What ordinary Cubans are saying about the transition
‘A few more resources’
Fernando Hernandez has spent 40 years working the fields of Vuelta Abajo in Pinar del Rio province in the island’s far west, which grows arguably the best cigar tobacco in the world.
“Being a tobacco worker today, since the revolution, you are privileged,” says this 50-year-old peasant as he cuts the crop. But the workers lack equipment, he says, expressing hope that the new government “will offer a few more resources” because that way, “there would be a bit more production.”
‘Let the people chose’
Esmerido Morales, 45, gave up working at a state-run cleaning business in Matanzas province east of Havana because the salary wasn’t enough to feed his family. Now he’s a fisherman.
“The problem is that [the leaders] talk too much here in Cuba... but we want them to do something, not to just talk about it,” says the portly fisherman who does not like the country’s indirect system of choosing the president.
A musical revolution
Lazaro Bernal, 57, is a proud street musician who works in Cienfuegos, a province on the southern coast which was home to Benny More, one of Cuba’s most famous musicians.
“The hope I have is that the [new government] will continue the revolution in Cuba, as Raul Castro has said and as our late comandante Fidel Castro has said,” says this guitar-playing minstrel.
“As a Cuban, I hope that there will be better [economic] developments for the next government” and that Cuba “will continue being a country of music.”
‘Solutions to our problems’
Lisset Suarez, 29, is grateful for the training in contemporary dance she received in her native province of Ciego de Avila, which has enabled her to take her talent abroad.
“Like me, many thought that things wouldn’t work with Raul Castro’s rigidity” but in these past 10 years, I think we’ve moved forward a bit,” says this lanky young woman, who is preparing for a tour in China.
However, in her home province, “we need much better transport and homes — which is very important — and food, which is scarce and very expensive,” she says.
‘Listen to young people’
Maiti Cruz is 22 and is in her fifth year of an economics degree at Havana University, after which she’s hoping to study international relations.
She believes the new government must spend more time listening to young people because at times, “it doesn’t take them into account.” Cruz also believes in the private sector as “a driving factor” for the local economy, whose growth has been limited under Raul Castro’s government through “administrative and organisational errors.”