Andrei Codrescu

During the Special Period in the 1990s, Castro attempted to make up for the loss of trade with the Socialist nations of Europe by encouraging foreign tourists to visit Cuba. As tourists began to arrive in greater numbers, they made it possible for Cubans to augment their incomes by providing them with a variety of goods and services, legal and illegal. Ironically, by coming into closer contact with foreigners, almost all of whom were well-off financially, young Cubans became increasingly disillusioned with socialism and longed to live in a country where they could more easily accumulate the material goods that were missing in Socialist Cuba.

Andrei Codrescu is a Romanian-American journalist. In 1997 he and two companions traveled to Cuba to see the country firsthand. In this excerpt, Codrescu and his mates make the acquaintance of two...