Howard E. Morseburg

 

 

 

The children of Cuba do not have skateboards. They do not have roller blades, nor new BX bicycles.

 

They do not have iPods.  They do not have collections of music, and CDs and videos.  They do not have cameras, nor do they have Camcorders.  They do not have expensive computers, scanners or printers, nor flat screens, nor microphones.  They don't have cell-phones, nor text messaging, nor custom ring-tones.  They do not have large new TVs, nor small TVs to watch in their rooms, nor DVD players, nor movies at their fingertips, nor nice theatres to go to on Friday and Saturday nights.  They cannot burn their own CDs and DVDs, because there is no local store to find such items.

 

They don't have these things because their parents are paid approximately $10.00 a month, U.S., by Fidel Castro, and the Cuban government.  That is not the fault of the U.S., but of Fidel and his government in Havana, because that is the way they want it.

 

They don't have their own rooms with lots of clothes, nor their own closets, nor do they have posters on the walls.  They cannot listen to music day and night in privacy. 

 

Their parents only get just about ten dollars a month from the government, from Fidel Castro, and they cannot buy their children much on that.

 

They don't have the latest in fashions, designer jeans, nor fancy t-shirts.  They cannot go into a store and buy candy, ice cream or hamburgers when-ever they want to do so.  They don't have even a single luxury that you have, not one.  No nice bedsheets, no fancy pillows, nor a bunch of Teddy-bears, and all sorts of games and toys.  They don't have air conditioning in many of the homes.  On hot nights they toss and turn while trying to sleep. 

 

Why, because from ten dollars a month you have to buy food and clothes and shoes.  That's what Castro pays them, while he, Castro, is personally worth almost a billion dollars.

 

The children don't have nintendos.  Children cannot go to concerts whenever they want.  They cannot buy things in a Best-Buy or Compu-Serve or Costco store like you can.  There are no corner drug stores, no Walgren's, no Macy's, no hardware stores with toasters, or radios, no earphones, no batteries to power all your toys.  The children live like they did more than 100 years ago in America.

 

Why?  Because Communist governments control what the parents earn, and with ten dollars a month, you cannot buy much.  The parents in Cuba must be very careful with their money.  They do not give their chidren five and ten dollar a week allowances, probably in most cases not even a dollar a month.

 

The children in Cuba do not get money from their aunts and uncles and grandparents, unless those people are in the United States where they can earn what they want and send it to them.  They cannot earn that money in Cuba, because the government controls their earnings, and that means, ten dollars a month for them.  If the father works, he gets $10, and if the mother works, she gets $10.

 

The children in Cuba do not have scooters, nor skiis, nor brand new clothes.  Many children have never tasted a piece of candy in their lives.  Where ice cream is sold, they must wait in a long line to get it.  Sometimes a policeman must be there because the line to the ice cream store is so long.  You cannot buy ice cream in almost even shopping center as you can in the United States because the only shopping centers are in the Tourist Zone, and their parents are not allowed to buy anything there.

 

That's why so many Cubans have fled the Island and risked their lives on rafts, because they want freedom, and one of those freedoms is to be able to work hard and earn enough money to buy their children the things they would like to give them.  The Cubans who have fled to the United States buy many of these things for their children here that they could not afford in Cuba.

 

Fidel Castro's children have many of the things that American cfhildren have, and so do the children of high-ranking government oifficials, but not the ordinary people like your mothers and fathers. 

 

No, the Cuban children don't have much, but that is only because of one man, who limits the things that their parents can do to better themselves, and that man is Fidel Castro. 

 

Well, even if they had skateboards, roller-blades and Razor Scooters, it would be difficult to use them.  Why?  Because the government in Havana allows the streets to fall into disrepair.  Those things are basic and the fault of the government in Havana, not because of the United States, but because of one man who stops people from using their own ingenuity, their own brains, to better themselves, and that man is Fidel Castro.