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HAVANA, August 16 (Ernesto Roque, Grupo Decoro / www.cubanet.org) - A
cafeteria offering a mix of safe-sex instructions with light meals and
non-alcoholic beverages was inaugurated August 1 in Havana but hasn't opened for
business because the Ministry of Health has yet to issue the required license.
"The unit remains closed due to a bureaucratic procedure," said
one employee who asked not to be identified.
A number of dignitaries were present at the inauguration of the so-called
'health-café,' located at the corner of Belascoaín and Maloja
Streets in Centro Havana; most prominent among them the French Ambassador to
Cuba, representatives of Doctors of the World (Médecins du Monde),
officials of the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, and a small number of guests.
Customers of the health café will get condoms along with the safe sex
lectures in the no-smoking establishment scheduled to be open between 7 a.m. and
11 p.m. The waiters and waitresses will wear green T-shirts with the logos of
Doctors of the World and the Cuban Ministry of Public Health.
Reportedly there are only two such establishments in the world; the other
one is in Viet-Nam.
Reaction from neighborhood residents was mostly positive, if only because of
what was there before.
Carmen Lobaina said, "I'm glad they have destined the place for
something so healthy. Before there was a low-class bar there, and there was a
bunch of drunks and a terrible smell around the place."
Another neighbor, Eric López, said, "I live upstairs from the
cafeteria, and I think we have benefited from the new establishment, at the very
least because now the rats have disappeared.
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