Russell Maddicks - Cuba

Copyright 2016 Kuperard
Revised and updated edition 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Culture Smart! is a registered trademark of Bravo Ltd.

ISBN 978 1 85733 848 5
This book is also available as an e-book: eISBN 978-1-85733-846-1

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

First published in Great Britain
by Kuperard, an imprint of Bravo Ltd
59 Hutton Grove, London N12 8DS
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8446 2440 Fax: +44 (0) 20 8446 2441
www.culturesmart.co.uk
Inquiries:

Series Editor Geoffrey Chesler
Design Bobby Birchall

Cover image: Street scene with vintage American car in downtown Havana. iStock.

Images on the following pages reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license: (bottom) Gotanero.

Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license: Cubadebate.

Under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license: Koard, Peter, German Federal Archives.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license: (bottom) Michal Zalewski.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license: Roger DeWitt from Same, USA.

v3.1

MANDY MACDONALD is an Australian writer, researcher, and translator living in Scotland. A graduate of Sydney and Cambridge Universities, she specializes in international affairs with an emphasis on Latin American development issues and gender equality. Mandy has worked in Cuba and has written many articles, papers, and books on Cuba and Central America. She is also the author of Culture Smart! Belgium (2005) and Simple Guides: Greek Philosophy (2009).

RUSSELL MADDICKS is a BBC-trained journalist, translator, and travel writer. A graduate in Economic and Social History from the University of Hull, he has spent twenty years living and working in South and Central America, most recently as Regional Specialist for BBC Monitoring. A fluent Spanish speaker, he has made many extended trips to Cuba. He is the author of the Bradt Guide to Venezuela (2011), Culture Smart! Venezuela (2012), and the award-winning Culture Smart! Ecuador (2014).

The Culture Smart! series is continuing to expand.
For further information and latest titles visit
www.culturesmart.co.uk

The publishers would like to thank CultureSmart!Consulting for its help in researching and developing the concept for this series.

CultureSmart!Consulting creates tailor-made seminars and consultancy programs to meet a wide range of corporate, public-sector, and individual needs. Whether delivering courses on multicultural team building in the USA, preparing Chinese engineers for a posting in Europe, training call-center staff in India, or raising the awareness of police forces to the needs of diverse ethnic communities, it provides essential, practical, and powerful skills worldwide to an increasingly international workforce.

For details, visit www.culturesmartconsulting.com

CultureSmart!Consulting and CultureSmart! guides have both contributed to and featured regularly in the weekly travel program Fast Track on BBC World TV.

The largest island in the Caribbean and a popular, sun-drenched mecca for snowbirds from Canada and Europe, Cuba is an anomaly: a country that buzzes with Latin American life, sensual music, and abundant positivity, but also feels stuck in a timeless torpor, where the resilience and make-and-mend ingenuity of the Cuban people are constantly put to the test.

For more than fifty years Cuba has been seen almost exclusively through the prism of the Cuban Revolution, and the ensuing hot and cold standoff with the United States, its superpower neighbor to the north. At its most extreme point, during the Cuban missile crisis, this power play between the US and socialist Cuba, and its backers in the Soviet Union, brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction.

The classic American carssome more rust than metalthat chug past the crumbling seafront mansions of Havana, and the long lines outside state-owned stores for rationed goods, are a daily reminder of the US trade embargo that continues to limit access to consumer goods and investment capital. However, with the historic thaw in relations brokered by US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Ral Castro in 2015 there is a sense that real change is coming to Cuba, a hope that the embargo will be lifted or significantly eased, that the restrictions on US tourists will be completely removed, and Cubans will be afforded greater freedom to travel and to set up businesses.

Alongside the hopes there are fears: that Cubas exemplary health care and education systems may be diluted, and rationing phased out, effectively widening the gap between those Cubans who have access to foreign currency and the majority who struggle to get by on state salaries and pensions.

Fidel Castro may have left office in 2008, to be succeeded by his brother Ral, but after half a century in power his shadow still hangs over the country. Cubas tropical brand of Communism was Fidels own personal experiment, and Cubans are still living with the consequences of standing up to the USA and taking such a prominent role on the world stage.

In this book you will find chapters on the history and deeply held values that make Cuba the unique mixture of cultural vibrancy and political intransigence it is today. We look at what everyday life is like for Cubans, how they get by in a state-run system, how you can meet Cubans outside the usual tourist traps, and what its like to do business in a centrally run economy. Thoroughly revised and updated, Culture Smart! Cuba aims to give visitors a better understanding of the infinitely resourceful Cuban people, who despite severe hardships and shortages over many years remain ever-optimistic and fiercely proud of their heritage and culture.