A Trip to Cuba--Exposure to a Fabulous Afro-Latin Culture!
OK, readers, while there's still the chance, I can't urge you strongly enough to visit Cuba (if you can afford to do so.) There are several tour options with a range of prices, as you'll see if you look into it. David and I went with a group led by Greg Landau, a CA filmmaker and music producer whose knowledge of Cuba and Latin-America is encyclopedic. There were 18 of us, mostly residents of San Francisco where Greg lives and teaches, tooling around in an air-conditioned bus and keeping up a blistering pace at seeing a ton of amazing sites--mostly focused on arts, culture and politics.
While we were there, 45 made his pronouncement in Miami, pretty much eliminating individual travel; which is unfortunate because those are the tourists who do the most to bring some much needed income to the individual entrepreneurs--proprietors of Paladares (home based restaurants), Casas Particulares (B&Bs) etc. Ironically, these are the Cubans that the conservatives claim to want most to support; yet another example of the self-defeating policy that's coming from Washington nowadays!
Since I've been back it's become clear to me that our government is promulgating a picture of Cuba that is seriously outdated. Believe it or not, there are NO bearded guys in fatigues armed with rifles driving around La Havana in jeeps! (It's true about the 50's cars, though!) We saw no evidence of military presence anywhere, and with the exception of one official guard who didn't want me to take his picture, were not prevented from going anywhere or doing or seeing anything. Of course, if our tour had focused on something else, like prisons, I suppose we might have had a different experience...
But in general people were quite open in talking with us about the successes and failures of "the triumph of the Revolution" (as they do slightly robotically refer to it.) After Cuba's centuries of struggles for independence--many of which were in relation to us Yanquis--the people are proud of their culture and their success in attaining freedom from control by any foreign power.
The general standard of living in Cuba is low in comparison to ours, but wealth seems much more evenly distributed than it is here. Plus, free health care and education are universal--things that we lack that are worth a LOT. People were very friendly and open about their need to partner with us here in the US to develop a hybrid economy which will always be fundamentally socialist but ideally incorporate some of the strengths of capitalism as well. All Cubans are aware that they are on the verge of a political and economic transition--no one knows exactly how it will work, but all agree that it needs to take place gradually and with the participation of all citizens.
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Well, that's my initial overview. Stay tuned for more thoughts, and perhaps also some pictures. I hope I can manage to convey a bit of what Cuba is really like despite all the stereotypes.
Que viva la Revolucion!
Emily
