“Don’t even think about having a Cuban girlfriend, because she’ll leave you speechless and cackling.”
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 1 February 2025 — From a balcony in El Vedado, Joao Henrique, a 28-year-old Brazilian native from San Salvador de Bahía, points to the building where he should be staying every night. “My scholarship is there, but the conditions are not good, so my parents helped me rent this place.” The house where he lives while pursuing a postgraduate degree in a medical specialty is more comfortable and safe than the state shelter, but it has strict rules.
For 300 dollars a month, the Brazilian student has a room to sleep in, a well-equipped kitchen, a bathroom, a balcony, and a living room. The small apartment is the result of the division of a larger house, so the owners live on the other side of the wall. “I can’t receive visitors, much less have parties,” he explains. “It’s a safe place, but the owners have warned me not to bring Cuban friends over, because then they can’t guarantee that things won’t get lost,” he explains to 14ymedio.
Tourism, which has fallen by almost 50% since the start of the pandemic, has pushed some homeowners to rent their spaces long-term to foreign students. Unlike nightly rates, which can exceed $30, renting a room or apartment to foreigners with temporary residence ranges from $250 to $500 per month, depending on the conditions and location of the home.
The most attractive spaces combine comfort, security, and proximity to the hospitals
The most attractive spaces combine comfort, security, and proximity to the hospitals where students do their internships, or to the facilities where they take classes. Foreign scholarship students are more highly valued than Cuban tenants, because they can pay more and do not accumulate any “right” over the property. But foreign students are often unaware of the characteristics of certain neighborhoods, and have a harder time reading the warning signs of a possible scam or danger.
From rooms inside a house where they share their daily life with the family, to comfortable independent apartments that include hot water and air conditioning, the variety of options fits everyone’s budget. “This place is close to the hospital where I do my internship, and is also quite central, so though I pay a little more, it’s very practical for me,” explains Joao Henrique.
As part of an agreement with Havana, Brasilia has financed the transfer to the Island of students who are paid for their plane tickets, classes in each specialty, and accommodations. The Brazilian was placed in the Comandante Ramón Paz Borroto Student Residence on the corner of 25th Street and G Street, in Havana’s Vedado. But Joao Henrique only spent the first month there after arriving on the island. “There are many problems with the water supply, and I was robbed twice in my room,” he explains.
“This apartment has better conditions, but it saddens me that my friends can’t visit me. I would like the owners to be less present in my life, and to have a little more privacy,” he admits. “Cubans have a very bad opinion of each other. The lady of the house warns me every week not to even think about having a Cuban girlfriend because she will leave me ’featherless and cackling,’” he says, imitating a Havana accent.
The owners of Joao Henrique’s apartment have a license to rent rooms to foreigners, something that many owners who do the same thing don’t have. “I was in a house where they told me I couldn’t greet the neighbors so they wouldn’t notice I wasn’t Cuban,” he recalls. “That place was cheaper, but one day the owner told me I had to leave because they had fined her thousands of pesos for renting without a license.”
The owners of Joao Henrique’s apartment have a license to rent rooms to foreigners
Others, far from home, prefer to live more closely with a local family. This is the case with Claudia, a German geography student who came from Bremen desiring to “get to know Cuban life.” The young woman took a break from her university and enrolled for a semester at La Colina. There she met a Havana student who offered to rent her a room in her house.
For 250 dollars a month, Claudia got a room in Centro Habana, about a ten-minute walk from her classroom. “I learn a lot by living with a family, but sometimes everything is very complicated. The house only has one bathroom, the kitchen is small, and when I go to the market and buy food there is only one refrigerator to store it in, so it runs out very quickly,” she says.
“I can’t bring visitors, but the girl who rents me a room and I go out a lot together. She has shown me many parts of Havana and introduced me to her friends.” What she misses most about her life in Bremen is “being able to eat vegetables more often, and having more privacy in my room, which has a door that I can’t even close from the inside.” She sums up her experience as “a crash course in Cuban life.” She says she hasn’t been able to learn much geography: “The teachers are absent a lot and sometimes classes are cancelled without explanation.”
The European Claudia and the Brazilian Joao Henrique don’t confront the roadblocks facing African students, who have to deal with prejudices and racism on the Island. For them, the rules can be much stricter.
Manuel, from Angola, and Nicolas Suminwa, from South Africa, have had to learn (by stumbling) to avoid these obstacles. Both have been living in Havana for a couple of years while studying medicine. “They give me a stipend to finance my transportation, my accommodation, and the food I need,” explains the South African, originally from Pretoria. “What I can afford is the cheap spaces, because here in Cuba life is very expensive.”
For 200 dollars a month, Suminwa rented a room with a bathroom in a large house in the El Cerro neighborhood
For 200 dollars a month, Suminwa rented a room with a bathroom in a large house in the El Cerro neighborhood that other compatriots recommended to him. “It’s quite safe, but in one room, which is not very big, I have to have everything: an electric pot for cooking, a table to study on, the bed, and my belongings.” When he returns from his next vacation he will have to rent something bigger. “It’s not going to be easy because when I read an ad, I call, and they tell me that the apartment is vacant, but when I go to see it they tell me that it’s already occupied.”
Suminwa believes that there are many prejudices against African students. “They put more restrictions on us than on others. I’ve spoken with Mexican, Colombian, and colleagues from other countries who are also studying medicine here, and this does not happen to them as much as it does to me.” The South African has experienced things that would be comical if they were not so lacerating to human dignity. “One day the owner of the house unlocked the door to my room because he heard laughter and thought I had sneaked in a secret guest, but it was something I was watching on television.”
Manuel, a 27-year-old Angolan who claims to have earned “a diploma in understanding Cubans,” has experienced similar stories. Now, after many bad moments, he has been able to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Nuevo Vedado for 300 dollars, together with his girlfriend, who is from Luanda like him. The house, owned by a family that recently emigrated to the United States through the Humanitarian Parole Program, is well-equipped and affords privacy.
“The owner’s mother comes by all the time to check if everything is okay,” says Manuel. “We have a washing machine, there is sometimes a lack of water but there is a tank to store it in, and the building is quiet enough.” But the list of prohibitions contains some things that the Angolan knows very well: “no loud music, no parties, and no Cuban visitors.”
Translated by Tomás A.
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