Cuba from my experiences- Part2

Cuba from  my experiences- Part2

The Republic of Cuba is one of the world's last remaining socialist countries. Cuba was a different holiday destination from my all holiday destinations till now. Its a third world country. One needs to have open mind to accept the ways the things work there , should have patience to adjust to different way of living, culture and mind set.

I am not going to lie but I was really not happy the first time I arrived there. It was hot, dirty, was not able to understand the language and in that in my first casa the host was not able to speak a single word of English. So with my limited Spanish vocabulary after 11 hrs. of flight I was really frustrated .   But slowly I started liking it. May be I accepted the way things are or the country and people are so nice that they made me fall in their love. Whatever it was but  later I enjoyed my stay more and more. 

Old Havana is really dirty but the country side of Cuba is really beautiful. For me the country side was more similar to Indian costal area and that made some good connection in my mind. Flowers, fruit trees , poor farmers working in fields without much machinary ....all was connecting me to India. 

Cuba is very interesting country. As part of  a socialist country model in Cuba all the education and medical services are free to all citizens.

Every parent has to send their child to school at least till 9th class. Even in the remote of remote place there is a school. Even if its just one child there is a school and a teacher for him/her. Education even till university and above is free. The literacy rate in Cuba is very high. All students, regardless of age or gender, wear school uniforms with the color denoting grade level.

The same with medical services. All the medical services are free to all citizens and Cuba has actually one of the best medical services in the world. They have many doctors in the country. 

But because of the socialist country model of course the salaries for doctors, engineers, teachers are very low. The average salary in government sector is 30-35 $ per month. 

Since few years the government is becoming more open and has started allowing people to have private businesses but of only particular types. Mostly service based. Tourist industry is gaining more and more popularity and also many people in spite of their education as teacher, engineer are changing their profession and coming in tourist industry . Here they can earn much more than as a engineer or teacher.

I did few extra tours and all of my tour guides were actually working as a teacher or engineer before but they all changed their profession and now work as a tour guide and can earn much better than their previous jobs. 

One of my tour guide was even working as a  diplomat at united nationals but after working for many years in this field she decided to come back to cuba and started working as a tour guide. she was really nice lady and told many things about cuba. She said cuba is a poor country but with the problems of first world country. Cuba has currently problem of negative birth rate . Many people still live with their parents as it is expensive to buy house or a car. It is also expensive to afford more children.  Because of low or negative birth rate  the government has increased the age of working for men to 65 years and for women to 60 years. 

In cuba they don't have the concept of income tax for government employees as of course the income is really low . But now as people are allowed to have private business they have developed the concept of income tax for such business. The tax is still very low for them. 

After the fall of soviet union , Cuba's economic system also collapsed and they had a very bad economic period. In this time government decided to be more open and thought of tourist industry. My guide told me that during this period Fidel Castro was good friends with Canada's that time prime  minister and Canadian prime minister first send Canadian tourists to cuba. Till date Canadians tourists are in large number out of all. 

I found very interesting thing in cuba is that they still use horse carriages and cycle riksha along with old American cars as a mode of transport. 

 For most Cubans its also not common to travel within the country. Travelling is definitely expensive with a family and the kind of money they earn it is really not easy for them to travel to another country or even within country. 

There are also no traffic jams on highways. While driving on highway I came across many times that people, or horses just cross the highway even when buses, cars are driving on the same road . sometimes they even come in their horse carriage on the wrong side on high way. Well almost similar to India😃

Also at  the road side you can see many people selling  some fruits or veggies and some are even asking for lifts but by holding money in hand to show that they are ready to pay for the lift. 

Another similar thing to India I found in Cuba is having a ration card. Every Cuban has a ration card and names of all family members are written on it. Every person has a quota of food for a month and people can buy that in special ration shops  for very cheap price. 

In Cuba they have 4 official TV channels. One of the channels even show Bollywood movies with Spanish subtitles every night. Many people recognized me as an indian and told that they watch bollywood films.
Many times in Havana I saw some young girls doing professional photo shooting in beautiful dresses. When asked to my guide she told me that this is an old tradition which is still continuing as when girl turns 15 years old they do such a photo shooting . In olden times this was the way to show to the society that girl is now of marriageable age and present it to the society. 😀  Now a days even some boys also do such photo shoot. After all its a time of equality 😀

The best thing in Cuba is in almost every bar, restaurant you will enjoy live music. I really enjoyed this live music everywhere. These people just have this amazing rhythm in their body by default. The country is really rich in  art, dance, music . 

Can't go on without mentioning the cuban food and drinks. I got chance to eat typical cuban food during my stay. Mostly it is meat with either white rice or rice with bean which is my favorite and some vegetables. And my favorite dessert Flan. 

Meat is mostly chicken or pork. very rarely beef as its expensive. Fish also rare of course because of the cost. In restaurants many times I got nice banana chips as starter. One more very interesting cuban dish I loved is deep fried raw banana cups filled with cheese, meat, shrimps etc... very testy.

During my whole stay for breakfast I always got fresh tropical fruits and fresh fruit juices. that was amazing. Now when I compare the fruit juice I buy from super market with those fresh ones....really feel like flying to cuba  to get that. All the hosts always prepared really good breakfast for us. Once even one host prepared a smiley face fruit plate for us. that was really nice of him. Along with fruits and juices very nice cuban coffee , some eggs. Very good breakfast. 

Without mentioning cuban cocktails cuban food is incomplete. Most of the cocktails are rum based.  One bar in cigar farm tour even offered the cocktails with extra rum bottle and every one can add rum as much he/she wants in a basic non-alcoholic version. Very much liked the concept. :)

There is one special cocktail from Trinidad that we all had is called Canchanchara. Very testy. Its made of honey, rum, lemon and may be something else I could not recognize. But this is what you should try if you go to Trinidad.
Also in Havana one of my guides told me to test special coconut ice-cream but unfortunately I did not get chance to test this. May be next time ..who knows.
Overall Cuban people are really nice, friendly, good in music , dance, art . Country has really low crime rate and much  safer compared to other Latin American countries. I was a bit skeptical regarding safety before going there but I really had very good experience of all people there. In old Havana I experienced small lanes, a bit dirty  houses ,really next to each other, people are standing outside their doors , talking to their neighbours, loud, screaming hawkers walking on the road selling some sweets or bread, lively till late night. Very similar picture to some old part of the city in many Indian cities ; at least I have seen this during my childhood times. It was allowed to be loud even at late nights in your own house and no fear that neighbour will call police like in Germany 😀
Somehow I always found some similarities to india at least from my childhood times. For me it was definitely a wonderful trip. Something different than usual Europe, America , Australia etc...developed countries vacations. I recommend everyone to visit this at least once before it changes and looses its old charm.