What is life like for the average Cuban right now?
It’s a nightmare. Again, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Hungarians, all those folks would understand it very well. Rationing after 40-some years. Despite the propaganda, when a child turns seven he is no longer entitled to milk in the rationing system. That means there is no milk after age seven. The Cuban government has in place a system of apartheid where Cubans can not enter hotels, beaches, restaurants that are set aside for foreigners. That includes medical care. Cuba has a program called Servimed for “health tourism.” They have all the medicine and any antibiotics they might need for foreigners but there are great shortages in Cuban hospitals and local pharmacies. The friends of Fidel would always argue that, “Yeah, but they have that free health care and free education.” It’s true that they have education but I’m not sure that it is free. Cuban teenagers go to high school in the countryside hundreds of miles away from their homes. Sometimes they don’t see their parents for a coupl
