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Cuba waiting for President Obama.
Havana prepares on Saturday, one day before the visit of President Obama.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)
HAVANA — As President Obama prepares to land in Cuba on Sunday evening, the first visit to Cuba by a U.S. president in nearly 90 years, Cubans are<span style="color: Red;">*</span>brimming with a combination of excitement and trepidation.
Workers are fixing roads, painting buildings and cleaning parks. Tourists are lining up to take pictures next to billboards featuring Obama side-by-side with Cuban President Raúl Castro, American flags are flying next to Cuban flags, and everyone is talking about what the historic visit will mean for the impoverished, communist nation.
Many see it as the culmination of the opening Obama created when he announced in December 2014 that the Cold War foes would begin the process of normalizing relations.
“It’s very, very important. It brings me such joy,” said Julio Alvarez, 48, who runs a company that fixes the classic American cars that rumble around Havana. Alvarez may get to meet Obama at an event with members of the new class of private entrepreneurs on the island. “I would love to shake his hand and say, ‘Thank you.’ ”
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But others are suspicious of the intentions behind the surprising rapprochement,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>given the long<span style="color: Red;">*</span>confrontational relationship between the two countries. Some say the opening was designed solely for U.S. companies to squeeze as much money out of Cuba as possible. Some joke that the Marines will quietly sneak in behind Air Force One. And some just don’t want anything to do with the Yankees to the north.
“They need to understand that they’re not the umbilical cord of the world and that wherever they go, there’s war, there’s destruction,” said Guillermo Naranjo, 72, a retired physics teacher. “Seeking power and power and power, and for what? Global hegemony. That can’t be. Everyone has the right to live free and sovereign.”
Vintage car restorer Julio Alvarez in his Havana shop one day in advance of the visit by President Obama.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)
During Obama’s three-day tour of Havana, he is scheduled to have a working meeting and state dinner with Castro, but not his brother Fidel Castro, the former leader<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of the communist revolution. Obama will meet with a group of dissident and human right activists, catch a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba’s national team<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and deliver a speech from a theater in Old Havana that likely will be broadcast live around the country.
Cubans say they will pay<span style="color: Red;">*</span>attention to every word of that speech, to hear how far Obama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>pushes the issue of human rights and what surprises he may reveal to further the economic openings he’s already created. Angel Garcia Fabré, 22, a barber in a Havana neighborhood called Playa, said he hopes the trip signals what Cubans have waited<span style="color: Red;">*</span>for — access to the U.S. market.
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“I think that tomorrow I’ll be able to buy my clippers in the store, and I won’t have to run around and find them,” he said, referring to the daily grind all Cubans go through to find basic goods.
Cubans also realize the limitations Obama faces. Cuba’s government restricts Internet access to the vast majority of its 11 million residents, meaning most people get news from relatives living abroad, visitors to the island, pirated Internet signals and weekly compilations of news and entertainment passed around on digital memory sticks.
Despite having so little access to the outside world, Cubans understand quite well the complexities of Washington politics and how that has prevented Obama from eliminating the economic embargo so many Cubans blame for their dire economic straits.
“He has very good intentions, but he can’t do more because the majority in the Senate is Republican,” said Orlando LaGuardia, 84, a poet who serenades tourists and dances with them in Old Havana. “We recognize the effort he’s making, but he’s blocked. We feel he could’ve done more, but he must know how much he can do and how much he can’t<span style="color: Red;">*</span>because the one who’s in the fire is him.”
Havana poet Orlando LaGuardia at his small street stand one day in advance of the visit by President Obama.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)
Cubans also understand that Obama’s opening may be a fleeting one. They can recite the list of Republican presidential candidates and know the front-runners have vowed to rescind the diplomatic opening — Donald Trump says he would negotiate a better deal, and Ted Cruz says he would return to the isolationist policies of the past five decades.
“It’s a shame he has so little time left in the White House, because I don’t know what’s going to happen after,” Alvarez said. “And that scares me.”
That conversation will come later. For now, Cubans are simply overwhelmed with the idea of a visit by a U.S. president. William Carbonell, 57, an art dealer in Havana, said he’s seen a surge in tourism since the 2014 announcement. Carbonell said it was only a matter of time before the Obama visit followed.
“The visit of the president to Cuba will be one that will bring many possibilities for our relations,” he said. “And one that will be a benefit for both countries.”
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