The show must go on (part 1)
My first trip to Cuba was made in January 2006 under the influence of my lifelong fascination about this country. What I found was an extraordinary country blessed with riches that speak of a great and complex past. Impoverished at home and isolated abroad, since 1962 “el bloqueo” has created a “time capsule”. For decades, the people of Cuba have endured shortages of food and medical supplies, economic hardship and family disintegration due to exile and political differences. Faced with the loss of vast economic subsidies after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the regime has been forced to set aside some of its ideological principles in the name of obtaining hard currency.
Living under a centralized economy with limited international trading opportunities taught people real survival skills. Cubans learned to make do without some basic commodities and find creative solutions to life’s everyday challenges. The everyday life is a heroic epic and household items are diverted from their normal functioning, to ensure the survival or the escape.
Scraping and scrambling to get through the day, Cubans are haunted by the worry about the future. Someday not long from now, there will be no Fidel. Most Cubans have known neither other leader, nor other system. Fidel’s brother Raul, the designated successor, has none of Fidel’s magnetism, cleverness, or eloquence. What on earth will happen then?
The show must go on (part 1)
My first trip to Cuba was made in January 2006 under the influence of my lifelong fascination about this country. What I found was an extraordinary country blessed with riches that speak of a great and complex past. Impoverished at home and isolated abroad, since 1962 “el bloqueo” has created a “time capsule”. For decades, the people of Cuba have endured shortages of food and medical supplies, economic hardship and family disintegration due to exile and political differences. Faced with the loss of vast economic subsidies after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the regime has been forced to set aside some of its ideological principles in the name of obtaining hard currency.
Living under a centralized economy with limited international trading opportunities taught people real survival skills. Cubans learned to make do without some basic commodities and find creative solutions to life’s everyday challenges. The everyday life is a heroic epic and household items are diverted from their normal functioning, to ensure the survival or the escape.
Scraping and scrambling to get through the day, Cubans are haunted by the worry about the future. Someday not long from now, there will be no Fidel. Most Cubans have known neither other leader, nor other system. Fidel’s brother Raul, the designated successor, has none of Fidel’s magnetism, cleverness, or eloquence. What on earth will happen then?
