The first decade of the 2000s saw the numbers of repairmen surge as relatives and former neighbors who emigrated abroad began sending materials to skilled artisans on the island who could serve citizens who needed to fix small but essential personal items such as watches (image 13). Known in Cuban parlance as merolicos [tinkerers], repairmen included entrepreneurs dedicated to the simple (if dangerous) service of refilling disposable lighters for pennies by using gas left inside used cans of cockroach killer, hairspray and the like. Image 14 features both a young man operating an industrial sewing machine in the foreground and a lighter-refiller, both stationed on the edges of Old Havana’s Plaza Vieja. Private taxi drivers similarly expanded services to include limousine service for weddings, especially when Cuban exiles abroad began (illegally) bringing back dozens of wedding dresses for rental, retrieval, dry-cleaning in Miami, and return to Cuba for use by other clients (image 15). Other illegal, but highly visible economic activities included the return of cock-fighting (image 16), once a national peasant sport (as it remains in nearby Puerto Rico), especially in western Cuba. In this case, guajiros fearlessly train their cocks in the plain light of day along a road to Cayo Jutía, Pinar del Río.
