The rumble of 1959 Chevrolets, once the rhythmic heartbeat of Havana, is fading to the near silence of electric vehicles as the island faces its worst fuel shortage in years.
For six decades, Cuba’s roads changed little, defined by colorful vintage cars. But in recent years, Cubans increasingly adopted electric vehicles as fuel became more scarce. Now, they are helping the population grapple with a worsening fuel crisis, since the U.S. cut off oil exports from the communist-run country’s ally Venezuela and threatened to penalize other countries exporting fuel to the island.
Donald Trump’s administration has declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.
they definitely do punch above their weightclass, they’ve developed a vaccine against a certain type of pulmonary cancer, developed their own covid vaccine etc.
the thing is the lack of money and professionals to keep the system running.
apparently since the new constitution of of 2019 was approved, which amongst other things (re)affirmed the right of private property and foreign investments and opens the economy up to a market economy, the state has been reducing funding for education and health systems, which is especially apparent in rural areas. The direction to a more privately owned system is set and taken.
a fairly omnipresent example is medicines: during covid the state dropped the customs duty on medicine, in order to alleviate supply chain problems, so individuals could import medicine from around the world. this trend is ongoing, you will see a lot of whatsapp statuses of people offering and looking for certain types of medicines. Also a lot of selling and reselling of any imported goods such as generators, motorbikes, air conditioning, etc. is going on through whatsapp and other social media market places. a lot of people have internet on their mobile phones nowadays, they no longer rely on “el paquete”.
Could you elaborate a bit more on the issues around shortages of funding and professionals?
My understanding was that Cuba has had one of the highest doctor-to-population ratios in the world, and that its medical schools were often treated almost like a public works project to train large numbers of physicians.
Is it an issue of brain drain (graduate qualifying and then leaving for greener pastures?)
(I’m not doubting what you say btw; just trying to address my own ignorance).
PS: El Paquete is exactly the example of “fine, I’ll do it myself” response I had in mind. At 1TB per week, that was/is one of the largest sneakernets in the world.
i’m just relaying on what my cuban friends have told me: yes, it’s mostly brain drain on one side, and on the other hand there is ever less resources due to dwindling tourism and ever more expensive petrol. at the same time that more resources are injected into these tourist and prestige areas where you have water and electricity 24/7 while the costs to maintain them are ever rising. i heard of local schools in the escambray mountains where there is no teachers anymore, and it’s neighbours themselves that are not qualified in a teachers capacity that take care of teaching the few remaining children. so less resources that are more concentrated. also Cuba is huge and has many different regions, what is true for Havana and los Cayos is not true for the eastern and southern regions, i assume the impacts vary but all go in the same direction
and yeah, the paquete was the bomb :)