I finally found the cd of my Cuban theme song too – Monton de Estrellas (A Pile of Stars) by Polo Montañez. The singer was tragically killed in his prime a result of a car crash while I was in Cuba, which in some ways explained his omnipresence on the radio. On the other hand, a beautiful song is a beautiful song in any language and it will always remind me of that fascinating place and time.
I was up at 4 the next morning to catch a plane to Mexico. Having paid a departure tax of $20, I was amused greatly when I got throught to the departure lounge and found a public toilet with the sign “Free/Gratis” in large writing on the door. Considering how much tourists pay through the nose all the time when in Cuba, it seemed like they were saying
“Well, we’ve absolutely flogged every dollar we could out of you at every possibly opportunity for god-knows-how-long you have been here, and you know what, you’ve been a great sport, so go ahead – take a free wee – its on us!”
Re-reading this, I am not sure how much I have captured my fascination with Cuba. Most conversations I had with gringos or with Cubans were centred around current regime, the current situation and the possible changes that are coming. Fidel is 76 years old. His successor designate is his brother Raul, but he is 72. From what I heard, the people are a little afraid of Raul, as they reckon his methods of keeping power would be a little more draconian. The current situation is not good – two classes of society have been created: those with access to tourist dollars are incredibly rich compared to those who don’t. This will only be exacerbated when the embargo is lifted and more than a million US tourists arrive annually.
Much of the exotic allure of Cuba for me will also disappear when the house and streets are renovated and those Chevys are all exported to collectors and replaced with Toyotas and Nissans. For sure, its not fair for me to wish to keep Cuba as some sort of nostalgic historical theme park, but my other firm wish is that the post-embargo Cuba doesn’t return to the hedonistic playground for Mafiosi that it was before the revolution. The people deserve more than even if it is what they think they want.
A final word on the man they call Fidel. They love him. Genuinely. They believe he is a great and good man, one who has done his best in the face of the opposition that is arraigned against him, a man who genuinely has their interests at heart. But as well, they are keen for change. One quote I heard, which kind of sums it up “He is a good man. He just can’t run a country.”
And what change are they keen for? Well, practically everybody has degrees and few of them have the opportunity to use them. As Sandra entitled her email: Cuba Libre – all dressed up and nowhere to go. They want dollars. They want that intoxicating American Dream, and yet they don’t see the homelessness, the poor health care, the poverty that is the other side of that coin. They want to be able to leave. They want to be able to come back in some cases. Freedom of political expression is stifled. The Party appoint all candidates in the election, and you either vote for them or against them. If you don’t want them, the Party gets another candidate for you. That being said, one government booklet I read, had compelling arguments in favour of ‘the party of national unity’. There is no doubt that Cubas independence would have been compromised if a US-backed opposition had spent the last 40 years undermining the government.
I don’t have the answers. But I have never visited a country that has fascinated me more, and whose future I will watch with interest and sympathy. Cuba without the US might have been the success that all the idealists wanted. Cuba with a continued embargo will maintain a continued stalemate. And that game is far from checkmate. But after a month there, I feel closer to the battlecry of the revolucion than to the either the current regime or those who would seek to overthrow it: Vive Cuba Libre – long live Free Cuba. Or as El Ché would have put it: Hasta la victoria, siempre – Until the victory, always.
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