Playing metal shows there is not a common thing, but there’s a plenty of young people over there loving metal, rock, or whatever distorted music. So we played for them, and we played for ourselves.There were a lot of people at every show but they are still in trash, hardrock or death/black classical metal stuff. Rammstein and Metallica are kings. But understand, there’s no way to discover more : no disc shop, no internet, just a few who can pay for one or two hours per month of internet. There are rock/metal bands in Cuba, but don’t think they could buy their instruments with their salary. It’s a DIY country, let me explain in a few words my point of view.

That’s it for the music.

Cubans seems to be in a very difficult position. Not sure of what the end of the embargo with the US will mean for them, I just wish a better tomorrow because today is terrible, even if I’m a little bit confused about what this will bring to Cuba…

Good things I’ve learned and watched in Cuba :

• Free healthcare for all (at least first aid, but not all the medecine)
• School and education for every children. Cuba seems to have no children who can’t read, there are many generations of doctors, scientists.
• You own your own house (no rentals)
• People seems equal in society, no rich no poor (seems like everybody is kind of poor actually).
• Men and Women seems to be equal, not like elsewhere in the world (I’ve visited India and Algeria recently, but also in our occidental society). Sex liberation in Cuba is real, and a bit disturbing. Some girls are vulgarly dressed, like those british girls you cross at night in England streets, but latinas are litteraly sexier.

Weird things I’ve learned and watched in Cuba :

• Can’t talk about your disagreement with the communist government.
• Can’t vote for an opposition (there is NO opposition, only candidates for the same political party).
• Working for your own, building your own company of whatever is very very hard and you’re taxed a lot (around 200€ per month + 50% of what you sell). Discouraging.
• With an average salary of 20€ per month you can’t even imagine buying something else than FOOD. And what food ? Meat is expensive so a few in the month (I’m vegetarian but I deplore that all the food production goes first for tourists). Clothes, cars, furnitures : Do it yourself.
• Prostitution (sex tourism, lot of girls in the hotels, restaurant, grab your attention and “smack” at you — this is not official, the government has banished prostitution, but I think it’s worst now). We saw many old men with beautiful young latinos girls in our hotels.
• Culture ? Seriously I didn’t see a real cuban latino culture. Cult of Che Guevarra yes, music, salsa ? Tss the young generation listens to shitty electronical Raggaeton. Yes there are still tradictionnal music bands but not so much (I did not see any of them in the streets), just this shitty raggaeton beat everywhere. What else about culture, some litterature yes, but food, cinema, photography … people can’t reach it. A few, but not the most.
• A few choice when buying food in supermarkets : you can find the same products in differents shelves and in much quantity, but no (or a very few) alternatives. 3 beers on the whole island, government property of course.
• Rum and alcool in general is very popular, quite expensive but you can find cheap rum in plastic bottles. Every night we saw kids of 14 yo completly drunk. This is not a particularity of Cuba obviously, but you have more choice of Rum than in other products in shops, and bad quality rom is cheaper than a bottle of water. The same with Coke and Water in the US.

Survival

Every Cuban has a member of his family abroad, USA, Europe, etc… who can send a little bit of money to buy a little more comfortable stuffs. It’s survival. No music shops on the island (just traditional stuff but nothing for rock, hiphop or else). Buying a beer is a hard choice, so expensive.

Meat, cheese, vegetables and everything you’ll find is the same EVERYWHERE on the island. Hard times for frenchies ! (don’t even think of being Vegan in Cuba, you’ll die shortly).

A $500 car in the US costs 30 000 CUC (International Cuban money).
Most of the cars there are from the 1950's (old american and russian cars). The air is so polutted in towns you can’t even imagine (like India, but India is worst).

For the people, but stay muzzled.

Everything has been thought for the people, not for the individual. Our capitalism and individual society in Europe / US has shown it’s boundaries too, we’re not the solution. Strange feelings.

If you want to visit Cuba like a tourist, yeah I think it can be cool, you go to the Casas Particulares near the Carabian sea or even in the north of the island. You’ll eat well but don’t expect people to share it with you (it seems that the Government don’t want Cubans to be too close to tourists).