Only the government has access to the internet. In La Plaza de la Catedral, in front of the Cathedral of Havana where the Pope offered mass in January, we encounter tourists having their photographs made with Cuban women dressed in traditional costumes. A few blocks away are expensive shops, with inventories geared towards the tourist trade. Because of the holiday, a large number of Cubans are window shopping, looking with awe at goods most of them will never be able to afford. Schoolchildren are fascinated by a display of toys in the window of one store.
Young boys take over a city street to play beisbol, which is a national passion in Cuba.
It's extremely rare to see children with store-bought toys. In another plaza, dominated by outdoor booksellers, Enrique and I talk literature with the proprietor of one stand. He shows us favorite passages from the poetry of Jose Marti , the most revered Cuban patriot. Behind him on the shelves are works by Hemingway, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and, of course, Fidel Castro. Although the attack failed, the speech made him famous.