David, I've seen your pictures and they are quite stunning. I was in Cuba for a few days a long time ago and it looked pretty much like you dipicted. Wonderful people with a hateful government. By contrast I also visited Haiti and that place made Cuba look like paradise.
Lee
i visited the Philippines in February of this year, in a research trip to try and find out whether it would be a good place for me to move to shrink my cost of living.
I found that people were far more upbeat and less money oriented than they are in the US. I stayed at one place with a Filipina friend who happened to be the owner's best friend. Naturally the owner treated us like kings, feeing us and taking us around independently of the cost of the room.
When I left, I paid my room and drinks bill and offered an enormous tip - it was a bit more than my total bill for staying there. The owner refused it with a gentle smile, saying that she didn't want me to think Filipinas were mercernary!
There were things the Philippines had in common with Cuba. There are squatter areas that are very much like Cuban slums, because nobody owns the land and the person who builds the fastest keeps a claim in the property. Since these are not based on beautiful old Spanish architecture like housing in Cuba, they were just plain ugly. Toilet paper was only slightly less of a premium item than it was in Cuba.
But there was a zest and a vitality in the place that just didn't exist in Cuba. Crony capitalism, the system there, seems to impact people close to the top more than those close to the bottom. People work super-hard, more so than they did in Cuba, and generally reaped more in the way of rewards.
The Philippines has horrible problems, mainly in terms of a national attitude that is outrageously short term. But they're doing far better than Cuba and there are some institutions, such as shopping malls(*), that rival American ones in quality.
So I have seen more of the third world now, and I can conclude that a repressive country like Cuba is far worse than a simply corrupt country like the Philippines.
What i really wonder is where the better attitude came from. I'd rather live in Cuba than the US, as long as I can bring some US money along with me, because the people have an upbeat attitude that's 1000 times better than the mopy gloom I see here in the US.
Thoughts?
D
(*) I would take a Robinsons center in the Philippines over a Simon center in Pittsburgh any day. Cleaner, better maintained, better service.