Cuba slowly changing following lifting of restrictions
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BIG ARM – The “Other Cuba” was among the topics discussed on Friday night at the historic Big Arm School.
The monthly community meeting featured a presentation by local resident Tom Eddy about a trip to Cuba that he and his wife, Bonnie, made in February 2016, just two months after President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced a normalization of relations between the two nations after more than 50 years of enmity.
The Eddys, who made their trip as part of a cruise with the People to People program, spent a week in Cuba and visited five cities, including Havana.
As evidence of the goodwill between the countries, Eddy showed a photo of a Havana hotel flying flags from the U.S. along with Great Britain and Canada.
The couple didn’t have many restrictions on where they could go on their visit, which he said included the “other Cuba” in the poor countryside.
Although some restrictions have been lifted, Eddy said pastors still face threats and harassment. Noting that his son-in-law made a mission trip to Cuba in recent years, Eddy said “the gospel can’t be preached outside a church.”
In the countryside, he took photos of a church made out of old tobacco drying racks and a “simple church” consisting of a meeting under a tree.
Political detentions have continued although they are on the decline, dropping from 8,000 in 2015 to 2,500 in 2016, Eddy said.
The Cuban economy is still struggling. Eddy said that more than half of the population would be in extreme poverty if not for remittances sent by Cuban-Americans, which have been legal since 2009.
Travel is getting easier between the countries. Restrictions that were eased in 2014 that allowed travelers to bring home up to $100 in cigars and rum were eliminated last October. Even though he could’ve purchased some stogies when he visited, Eddy said he couldn’t see paying $75 for eight small smokes.
Eddy entertained the crowd with some oddities that he observed, including a light pole with 14 separate light appendages.
He concluded that the lifting of restrictions will mostly help the regime along with some of the population, particularly those involved in tourism-related jobs who can get tips from U.S. visitors.
The small crowd at the community meeting seemed to enjoy the presentation, which ended when Ron Roberts, 79, told them he visited Havana’s Copacabana Yacht Club twice in 1956-57 while serving on a Navy aircraft carrier.
“It was a swingin’ place,” Roberts said, adding that he was 17 when he first visited.
