Cuba seeing more hope than change

Cuba seeing more hope than change

Island nation, now open to Americans, is conflicted but proud of its
communist revolution
As U.S. cruise ships dock and tourists visit, Cuba maintains its ideals
Kardashians visited Cuba, Chanel held a fashion show, crews filmed 'Fast
and Furious 8'
BY ANITA CHABRIA
Special to The Bee

HAVANA, CUBA
The hustle began with an innocuous question about baseball.

On my second day in Cuba, a man named Carlos struck up a conversation
with my husband and me as we walked through Old Havana, a labyrinth of
narrow streets crowded with tourists, stray cats and elegant colonial
buildings in alarming states of decay.

With his wife, Ana, in tow, he was out celebrating their anniversary, he
said. Commenting on my husband's cap, he told us the Baltimore Orioles
are his team; Michael Jackson his favorite musician.

He invited us to duck into a bar on the corner, where a member of the
famous Buena Vista Social Club was playing. We did, buying Cuba Libres
for this 20-something couple who have never known a free Cuba as we'd
define it, and paying $24 for the round – roughly a month's salary for
the average Cuban.

Later, he insisted on showing us where we could buy cigars on the cheap,
down an unlit hallway ending at a card table filled with bottles of rum
and boxes of smokes in the shell of a house that looked like it had been
bombed.

I declined the contraband but gave Carlos money anyway, because he'd
given me something hard to come by in this communist country: an
opinion. Ask most Cubans about Castro, politics and what it means to
have America loosen its embargo and the answer will likely be nervous
and noncommittal. Dissent can mean prison.

But Carlos talked, doing a full circle first to make sure no one was
listening. President Barack Obama, he said, inspired young Cubans when
he visited in March, the first U.S. president there since Calvin
Coolidge. His story of a regular guy becoming the American leader
resonated in a nation where the repression of personal dreams is
promoted as virtue. All around the city are signs admonishing "unity and
compromise" for the good of the homeland.

Even more, Obama's promise of more U.S. business made Carlos hopeful. If
it didn't change policy, maybe with a bit of wile, it could improve his
fortunes.

The next morning, I observed the May 1 parade for International Workers
Day, an annual homage to the revolution. In the predawn darkness, people
wandered into the streets surrounding the Plaza de la Revolution. A
million were expected. It sounded like propaganda. But they kept coming,
toting beer and drums, banners and kids.

In the grandstand where Raúl Castro presided, a delegation of union
members from California held a sign for unity between trabajadores in
the Golden State and this isle. The delegates said people wanted to take
pictures and shake hands. Where I stood in the crowd, there were chants
of "Cuba, sí. Yankees, no."

The next day at an international conference, Ana Teresita González
Fraga, deputy minister of foreign affairs, said, "Cuba will not renounce
its ideals."

But that same morning, the first U.S. cruise ship to visit in nearly 40
years docked. Earlier in the week, crews for "Fast and Furious 8" filmed
on the Malécon, a road along the island's sea wall, and days later, the
Kardashians landed and Chanel held a fashion show.

Cuba is conflicted, but proud.

The U.S. embargo is still in place. Only an act of Congress can change
that. But Obama has made every American visitor a piece of his foreign
policy; their presence putting pressure on a system already past
capacity to serve inhabitants, their money buying excess in a land of
austerity.

Carlos wants us to come and smoke, dance and drink, he said. But he
believes in the socialist Cuba that provides free education, college
included, and health care.

Cuba, he said, is not for sale.

So bring your dollars, Americanos. But the change you receive might not
be what you expect.

Anita Chabria is a regular freelance contributor who lives in
Sacramento. Contact her at anachabria@gmail.com.


Source: Cuba seeing more hope than change | The Sacramento Bee -
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article76004642.html