sets, the same bus takes him back to the border. He gets down, walks though boht checkpoints, gets on the Cuban bus and goes home. He says that he didn't learn English in 43 years and that his friends at the base are the Cubans and other workers, Philippines, Puerto Ricans and Jamaican. "Are there many people at the base now?" "Mostly Philippine workers. But they are few and will be even less. It's not like before, there are few troops to be seen, almost none..." "Did you have contact with Cubans who defected through the base?" "They were Cubans against Cuba. Mostly young people who thought they'd make a better living away from here. And when they got there they heard the Yankees yell: 'communists, communists!'" "Did that make you mad?" "I'm Cuban and never considered living away from Cuba. My wife even has relatives in Miami. But plain bread here is better than bread and ham over there," he emphasizes, in his living room garnished with leather armchairs. At this moment a cockroach draws my attention. He kills it with his slipper - Cuban roaches are slower than Brazilian ones - and says that he'd normally use bug spray for that. Imported and sold for dollars, the product is extremely rare in the neighborhood. Finally, he shows me the medals and plaques he got for "40 years of good work at Guantanamo Bay." On the porch, his son-in-law and one of his eight children are loitering, talking about mechanics and listening to Orishas, the island's most popular rap group at the moment. I say good-bye and we agree to take pictures the following day. When I return with Jorge - TRIP's art director and photographer - the man seems changed, obviously upset he talked to me and afraid of getting into trouble with the military or with the Cuban government. Apprehensive, he tells his son-in-law to record every moment with a video camera. I imagine he'll submit the tape as evidence in case he's asked what he told foreigners about the base. A definitely awkward tension is noticeable. The VHS camera only turns away from us as we reach the street. "Buenas noches," we said, getting a bitter smile in response.

GUANTANAMO LOITERING: NO CHANGES SINCE 1959

The following day it was very easy to find one of the base's retirees. All I had to do was ask at the town square, always full of people playing chess or simply doing nothing, and people promptly told me where to find Oscar Soto Palermo. Three blocks ahead, on seeing the powder blue house with stonework and a fresh coat of paint, I'm sure this is the place. A curly-headed girl answers the door, leaves it open and goes get her grandparents. In the back, a couple of seniors sits in a patio lit by the yellowish afternoon sun, in plastic lounge-chairs. Oscar is a nice 76-year old gentleman, and is quite lucid. He spent the past 55 years working as a mason. The houses he built for civilians at the Guantanamo base all have air-conditioning, intercoms, electric ovens, dish washers and many rooms - "very different from the houses over here." His retirement pension provides him with 1100 dollars a month paid by the US government, and he says he paid 6500 dollars for his luxurious South-Korean car, the best in town. A reminder: having such a vehicle in Cuba is an extravagance.

BUENA VIDA

Oscar installed air-conditioners in two rooms and now spends his time remodeling the house. He's putting Mexican tiles on the living-room walls; later on he'll replace the floor and "make general improvements, what with all the time I have." A diabetic, he depends on friends that still work at the base for insulin - there's a shortage of the drug in Cuban hospitals. I ask him whether he can remember the day Fidel seized power: "The Revolution changed nothing for us at the base. Only no more visitors or new workers are allowed." "And what was the missile crisis like?" "Times were nervous, we had to cross the border quickly not to cause any problems. But we were not in the military and were never involved with politics." "What were the 1990's like for you [the period was one of the worst for the Cuban economy]?"

A GOOD JOB AT THE BASE, A GOOD RETIREMENT PLAN, OLD AGE WITH PRIVILEGES - "I DON'T GET INVOLVED WITH POLITICS"

"My family was never in need of anything. But when times were really hard, I just gave money for people who asked me." In 1993, Cuba created a parallel economy by permitting free circulation of US dollars; Guantanamo has been witnessing the juxtaposition of two such different universes for 42 years. Free from any guilt, Oscar admits he was lucky to keep a job that provided him with the money his fellow countrymen never had - as well as the opportunity to spend five vacations in the US. "It's a magnificent country, very bountiful," he says, proudly remembering his going away lunch party at the base in April past. "There were 200 people there. I got a coffee-maker, an electric fan, gifts and clothes for my family," he celebrates. "I brought lots of ice things to this side." He says Americans are very friendly and that he made many friends on the other side. He sighs, smiles and resumes talking about the next renovation job.

WHAT AN AMERICAN NAVAL BASE IS DOING IN CUBA
In 1898, American vessels assisted Cuba in the former Spanish colony's liberation war and an agreement between the two countries was struck in 1903 according to which title over the Guantanamo base would carry to the US. The 117.6- square kilometer area was rented for 2 thousand gold coins a year - a mere 4085 dollars. In 1934, the agreement was made perpetual and can only be terminated by consensus. Since seizing the power, in 1959, never cashed the checks, declared that the base was illegal and demanded its return several times, to no avail. Since then the site has been reason for conflict: beginning in 1961, after the frustrated attempt by the US to invade Cuba from the Bay of the Pigs, and becoming critical during the Missile Crisis. In 1964, the Cold War almost drove the Soviet Union and the US to all-out warfare and Cuba pointed its missiles towards its neighbor, 145 kilometers North. The Guantanamo line then became one of the world's densest minefields, with up to 55 thousand declared landmines (on the American side; no information available on the other side). To make things even worse, since 1994 a strong economic crisis led many Cubans to risk their lives trying to migrate to the US through the base - the Cuban government won't say how many. Three years ago, some of Castro's military were wounded trying to rescue fugitives from the minefield [see a Cuban journalist's report on the episode on TRIP's Website]. Only in 1997 did Bill Clinton, between one cigar puff and another, order removal of the mines - the same year the International Campaign to Banish Landmines won the Nobel Prize. The Pentagon announced the end of the mines in 1999. Cuba, like the US, has not yet subscribed the treaty. Today, one might wonder how important the Guantanamo Base is for the US in military terms. The country has military facilities in Florida and Puerto Rico and Gitmo, as the base was dubbed, costs 100 million dollars a year. Spokespeople for Clinton told the Miami Herald that the government was prepared to "renegotiate or even return the base to a democratically elected Cuban government." It seems that the "poison dagger" will still be there for as long as Fidel remains in power. Or living.

THE INTERROGATION
It was bound to happen. When we got to the house where we were staying a police officer was waiting with a citación [warrant] for us to appear at a certain address. Despite our questions, he offered no explanations and limited himself to a threat: "You must not miss it, understand?" The nexta day, at 8:30 A.M. Jorge and I were at the threshold of the Guantanamo Immigration Department with our passports and plane tickets in hand, and not a little nervous as we had no idea of what the single party regime's police might want with us or of whether this was routine or we should be desperate. We were called by an inspector. A black man, looking 35, with a moustache and not in fatigues. Without a word, he smiles at us and leads the way to a room. In the back. We enter a room that looks like the prototypical grandmother's parlor, with a wood table, weight high-backed chairs, white-washed walls and very Cuban-looking windows - no glass-panes and with wooden shutters. Holding a legal that had seen better days, he asks for our papers and starts asking questions. Hanging from the wall, a map with figures in red on the number of the unemployed and prostitutes - the latter were 75 in the region alone. There's tension in the air. He wants to know our date of arrival, what we had seen and what we did in Brazil. I tell him I study journalism and Jorge studies photography. "So we have a couple of journalists here!" "No, students," I correct him. We only have tourist visas, despite having been working on this story for four days. The proper thing would be to apply for journalistic visas, but that would mean a 24-hour police escort. Particularly when what we were interested in was the American military base, the "poison dagger thrust into the country's heart," to quote Fidel Castro. After many questions about soap-operas and Che Guevara, three other men enter the room. A strong blond, a skinny brown man in olive-green fatigues and one more, on the stout side, with a nervous tic that caused his eyebrows to shimmy. Looking serious. They sit, cross their arms and the blond asks: "What are you doing in Guantanamo?" - not again, I thought - "You've asked many questions about the Yankee base in our land... Why? Do you have any connection with the American military?"- my body freezes and I try hard not to show it.

RISK AREA: "PROVOCACIONES" REGISTERED BY THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT IN PHOTOS FROM THE 1960s.

"Did you speak to any of the workers at the base?" he insists. Now it's clear: we were being watched. Apparently the police knew all that we had done in the past few days. "Yes, with one gentlemen..." "Do you have the Internet in Brazil?" - he interrupts again. I tell him Yes. "You'll get more information there than here in Guantanamo." The conversation is quite tense, though the officers at times put on a false cordial face. In Cuba, tourism is the leading growth industry - in 1999 the island received 2 million tourists and the sector took in about 2.2 billion dollars - and the police tends to be rather lenient with tourists. In Havana, for example, drugs, trouble and prostitution are tolerated if a tourist is involved. But Cubans caught doing any of that will be arrested and may proceed to the world's most inhuman prisons. Guantanamo is not a real tourist spot, but does receive passing foreigners - and we had, for the past four days, disturbed the city's peace with questions about a military facility that the government's rather forget. After two hours in interrogation we were finally released with apologies over the "incident." The exchange of pleasantries lasts until we get to the sidewalk, where a taxi has been waiting for a long time, as we had scheduled a visit to Mirante Malone, overlooking the base.

"THEY WATCH US, WE WATCH THEM"
Neither Cubans nor tourists are admitted into the American territory as visitors. Likewise, American officers are not welcome here - should they want to, they'd have to go in via Mexico, like anyone else. The closest one can get to the base is Mirante Malone, an observatory strategically located one kilometer from the border. "They watch us, we watch them," Fidel told CNN in 1999. Weekly convoys with up to 80 foreigners depart the tourist city of Santiago de Cuba towards the 330-meter tall Mirante. Only Cubans with special access can enter. Cuba has established several places where natives are not allowed, unless they can pay in dollars and prove where the money came from - which is virtually impossible. This is the case with the Varadero and Cayo Largo resorts. To get to the Mirante one has to show papers, cross three checkpoints and one Cuban Army shooting range. Once there, we found some tourism infrastructure: a token-operated public scope "Made in Alabama - USA" - which is free at the Mirante - plus a dozen military binoculars "Made in USSR."

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, PARTIES AHOY. AFTER, THE DEATH OF A FISHERMAN IN YANK WATERS AND THE SHOCKED

The trip costs five dollars and includes a shot of cuba libre. To this day, the view from the Mirante at night impresses Cubans due to the abundant light-posts in the base - public illumination is scarce in Cuba. In the daytime, one can see houses that look like those in big, exclusive condos: no outer walls and lawns on the backyards. A few warehouses, water-towers and several guard posts complete the scenario. With a little luck, you may even get to see a jeep full of pink-cheeked blonds with automatic weapons. After visiting the Mirante, the return to Cuban Guantanamo made the houses look even older, the cars more obsolete and the people more isolated from the rest of the world. A feeling Luis Larosa and his eleven companions may not get, as they see, day in day out, two contradicting universes and live in yet another - one where they are neither Cuban nor American.