…I’m back. Shattered, and just getting my head around my inbox, back-ordered blogs and to-do lists.
Havana and Cuba generally, is predictably, incredible – and quite humbling – there’s a basic level of _survival_ going on in the streets, which makes the stuff I worry about on a daily basis here on Participo quite trivialising.
One thought among many was the sheer level of individual-level inventiveness, from running 50 year old chevys, to refilling ‘disposable’ lighters, and though I’m no fan of centralised socialism and political dictatorships (well, who _is_? :-) there are some really smart ideas in force – like directly funnelling taxation on restaurants and hotels into renovating the city centre.
I felt pretty optimistic, particularly that it won’t go the way the of Russia when the old man goes, as there’s a 96% literacy rate (due to a highly focused literacy campaign), what seems ike decent (and attended) schooling, a very highly educated bunch of people (the national tv runs 2 of it’s 4 channels with full-time educational content), there’s a bunch of research jv’s with Canadian biotech firms.
If it’s not too condescending, there are some humbling lessons to be learnt from seeing (at a very high-level) the strategies and mechanisms people are using to get stuff done.
I’ll write more up (probably on the weekend)…