Local business owner has made four trips to country
By Lyndsi Naron, The Bolivar Bullet
Local business owner and avid traveler, Jimmy McClellan, has taken a total of four trips to Cuba and said the experiences have been humbling.
McClellan was born and raised in Cleveland and decided to stay to help his mother and father with the family business as they got older.
“We had a family business here for probably 90 years,” said McClellan. “I worked for my father for 25 years, then I bought his business, ran it for about ten years, didn’t do real good because I was spending all the money.”
After deciding he no longer wanted to work for himself again, McClellan said he ended up working for people who didn’t treat their employees or customers right. McClellan eventually started McClellan’s Security Services in 1999, and bought some rental property.
“I did that for 24 years,” said McClellan. “This past January, I turned around and sold 80% of my company to my employees.”
McClellan said he is fond of art and history, but he first became interested in visiting Cuba to see if he would be able to get access to the best cigars in the world.
“I had read some about Cuba,” said McClellan. “I like cigars and I wanted to go see if I could score me some. The first time I went, I think Obama was still the President and relationships were a little better, so there was not an issue with me bringing cigars back.”
According to McClellan, he brought back around $2,000 worth of cigars from his first trip.
“I wanted to go see the country,” said McClellan. “I had been to a lot of Caribbean islands, but I just wanted to go see what it was like. There’s just so much history. They have some great museums there. It’s surprising how much art they have. It’s everywhere.”
In order to visit Cuba, Americans must have a passport, a visa, and proof of travel medical insurance. You also have to fill out a D’Viajeros Advance Information of Travelers Form within 48 hours of your trip.
“I go through a travel agent, because we travel at least twice a year, and my wife usually sets up everything. But going to Cuba, I wanted to make sure I had all my T’s crossed, and my I’s dotted. I go through an agency where she sets up my drivers, and my tours.”
McClellan said every time he has gone his visa has been people-to-people, meaning he is going to see people that live there, not for business or any other reasons.
“But you must have a visa, and you must have a passport, and everything’s gotta be correct,” said McClellan. “The third time I went, I went to Santiago, and trying to get through customs in Santiago, my passport says James, and my driver’s license says Jimmy. I almost didn’t get let in the country.”
According to McClellan, they are extremely strict about what you have in your bags. You’re not allowed to bring anything “controversial” such as: a newspaper, paperwork, or propaganda into the country.
McClellan said he doesn’t like to go to tourist places, and would rather actually see the country like those who live there.
“I like the area, but it’s Communist,” said McClellan. “It’s completely different, and the people are very nice and family oriented, but they’re poor beyond your imaginations.”
McClellan said the country is so poor that you still see horse and carriages going down the highways.
“Most of the horse and buggies have rubber tires on them now instead of the old wood tires, but you still see some with the wood tires when you get back off the main roads,” said McClellan.
According to McClellan, Cuba is a country of artists and musicians because the residents can go to school for free. They go to school and when they get out of high school, they have to do two years for the government, whether it’s military, or working in a warehouse.
“The last man that was my guide, he did two years in a warehouse,” said McClellan. “The man told me his mother, who is a doctor, only makes $50 a month. So he’s always complimenting her salary with some money he makes as a guide.”
McClellan said many people choose to be musicians or artists, because they can make more money that way. In Havana, McClellan said they have “an art colony”.
“It’d be about the size of the Expo, and it’s two levels, and it’s all people that are artists with their paintings for sale, so I went there and I bought three paintings for $200,” said McClellan.
While taking a tour of the slum areas of Cuba, McClellan noticed there are pictures plastered everywhere of Castro.
“The boy that was my guide, said the first hour of school is talking about Cuba, Cuba, Cuba; I call it indoctrination, that’s what we would call it in this country,” said McClellan. “They don’t really like Americans, because America is the one that keeps them from being able to have open borders.”
McClellan said he prefers to go by himself to immerse himself in the history while he is there.
“After four or five days, I’m kind of tired of the Cuban lifestyle,” said McClellan. “Even in the better hotels, it’s still kind of primitive.”
McClellan said he has stayed at B&B’s in someone’s spare room of their home with very little amenities and he has also stayed at a hotel in Havana, like a Holiday Inn, where Wi-fi is available.
“Up in the mountains, electricity goes off about eight hours during the day,” said McClellan. “It came back on at eight o’clock at night, and I was so happy because I was getting ready to go back home and go to sleep.”
McClellan said there are computers in hotels and restaurants, but in small towns there is very little technology.
“I don’t know how much Wi-Fi availability they have up in the mountains where I was, but they have technology,” said McClellan. “It’s just not as widespread.”
While walking one day, McClellan said he saw a bunch of kids all grouped together on the sidewalk staring at phones. When he asked about it, he was told they were using the free Wi-fi.
According to McClellan, the Cubans are not supposed to take American money, and he has had to learn how to use two different types of Cuban money when he has visited.
“There used to be two types of Cuban money,” said McClellan. “It was normal Cuban money for normal people, and then what I call the Cuban money for the real poor people. But they’ve done away with that, and there’s only one Cuban money now.”
On his most recent trip, McClellan was able to tour an actual tobacco farm instead of going to a cigar store to get his cigars.
“This time I wanted to go to see the growers, so I went way up in the mountains,” said McClellan. “We had to walk to get to the tobacco farm, and the tobacco farm was small. It’s like 15 acres, and the people that live there are the third or fourth generations.”
McClellan said he was fed at the farm and shown the tobacco fields, the rolling process, and how they sell it.
“They took me on an ox cart, a real big old oxen on a big old cart like you see in the cowboy movies,” said McClellan. “They took me for a ride all up in the mountains and stuff. It’s just so interesting.”
McClellan was surprised that the process wasn’t automated in some way, as one would expect from American businesses.
“I went to two different places, and we talked to the guys, and both of them did demonstrations on rolling cigars and stuff,” said McClellan. “These people are just salt of the earth.”
McClellan said they are self-sustaining and grow almost everything they need to survive on their land. They don’t have huge fields like American farmers do, but they consume everything they don’t have to give to the government.
“I like new information, new things, and the whole time you’re there, you’re just consuming all this information,” said McClellan. “They still plant rice by hand. They take a grain of rice and put it in the ground. When it grows, they take that out, and they go to the rice field and put it in the ground. Each stalk of rice. It’s just unbelievable.”
McClellan said in comparison, Americans are spoiled with food. The people of Cuba are less likely to go get a hamburger and more likely to eat food they grow or cultivate themselves.
“We eat for pleasure,” said McClellan. “They eat for food.”
The Cubans are extremely resourceful and use everything they can to survive. Here we would have someone cut the grass on the side of the highways, but McClellan said the Cubans go out with machetes, cut the grass, and take it back to their homes to feed their livestock.
“They utilize everything there,” said McClellan. “I went to an automobile shop, and a car there may have seven or eight different manufacturers of parts, because they can’t get parts there. The vintage cars that they have in Cuba are a national treasure, so they cannot be brought out of the country.”
The older cars have been retrofitted, said McClellan, with electric mirrors, electric windows, and air conditioning for people to be taken on tours.
“We’ll tip the guides $20, which to us is nothing, but for them to get $20 in a day is remarkable,” said McClellan.
Over the course of time McClellan has been visiting, he has noticed the laws have become more lenient and now people are allowed to have restaurants and B&Bs in their homes and use other means to make extra money. The people of Cuba are also now allowed to travel to America on parole, as long as they have a family member in the states.
“Most owned restaurants are in either the front of a house or the back of the house,” said McClellan. “You’ll walk through the house and then they’ll have five or six tables set up. It’s in their residence. Almost everything there that is serving food during the day is open air. Now at night, we went to a few venues that were air conditioned and closed and a little better.”
According to McClellan, there is no borrowing money in Cuba, you have to have money to make it, and many people get money from family in Miami to start their businesses.
Cubans aren’t allowed to transport food across certain areas and every line has a police station. McClellan said they stop you each time to check your papers and make sure you’re not transporting anything you shouldn’t be.
McClellan said the people of Cuba are extremely intelligent and find ways to make things work since they have very little money. Most of the cars you’ll find are from China, or have been pieced together from other vehicles, and McClellan even saw a push mower that had been rebuilt to use electricity instead of gas and had an extension cord attached to it.
“Gasoline is rationed there,” said McClellan. “When you have a necessity, your brain will go to work and those people over there think about everything.”
McClellan hopes to continue his visits by going to Cienfuegos, a French city in Cuba, next year.
“The only town in Cuba that’s still French,” said McClellan. “It’s a port city that’s way off. It’s supposed to be beautiful.”