“What takes thirty minutes in the states will take all day here. Sometimes more.” That's what David Ariosto was told by his housemate upon moving to Cuba in 2009 to work in CNN's Havana bureau.
In his excellent 2018 book, This Is Cuba, Ariosto described in detail what life was like in a country with a centrally planned economy: endless waits for seemingly everything, including basic items like spark plugs, car door latches and….sinks. Ariosto's was stolen from him rental house early on. The cars that populate the island are in such desperate shape that cabdrivers instruct passengers to very gingerly close their doors. Something as simple to fix (in the United States) as an inoperative door can take many months in Cuba.
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