Quote:
Originally Posted by p911dad
The island is communist police state with thousands of political prisoners. My doc is a Cuban and goes there each year to visit his family (they are not allowed to travel out of Cuba). He takes cases of medical supplies that are unavailable to the local hospital. Just listening to his experiences and descriptions of the place is enough to keep me away.
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My good friend is from Cuba, came to Florida in the boat lift in the 80's as a child.
He still has a brother there that lives out in the sticks about 1 hours drive from Havana.
He went back to visit once he could do it legally, when he came back he was telling me about the conditions his brother lives in and was crying. He said he left his suitcase with all his toiletries with his brother and then took them to Havana and bought them a clothes washing machine so they could stop doing that by hand.
He rented a car and told me he was the hit of the town he was in, everyone wanted to go for a ride in it.
He went back a couple of more times, bringing lots of basic necessities for them with each trip.
He explained to me (this was 10 years ago or so) that bartering is against the law, you cannot go fishing and trade fish for services etc.. officially. The government controls everything.
Also, government has created a second form of currency, which the Cubans are not allowed to use and can get into big trouble if caught using it.
It is the tourist currency, the Cubans have to cash that in for their currency which is worth much less than the tourist currency, of course the tax taken goes to the government or the Castro family depending on how you want to look at it.
That may have changed in the last 10 years but that was how it was about 10 years ago.
I will not step foot in the place until the Castro Regime is gone.