Visiting Cuba - Irony In Your Diet

Keeble McFarlane
Eleggua Project

There are many delicious ironies for the North American visitor to Cuba. Many of the conference participants, particularly those from the northern states, traveled to Havana through Toronto. This takes you on a flight path directly over the heads of many of the denizens of the US Congress in Washington who would deny you the right to go to Cuba. It flies over the bailiwick of one Jesse Helms, king of all he surveys in North Carolina; over the heads of US Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Jorge Mas Santos of the Cuban-American National Foundation and over the heads of all those who fought to keep Elián Gonzalez away from his father and fatherland.

Despite years of covert action on the part of the US to portray Fidel Castro as the devil incarnate and despite the day-to-day impact of American policy on individuals, Cubans are gracious and welcoming to visiting Americans, show no animosity and go out of their way to point out the difference between Washington's behavior and the behavior of the average American.

The US is an inescapable fact of life in Cuba. For more than a century the United States has insinuated its presence into Cuba's struggles for independence, has influenced its policies, its social structures and its culture. It is a huge economic and political magnet drawing Cubans from the island for the past 100 years. Its policies, the embargo, and legislation such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, the Mack Amendment, the Toricelli Bill and the Helms-Burton law, have wreaked havoc on Cuba's economic, political and social affairs. Yet there remains a reciprocal fascination - Cuba is literally crawling with Americans and there is no problem obtaining the ubiquitous Coca-Cola, Camel cigarettes and many other US products - in exchange for US dollars.

The US has, willy-nilly, also acted as a kind of safety valve for the Castro government. Over the years, whenever dissatisfaction has boiled up too vigorously, people quit the island for Florida. In this way dissent is exported, and the regime gains some breathing room.

Cuba hopes to attract over two-million tourists this year, most of them coming from Canada, Spain, Italy, France and Germany - but don't try spending Canadian dollars, pesetas, marks or francs! For although the US Treasury department says it's illegal for Americans to spend US dollars in Cuba, the greenback is the only foreign currency that is freely accepted here.

The ultimate irony...you can't leave Cuba until you have paid Cuban Immigration your Exit Tax of 20 US dollars!