Will Havana Cuba Change?
Many people are running out to sign up on a legal travel to Cuba tour to see Cuba before it changes. I have been traveling to Cuba since 1998 and I don’t think that the infrastructure of Havana Cuba will allow it to change to quickly as well as the many social programs that were created during the revolution which is still considered active since 1960 when Fidel took over.
When Fidel and Che Guevara set out to create a new system of government for the people they used education and medical care as the pillars of change. In the early 60’s Cuba was famous for the literacy brigades that danced across the country into the rural areas where junior high and high school teachers taught farmers how to read and write.
The medical system was premised on a family doctor, whereby the doctor lives in the clinic upstairs while he takes care of patients in the downstairs of the house or clinic,. The clinic is in each and every neighborhood thus creating a preventive medicine center right in the neighborhood where the doctor lives. These are systems that are ingrained in the Cuban society and culture,
Education is free, while testing takes places to determine ones aptitude, if they do well education is free all the way through undergraduate and graduate school as well as doctorate degrees. These systems are well entrenched in the country and the people would heavily resist if the programs were eliminated.
Secondly there simply are not enough hotel rooms in Havana to keep up with the American market. Supply and demand will create higher prices for visiting Americans, however rooms will not be built fast enough to accommodate the large U.S. market. Over time rooms will be built however this will take time, and seemingly the public entities should be able to survive with an influx of tourism and construction in Havana.
Overall there will be an injection of capital and resources that flow into Havana. The Castros will no longer have the excuse that the embargo is preventing Cuba from blossoming. There will be paint, mortar and wood to renovate the old buildings that the City Historian has started, but this man does not think the Cuban character will stand for a McDonalds on every street corner and MTV blasting on the malecon. The Cuban
destiny will largely be in their own hands, and whether it be Spain, the battleship Maine, the bay of Pigs or the Helms Burton law, the Cubans have found a way to maintain their identify just 90 miles away from the United States!