Cuban Postcards: faded brilliance of yesterday's dream

by Pat Dodd Racher

Cuba’s painful transition from underfunded socialist experiment to catch-up capitalism has made life tougher for many who worked loyally as directed by the state, while a new middle class flashes cash flowing from tourists, and from friends and relatives living abroad.

In only 10 years, the economic changes have been remarkable. They are not what the communist government wanted, but there isn’t the money now to fund an adequate welfare state. The collapse of Cuba’s banker, the Soviet Union; antagonism from the White House until a thaw started in 2014; infrastructure damage from powerful hurricanes; a nasty disease of the economically important citrus trees; discontent fomented by the contrast between poor Cubans and apparently affluent tourists: the past quarter century has deluged Cuba with wave after wave of intractable challenges.

Cuban Postcards: Faded Brilliance of Yesterday’s Dream is a personal interpretation of travels in Cuba in 2006, 2011 and 2015, marking a decade of fundamental change, and is illustrated with more than 80 photographs taken by the author.

168 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 7, 2016

About the author

Pat Dodd Racher began as a geographer with a degree from the London School of Economics and interests in food, farming, land use and rural regeneration, interests which have expanded to include economic and political systems. And Cuba!

She was a journalist with Reed Business Publishing, mainly on Farmers Weekly and British Farmer & Stockbreeder, between 1972 and 1988, when she moved to West Wales and studied for an M.Ed and PhD.

She is a director of Dodd Racher Ltd and treasurer of the transition town group Transition Tywi Trawsnewid and of Llansawel Recreation Field & Village Hall Trust. She is also a community councillor and a member of Calon Cymru Network Community Interest Company.