Raul Castro took over as President of Cuba in 2008, due to the illness incapacitating his brother, Fidel. This has been a period of liberalization and increasing economic opening. As the government seeks to reduce economically unsustainable public sector employment, entrepreneurial ventures previously prohibited or very tightly constrained are increasing encouraged. New restaurants, repair facilities, and small-scale manufacturers are flourishing.
The U.S. maintains has maintained an embargo on Cuba since shortly after the 1959 Revolution, rooted in a very strong anti-Castro lobby of Cubans in Miami. Recently there has been some lessening of travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans seeking to visit family, and for other Americans traveling there. Cuba is a popular vacation destination for Canadians and Europeans who have no travel restrictions.
I was in Cuba during the 2012 U.S. Presidential election. As the vote in Florida remained too close to call until late into the night, it was clear that our ongoing antipathy towards Cuba is maintained because it would be politically perilous for any American president to defy the Cuban-American lobby and normalize relations.
A worker in a tobacco factory proudly shows off his tattoo of Che Guevara.
This watchmaker is repairing an old watch. Because of the scarcity of new products in Cuba, everything is repaired and recycled.
There are myriad chess academies in Cuba, including this one in Camaguey, because chess is revered.
Even the equipment used to repair items is made by hand, such as this soldering iron.
Restaurant workers prepare for the lunch crowd by cleaning up outside.
As a response to The US Interests Section (equivalent of an embassy but without diplomatic relations) using its building facade as an LCD billboard to show anti-Castro propaganda, the Cubans erected 138 flag polls to block the view.
A man behind a wrought iron gate in Santiago.
Most Cubans become master mechanics to maintain automobiles and other machinery.
The proprieter of a cacao processing plant stands in front of his drying shed.
A man relaxes on a Saturday night in Baricoa.
Bicycles are used as a primary means of individual transportation as there is almost no private automobile ownership in Cuba.
and overloaded Trucks used as primary means of public transportation...
...as there is almost no private automobile ownership in Cuba.
Catholicism and other Christian faiths are resurgent since religious-based restrictions were lifted in the 1980s.
A ballot for the municipal election in Havana is displayed inside this window. The 3 candidates are allowed to post a resume citing their qualifications and no advertising or campaign promises are allowed.
In Old Havana, a woman stands outside the poling station.
A boy looks out from his home as a bici-taxi passes by.
A restaraunt and artist studio made of commercial signs which are not used any longer.
Two guides outside the museum bookstore in Camaguey.
Cuba is the home of some of the world's most energetic and innovative jazz musicians.
A shoeshine vendor in Santiago de Cuba the day before the hurricane , the ever-present photos of Che Guevara in the background.
A boy looks off into the sunset.
Offerings in the cemetary to St. Amelia thanking her for her blessings and asking for help with health issues.
A cemetery worker sits by a osuary in Tomas Acea Cemetery in Cienfuegos. Cuban tradition is that the dead are disinterred after the flesh is off the bone and the bones are reinterred.
Children play in the courtyard below a restaurant, a $2,000,000-per-year private paladare. Paladares have grown rapidly over the past 2 years under new regulations by Raul Castro allowing them to serve meat and seafood, which had previously only been available at state restaurants.
The proprieter of this state-owned establishment looks out from empty restaurant.
A boat man rows passengers on the Toa River, Baracoa.
Fidel Castro is venerated as the father of the country, even by those who recognize current economic flaws.
A man casts his fishing net into the surf in Bahia de Miel (Honey Bay) to supplement state-issued rations.
Prices are artificially low and supplies are insufficient at the Government-owned Ration coupon store.
Towering mogotes rise above the rich agricultural plains in the Vinyales Valley.
Tobacco farmers with limited financial resources and no access to modern equipment use oxen-drawn plows to prepare their fields.
A barn for drying tobacco next to a field of new tobacco plants
A boy rides a bicycle in front of the Municipal Committee of Baracoa Headquarters with a painted sign that reads "Woman is Revolution"
