By VOA News
Pinar del Rio, Cuba
14 February 2007
This week we are bringing you a special series of reports called "Inside
Cuba - Reporter's Notebook."
The series is based on the reporting of a video crew that contributes
material to VOA on a regular basis. The crew made an unofficial ten-day
visit to the island. To protect the identities of those who spoke to the
journalists, we will not show their faces nor provide any images that
could endanger them. We also are withholding the names of the crew, in a
further effort to protect those who expressed their opinions.
For the second part of "Inside Cuba", the crew visited Pinar Del Rio,
Cuba's westernmost province.
Known for its rich tobacco crop, the province also is a popular tourist
destination, part of a $2 billion-a-year industry that has become Cuba's
top foreign exchange earner. But as we hear in this report, few Cubans
share in the wealth.
Days are long, sunny and quiet in this small town in Cuba's western
province of Pinar del Rio.
The streets are lined with freshly-painted private houses that owners
rent out to a growing number of foreign tourists. And also catering to
those tourists are tour guides -- both young and old.
One of them offers his services to us on an unofficial basis -- and
later explains the difference he sees between the Cuba for tourists and
the Cuba that exists for most Cubans.
"You are tourists and you have money, you can eat the best of the best,
visit the best places and you can do whatever you want. But if I have
money and I want to go stay in the same hotel as you, I can't do it.
It's forbidden. I can't even get inside the hotel lobby," the man says.
Most Cubans get paid in local pesos, earning the equivalent of about $10
U.S. a month. But those who work in the tourist industry have a chance
to earn the country's parallel, convertible currency.
It is that second currency that the islanders must use to purchase goods
that otherwise are impossible to get. Those with pesos can only shop at
government-run stores where the shelves are often bare.
Also, remittances from overseas are an important part of Cuba's wealth.
Between one-third and two-thirds of the island's 11 million inhabitants
are believed to receive money from abroad -- mostly from Cuban-Americans
living in exile in the United States.
And those who do not get any support from the outside world, have no
choice but to struggle on their own.
The fields of this small tobacco and coffee plantation are worked by a
farm family. "This year, we had a good weather, but it depends on the
rain. No rain, no crop," said one family member.
Whether it has been a good year or not, the family is obliged to give 90
percent of their crop to the Cuban government for a small, fixed fee.
The rest can be sold to support the family.
But even though the family is producing some of the most highly
sought-after tobacco in the world, they find it difficult to keep
themselves clothed and fed.
"It's difficult to get milk, and it gets bad quickly in the house," the
farmer explains. "As for meat, we have chicken sometimes and we eat pork
once a year. There's nowhere to buy food anyway, if there was a place to
buy it we would buy more."
The house has neither electricity, nor running water -- a common
situation, they say, in many rural homes in Cuba.
Residents of Pinar del Rio province are historically known for their
resistance to Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. But these days, the
government's propaganda is everywhere -- from schools to private homes.
Education in Cuba remains free-to-all, and the country is widely-admired
in Latin America for its high literacy rate. But some young Cubans who
have emerged from the educational system believe that massive change on
the island is inevitable.
"Yes. I think the change is going to happen when "our uncle" dies," says
one resident. "I am sure when the Americans hear that Fidel Castro is
dead, everybody will come," he says.
But American tourists will only be free to visit Cuba when the U.S.
economic embargo of the island is lifted. And that will only happen if
the country embraces democracy.
Many Cubans hope change will improve their economic well-being, but for
now they compete with one another for highly-prized jobs that earn them
hard currency.
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