The Cuban Evolution, an article by Damien Cave, published
by the New York Times on March 1, 2014, points out many truths. Things certainly have changed in Cuba,
and are continuing to change. But
just as many things have stayed the same for most Cuban people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/sunday-review/the-cuban-evolution.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=1
When I was in Santiago for a week recently, we went from
place to place trying to find eggs, or chicken. “Pollo no hay. Huevos no
hay” (“There’s no chicken; there
are no eggs”) was the common refrain.
Our host (we stayed with family) went out to the black market shopping
area to buy beef, for us. It was
like leather. The lines are
insupportable.
The transportation (in Santiago it’s large enclosed trucks
instead of buses) is awful. Even though, as the article points out, one can
access Internet in hotels, it costs a fortune, and I wasted the $30 I paid for
two hours, because it never worked.
The people have e-mail in the house, but that’s it. As the article points out, they can use
cell phones and texting, but that’s it.
We took our hosts to paladares (private restaurants) for
lunch most days. But they had never enjoyed such meals before. Everybody we
knew in Santiago worked in some capacity in a university, so they make the
typical government stipend of $27 to $37 a month. A meal in a paladar would cost more than one month’s income.
I met a young person who wants to study a particular
field. But there are no books available, and no Internet available to obtain
books. So even if the university
wanted to create a program, there’s nothing to create it with.
In my recent visits over the past few years, I have seen
dramatic changes, and improvement for the people in some ways, but it’s not
necessarily the way that tourists view it.
Like the author of the New York Times article, I wander
through the parts of Havana and Santiago where tourists rarely go, and I see
more little shops in residences and shopping areas than before, but the saying
“Life is Hard in Cuba” still stands.
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