Cuba: desperate straits, questionable leadership

Hours from Havana, a glimpse of what country’s people are living with

Micho Spring’s April 1 op-ed about the humanitarian and economic crisis in Cuba mirrored our recent experience, particularly in cities beyond Havana (“In Cuba, hunger and open desperation”). We arrived in Camaguey, a seven-hour drive east, to a privately owned hostel, which, like the rest of the city, had no electricity from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. While we and our group of women were inconvenienced by the blackouts, people living in Camaguey had been unable to work; kids weren’t attending school; there was no refrigeration of perishables. As tourists “supporting the Cuban people” (what our visa indicated), we visited a dance school where the noxious fumes of a generator that allowed fans to run engulfed the space.

In this small city whose buildings, squares, and serpentine streets have earned it a historic designation from UNESCO, it’s easy to identify people in the tourist trade (i.e., receiving US currency), whether they’re pedaling the bicycle taxis, working in private restaurants, or guiding tours — they look robust and healthy. Others on the streets, children and adults alike, were clearly underfed. Our guide distributed the leftovers from our meals to the quiet figures on street curbs in this deteriorating city.

With rolling blackouts much more frequent and prolonged outside of Havana, fewer tourists venture beyond the capital. Even in Havana, we were cautioned to walk in the middle of the small streets, since crumbling masonry from surrounding buildings is commonplace.

The Biden administration could do more to promote the positive power of capitalism and democracy to support the Cuban people. Reversing Donald Trump’s punitive policies would go a long way toward making Cubans’ economy and society work for them and, as Spring pointed out, stemming the flow of desperate people north to the US border.

NORA HUVELLE

Belmont

ANNIE CHILDS

Watertown