Missing the boat to Cuba

When two gardeners at the resort in Varadero split a coconut and stuck a straw in it for a lone Canadian who couldn't find his bungalow, I started to warm to the Cuban people. Within hours, my 19-year-old son was on a first name basis with the pool man, maître d’, poolside bartender, and several waitresses and housekeepers. That's when I really began to enjoy Cuba.

I fell in love with the island partly because it is gorgeous, but mostly I fell in love with a generation of Cubans that is on the cusp of leading their country. Remember, Cuba has one of the most well developed public education systems in the Caribbean. Attendance is compulsory until the end of Grade 9, and most Cubans continue through high school with many going on to university. There are more than 800 Cuban-trained doctors working in South America alone.

But a huge divide is opening up in Cuban society. It is fostered by the “convertible peso”; the currency every visitor must buy (but never sell) in order to purchase anything in the country. The convertible peso is worth about 25 times the Cuban peso, the currency used to pay workers their monthly wages, and with which they must buy fuel, electricity and food. Food is rationed and the rations usually last the average family 24 days out of each month. Food and lodging aside (God bless the socialist state), the average Cuban makes about 60 convertible pesos. A convertible peso is currently worth about $1.15 Canadian. One young, well-educated Cuban I spoke with told me that he believes the convertible peso must eventually become the currency of Cuba.

To be fair, the recent history of Cuba has been cast by two events—the fall of the Soviet Union and the American blockade. The first brought to an end an era of dependency on the aid, foreign investment and trade that the Cuban economy relied on. The second has throttled virtually every aspect of daily life on the island.

Quite accidentally (at least from the viewpoint of America), the embargo has also fostered a spirit of self-reliance, deepened patriotic fervour and led to a burgeoning business sector. The latter has been greatly bolstered by tourism, which today is Cuba's largest industry.

Those Cubans who serve the tourist industry—whether as direct employees of the state-owned resorts, taxi and tour companies or as artisans, musicians and entertainers—not only often earn significant incomes in convertible pesos, but are also exposed to visitors from many different cultures, offering them an enticing glimpse of the world outside their own society.

One might think that young Cubans would resent America for the current sanctions, but as my new friend told me “You have to remember that there are millions of Cubans living in the United States. Every Cuban is related to someone in the US. We are family.” He also doubts, despite promising signals, that President Obama will be able to thaw relations between the two nations.

“The current political reality for any president is that Florida has become the tail that wags the electoral dog. Without Florida, you cannot govern and some 40 per cent of Florida politicians are Cuban-Americans,” he says and shrugs.

Meanwhile, fueled largely by the demands of the tourist industry, trade patterns continue to strengthen with South America, Europe and Asia; patterns that will over time become so ingrained in the economy that the US business community may never be able to overcome them in a post-blockade world.

Ironically, at a time when a free enterprise sector is flourishing in Cuba and a young, well-educated generation is poised to move into leadership roles in both government and the economy, America is missing the boat.