“I only hope that the change is for the better; the Cuban people deserve it.” – Joshua Stroud I left Havana the night Fidel Castro died.  For the rest of my life I’ll be able to utter that unbelievable sentence as an opening line to tell the story about my time in Cuba.  Cuba is a complicated place wrought with contradictions.  The death of Fidel Castro highlights the riff between those who view Castro and his policies as heroic and revolutionary and those who view him as brutal and despotic.  Not surprisingly, most Cuban-Americans providing their reactions to Castro’s death on US news coverage fit into the latter camp.  Most of these people are Cuban exiles whose parents or grandparents lost everything to the revolution including businesses, homes and even family members.  These people are not to be ignored. Still, Cubans living in Cuba today provided a much more nuanced point of view when my wife and I asked them their thoughts.  On our short trip, we got to spend a few hours with Cubans of different ages.  The youngest, Yasser, did everything that was asked of him by the Cuban Government.  He applied himself in school and became a lawyer which led to a job with the government.  He quit to become a waiter a few years later because he couldn’t afford the rents in Havana on the $25 per month official salary.  As a waiter, he has saved enough money to buy a house, renovate it and is shopping for a car.  To afford these things, he’s most likely been forced to break Cuban law and hide his extra cash earnings from the government.  Yasser’s views were the most pragmatic.  He didn’t have much hope for what President-Elect Donald Trump would offer the Cuban people in the years to come and didn’t expect that the US would be Cuba’s savior, regardless.  In his view, the embargo was a crutch on which the Cuban Government had come to rely to hide the shortcomings of their own policies.  He pondered what excuses they would create once the embargo has been lifted.

One cab driver that we spent half an hour with on the morning of the day that Castro died was very vocal about his complaints against his government.  He told us that his “American dream” was to die in the United States.  He told us that he loved our country and asked us what we thought of his.  We told him that we were very impressed and he said I agree, “beautiful country, beautiful people, messed up government.”  He told us he was tired of all the lies and when asked about Trump he told us that he was hopeful of what Trump may come to mean for Cuba, that sometimes the best things come from the most surprising places. As for the Cuban Government, their stance is written on buildings, walls and billboards all over the country.  The face of Che Guevara, a revolutionary leader in Cuba, is everywhere and is often accompanied by the decades old rally cry, “hasta la victoria siempre” or “towards victory, always”, a phrase that was tweeted out today by the government’s official account following the announcement of Castro’s death.  Painted in large block letters on the concrete bleachers of one baseball field that we passed was the slogan, “Socialism or death” and on a prominent billboard on the main highway to Havana is the word “Bloqueo”, the Spanish word used in Cuba for the embargo, with the “o” in the shape of a noose and the subtitle, “the longest genocide in history.” The current president is Raul Castro, the brother of Fidel who took over 8 years ago, as Fidel’s health was declining.  Raul appears to be healthy, if not much younger than Fidel but has announced that he plans to retire in 2018. It is unclear who will take over after Raul retires.  My personal view is that nothing will change between Cuba and the US as long as there is a Castro in power.  For these men, the embargo and the feud between the US and Cuba is personal, a vendetta to which they have dedicated their lives.  At the same time, it is easy enough for US presidents to issue grandiose statements about enforcing the embargo until political and religious freedoms and human rights are enhanced in Cuba because there is little to lose from the continuing the status quo. I am a lover of nostalgia, I have expressed those views here.  I love that Cuba is a time machine, one of the last living vestiges of a bygone era.  I loved that the streets of Havana were not only full of vintage American cars but full of an equally antiquated sight: people – walking, talking and interacting with each other, not their cell phones.  I selfishly fear than an end to the embargo would bring an end to the simplicity and sincerity of life in Cuba, that the classic cars would be pilfered and whisked back to the United States for top dollar sales to collectors, that the tattered but soulful old buildings that line the famous Malecon would be replaced with modern hotels and that Havana will become the next Daytona Beach or Cancun for Spring Breaking college students.  I feel incredibly fortunate to have seen and experienced one of the most unique cities that I have ever visited, slipping through the window just as it seems to be closing.

This editorial appeared in The Ennis Daily News on November 29, 2016. As a 4Changer, Josh has given us permission to republish this article on the Wire Blog along with his original photography. Link to the Ennis Daily News: http://www.ennisdailynews.com/news/cuba-the-last-day/  

JOSHUA STROUD

Joshua Stroud is Lead Analyst of Procurement, Pricing & Analytics at 4Change Energy. When Josh is not hard at work buying power, he writes as a Contributor to the Ennis Daily News and enjoys spending time with his wife and two kids.