Life in Cuba is expensive, and people are always looking for a way to make extra money. The houses are in a dilapidated state and the furniture inside is at least years old.
For instance, you are a farmer, and you have cows. Cuba today has two official currencies — CUC used by tourists and Peso used by locals. The dependency of the locals on state subsidies for their basic needs has created an alternate economy, resulting in the need to have another currency for foreigners.
As an example, a tourist at a store would be charged 2 CUC for water, while a local would get it for 15 Pesos, around 0. This has changed not only day-to-day life in Cuba, but also has caused skilled workers such as nurses, doctors and teachers to leave their professions to pick up tourism. Some work two jobs. However, this wealth was not dispersed equally. The American mafia and their Cuba partners began making more and more money from its various business ventures, such as casinos, nightclubs, brothels and hotels.
The growing discontent with this inequality was the thing that ignited the Cuban revolution. After the revolution, all American products and business were nationalized, and economic reforms ensured that revenue made by these ventures was distributed nationwide. However, the economy never recovered.
Food rations and product distributions were cut by half. Even years after the special period, in , desperate mothers could be seen asking for money to buy milk powder for their children. Today, there are still many things that the Cubans need, however, the economy is doing significantly better.
Former Venezuelan president Chavez played an important role in helping recover the economy. Fidel and Chavez are known to have been good friends. They made a deal for Cuba to train Venezuelan doctors in exchange for cheap oil and financial support. Even though both Chavez and Fidel have passed away, economic and political relations between the two countries remains strong. From where we stand, being satisfied and being happy are two different things.
We interpreted young people dressing up to gather in a square and loud music blaring out of houses as its own joi de vivre. Opportunities are rare; life in Cuba is hard. However, income is only one of the many indicators on the happiness index.
Interpretation is personal, but numbers will be a better judge. According to the World Health Organization, Cuba ranks 84 out countries in the suicide index. As opportunities are few and far between, people have learned to rely on each other. For instance, one house in the neighborhood has a radio, the other a scooter, another a sewing machine, and they survive by borrowing from each other.
This also means that people are forced to tolerate one another because everyone understands that they might have to cross that bridge again. Life in Cuba is rapidly changing. This was the first thing that Raul Castro did to signal that he was more moderate than Fidel. In , local farmers were given the right to own land, opening the door to foreign investment. Foreign tourism investors are seizing every opportunity to open hotels. Every year, 3. Spanish, French, Canadian and UK firms have already purchased land.
American chains such as Hilton and Marriott are likely ready to pounce on Cuba as an investment destination; however, the US and Cuba have yet to fully patch up their relationship. American firms are still not allowed to enter Cuba.
This gives companies in other countries a chance to enter the Cuban market, which is why the US is working quickly on resolving their issues with Cuba. Massive cruises are routing through Havana. The Tallapiedra Electric plant is being renovated and will have a gallery similar to the Tate Modern in London, and the Nico Lopez Refinery is slated to be made into a science center.
Foreign companies are competing for a share of the Cuban market. Cubans living abroad who want to invest in the country are sending money to their families in Cuba to make investments and purchase property.
The locals who are already involved in the tourism sector are aware of future opportunities. The money has started flowing to both the government and the people. Change is inevitable. After 50 years of not being able to leave the country with a few exceptions, such as academics and artists , the government lifted the ban in The flavors in the movie stood for different sexual preferences: for example, someone who bought only strawberry ice cream was signaling that they wanted to meet only gay men.
In his later years, also Fidel began to soften his tone. So Cuba today is more tolerant than it was in the past. Internet — Access to the internet continues to be extremely limited in Cuba today. There is no internet in houses; it is only available in some public squares.
Even in the sprawling metropolis that is Havana, there are only 5 parks where you can purchase internet access. Moreover, internet costs are high; it costs 1. Even when you can find internet and pay for it, your exposure is limited because it is too slow to watch something or to make a call on WhatsApp.
Your GSM mobile operator will provide internet services to you as a foreigner, but not to Cubans. There are a couple reasons for having a Revolution Committee in every neighborhood in Cuba today: To provide support for the elderly, to put together entertainment activities and street parties, to assist with anything related to security and to monitor any activity against the revolution. Six citizens who wanted to flee Cuba drove a car through the gates of the embassy of Peru, killing a Cuban guard in the process.
After hearing that Peru refused to give up these 6 asylum seekers, Fidel removed the Cuban police from the Peru Embassy and announced that Cuba will be withdrawing its security forces from embassies and consulates refusing to cooperate with Cuba.
It was a strategic mistake. Now that there were no gatekeepers, thousands of Cubans who wanted to apply for asylum fled to the Peruvian embassy in a matter of a couple of days. Upon hearing the news that so many people wanted to leave the country, Castro announced that anyone who wanted to leave through the Mariel port was free to do so. The US announced it would be welcoming Cuban refugees.
Hundreds of thousands of Cubans showed up to flee the country. The crisis was getting bigger and bigger. Each departure encouraged others to leave too. The US took in , Cuban political refugees during this time. Fidel had a plan in mind to make the US stop taking Cubans. He began sending criminals and people with mental health problems from prisons, and the US had no other choice but to close its borders.
On the other hand, Cubans overall feel a great amount of admiration for figures such as Fidel Castro — as well as his comrades Raul Castro, Che Guevara, and Camillo Cienfuegos — and regard them as founding fathers of the country. When Fidel passed away in , the entire country went into a state of mourning.
Fidel continued to be president until , 49 years of popular rule. It is one thing that has really affected life in Cuba overall.
Here is a summary of some of the advancements Cuba has made in education:. Like education, health care is also free of charge. Cuba is able to train doctors really well. In Cuba today, there are doctors and 94 dentists per , people. Compare this to America, which has doctors and 54 dentists per , people. However, another problem is the lack of infrastructure and medicine, which is largely due to the American embargo. Cuban hospitals now have treatments for some specific illness like lung cancer.
A lot of people from all around the world come to Cuba for treatment. Because of the shortages of houses, usually three generations of a family share one house. Some houses are huge, and some are like tiny boxes. It makes one wonder how the government decides to distribute houses to families.
The state provides monthly assistance to Cubans for basic foodstuffs like rice, milk and meat. The state created diet templates based on age and condition of health, and hands out rations according to nutritional needs.
There are stores like the one in the picture, but they only have a maximum of types of product. None of the products are packaged, they come in bulk. Shopkeepers will weigh before selling it to you. The prices are subsidied by the government to make them affordable to its citizens. When the Spanish brought over Africans for enslavement in Cuba, they had tried to convert them all to Catholicism. When Nigerians were brought to Cuba, they also brought with them their Yoruba faith which has multiple gods.
The Spanish forced slaves to become baptized and converted them to Christians, banning Yoruba in the process. Many of the slaves wanted to make it seem like they were following Spanish orders, and so they combined Christian saints and icons with Yoruba gods, and began praying to them.
As an example, they would make it seem as if they were praying to John the Baptist, but they would really be talking to Yoruba god of wind. Hundreds of years later, these two beliefs melded into one and became Santeria. Santeria combines ritual dancing with Christian iconography under one roof. All real estate belonged to the government.
The government provided all sorts of services for free. When it comes to putting a price tag on different products and services, Cubans are a little inconsistent. For us, the price of renting a bike for the day was 5 euro, while renting a snorkel was 15 euro. Interestingly, this is also the case in the property market. No one really knows how much anything costs, so they just name a price and see if it sticks.
In Cuba today, companies operate with a laid-back mentality that might not always be ideal for some fellow travelers. But such is life in Cuba. The transportation system and companies that rent vehicles are largely monopolized by the state. Officials at these businesses have an interesting attitude when it comes to working. Why was that? What did Americans think about Cubans? What did I? That said, Cubans are also not as isolated as we think, especially when it comes to American culture.
In Santiago de Cuba, I was talking to a young lawyer about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated Santiago in October before continuing north to wreak havoc in New York. In a lame attempt to commiserate, I told him the storm had knocked out the electricity in my apartment for four whole days.
He smiled and told me they were without power for two months. At breakfast the next morning, while their daughter did her homework, the three of us talked about the recent rise in Cubans fleeing the country, racing to get to the U. Things are changing rapidly. A few days ago, the Starwood hotel chain announced it would take over management of three Cuban hotels, making it the first American hospitality company to do business on the island.
Regular commercial flights from the U. A lawyer by trade, he recently started his own motorcycle touring company, La Poderosa Tours, named after the bike his father rode through South America, later immortalized in The Motorcycle Diaries. Mostly what I saw was hope: hope that the American government would end its embargo, hope that the Cuban government would loosen its autocratic grip, hope that the country would soon be a normal member of the world community.
Anti-communist revolutionaries allied with him. The revolution was a nationalist revolution for most Cubans, then, not a communist one. When Castro installed a socialist economy and a one-party political system, many fellow revolutionaries felt betrayed. Cubans fought to form a government that would answer to the Cuban people, rather than foreign interests. Many poor Cubans revered Castro for implementing policies that promoted equity and minimized discrimination, including major reforms in land, agriculture, education and housing.
Others fled because of fear and persecution. The U. They deny U. Additional embargo policies restrict Americans from traveling or sending money to Cuba — though there are loopholes enabling U. Treasury-licensed food and medical supply sales to Cuba. The year-old embargo inhibits the fledgling Cuban private sector and makes it harder to obtain the goods they need. Many people in the U. But the president of the United States cannot do that unilaterally. Lifting the embargo would require Congress to either certify that Cuba has become sufficiently democratic according to the Libertad Act or pass a new bill overturning it.
The Cuban government has a history of political repression and fiscal mismanagement, both of which harm the economy.
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