Once again, Cubans waiting for change

Voices: Once again, Cubans waiting for change
Alan Gomez, USA TODAY 11:21 a.m. EDT May 15, 2016

HAVANA — Ask about any Cuban these days how the normalization of
relations with the United States has changed their lives, and they'll
give you roughly the same answer.

"Look around," said Ignacio Frade, 41, laughing as he looks up and down
the street in the Vedado neighborhood of this capital city. "Do you see
anything different?"

In the 17 months since President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro
announced that the Cold War foes would re-establish diplomatic
relations, I've visited here repeatedly to witness a series of historic
events on an island unaccustomed to such spectacles.

I saw Cubans lining up for hours last summer to catch a glimpse of
Secretary of State John Kerry preside over a ceremony to raise the
American flag over the newly christened U.S. Embassy in Havana. I sat
with Cubans inside their homes in Old Havana in March as they watched
Obama deliver a speech from a theater a few blocks away.

People in Cuba have seen a steady stream of American politicians, CEOs
and curious visitors flood their country. Even a U.S. cruise ship that
docked this month in Havana's harbor drew throngs of Cubans eager to
witness the next step into their future relationship with the Yankees.

Throughout those 17 months, I've seen Cubans gripped with an optimism
they haven't felt in decades. But now, as the luster of Obama's spring
visit gives way to the broiling days of summer, comes the hard part.
Cubans once again find themselves waiting for a change that may never come.

Jorge González, a retired Spanish teacher in Havana, said Obama has done
everything he can to improve trade and travel between the two countries.
Like many other Cubans, he can recite the regulatory changes that the
Obama administration has implemented, which allow Americans to travel to
Cuba more easily and U.S. companies to sell their products and services
to Cuban entrepreneurs and the Cuban government.

But González said the "dinosaurs" in Cuba's government haven't
reciprocated. He said the government has not changed its own laws to
take advantage of the openings created by Obama. Last month's meeting
of Cuba's Communist Party Congress was expected to do that, but it ended
with little more than an announcement of reduced food prices across the
island.

"Notice what happened when (Obama) left," González, 65, said. "While he
was here, everybody was nice to him, everybody smiling, arms open, all
of that. But the second he walked up the ladder and stepped onto his
plane, those smiles disappeared and the government started criticizing
him again."

González was referring, in part, to a column published by Cuba's retired
leader, Fidel Castro, a few days after Obama left. Castro said Cuba
didn't need any gifts from Obama and blasted several parts of Obama's
speech to the Cuban people, a sentiment González said was repeated in
the state media by government officials.

"How can you have any hope of change when you see that?" he said.

Others, like Frade, 41, remain optimistic. The shift supervisor at a
Havana factory said it's foolish to expect Cuba's massive bureaucracy to
change overnight. Frade pointed to changes in the country's economic
system that Raúl Castro has implemented since taking power in 2008 as
proof that he's willing to evolve.

"You have to stay optimistic, right?" Frade said.

As the country waits for that to happen, people like Eliud Sierra remain
stuck.

Sierra has worked as a model from time to time, but spends most of his
days sitting behind a table on a front porch in Havana fixing anything
that people bring. He is one of the 500,000 private entrepreneurs that
Raúl Castro has allowed to work outside the state-run economy, and the
target for a lot of the economic openings created by the Obama
administration.

I met him Friday as people brought him broken pressure cookers,
malfunctioning fans and burned-out microwaves. He fixed what he could,
but most conversations involved figuring out how to find the needed
parts. He told one woman she would have to wait a few days while he
found a regulator for her pressure cooker. He told another woman that he
saw the part she needed in a store on the outskirts of the city.

Sierra laughed when I asked how the opportunity to buy tools and parts
directly from American companies would help him. "Look at this drill,"
he said, grabbing an ancient-looking drill that he turns by hand.
"Imagine the time I'd save if I could buy an electric drill."

For now, the Cuban government hasn't allowed Cuban entrepreneurs to
import products from the United States So Sierra, like the rest of the
country, must continue to wait.

Gomez is a Miami-based correspondent for USA TODAY who covers Cuba.

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