Maybe you can't read it, but on the above picture you can read the slogan "Todo por la revolucion" which means "Everything for the revolution". It's absolutely true that you can see communism everywhere. Everywhere we went we could read slogans on buildings and walls about for example freedom. The heads of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are also on a lot of buildings we saw. What's important to mention is that Castro took over the country exactly 50 years ago so slogans with "50 anos" (50 years) in it weren't that exceptional.
The current situation with communism is that it's still very important. The government loosened throughout the years, especially now that Fidel's brother Raul is leading the country. For example, Cubans weren't allowed on the internet. They did have access to intranet, which is a kind of internet but with only Cuban websites. Only people working at the government had the opportunity of accessing the internet. Since a couple of years, Raul loosened the rules about this and more and more Cubans are also allowed to surf on the internet.
I saw positive as well as negative things of communism in Cuba. Positive is that some important facilities are free: housing, education (for example: education at universities is also free) and health care. Furthermore, there's a ration card for food (a basic 30-product monthly food basket). Nice to know is that education and health care are of excellent quality. For instance, my friend was burned very badly due to the sun, and she was taken care in a good way.
Negative is that housing is quite bad. When we were in Havana we saw all these beautiful buildings, but as we walked through the part of Havana where people actually lived we were shocked to see that housing was very bad. The thought behind is that nothing belongs to one person but to the people. The consequence of this is that there's hardly any maintenance on houses. And people themselves don't have the money. Which is another thing. Everybody earns the same (approximately 13 euros a month). On the one hand it's a good thought, because that means everybody's equal but on the other hand this means that a lot of people don't feel like they have to do anything at work (I can't blame them). Example: my Cuban tour guide is an educated doctor, but she earns more by working as a tour guide, because of the tips. I do wonder how Cuba would be if it wasn't a communist country. Even though living circumstances aren't what I'm used to, people seem to be happy. Everyone has a place to live and there aren't any slums like in Africa.
Last, I would like to talk to you about another thing that I'm not used to. Namely, the right to criticize the government. In Cuba there's a list with people who said negative things about the government. Doing this can have the consequence that somebody loses his/her job or position and eventually becoming an outcast in Cuban society.
As you may have read, communism in my opinion has positive as well as negative features. It's hard to judge about a system I haven't experienced myself.
