Cuba: “So far, the only way to see change is to make a boat and sail off”

Cuban Youth See New U.S. Embassy, but Same Old Drab Life

By AZAM AHMED


Wedged between a construction site and the shells of once grand colonial homes, a basketball game was underway, the neighborhood pouring into the rubble-strewn street for some evening entertainment.

It wasn’t much. A chewed concrete floor, a splintered backboard and a piece of bent rebar for a hoop. But as entertainment went, the price was right: No one paid a thing to enjoy the seaside air, the sunset or the game as they soaked up a snapshot of life seemingly preserved in time.

And that, to many in attendance, was precisely the problem.

While the news media was buzzing about the new American Embassy, which had reopened for the first time in more than 50 years, barely a word passed among the Cuban youth about the many changes afoot in their nation.


“Change? My life won’t change,” said Yunior Rodriguez Soto, 17, posted by the court with a few friends. “I mean, look how we’re living, look how we are playing?” he said, pointing at the goal, which had been knocked askew.


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