Twenty-one years after official Washington declared communism dead with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unraveling of the Soviet Union, life in Fidel and Raúl Castro’s socialized Cuba chugs along, fifty-one years after Fidel first took power in the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Cuba’s current situation is not without economic and social absurdity however as Cubans receive rationed fruits, vegetables, legumes, meat and bread with government-issued ration cards at subsidized prices but must fend for themselves in most other respects, including clothing and with the notable exception of health care and medicine. Two currencies, the Cuban national peso is used to pay for many basic goods and services, but is challenged by the dominance of the Cuban convertible peso, in wide circulation.
