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'''1 parts of the city. Classic American cars from the 1950s cruise the quiet streets. It seems as if the whole place is a living museum, unspoiled by the uglier aspects of development. Visitors, who may think they know better than the Cubans themselves, often speculate that it is not the embargo, but the lifting of it that will ruin the country. For all its troubles and poetic decay, the city appears not to have sunk into misery, but to be thriving despite it. Conga beats drift out from darkened apartment windows, women in spandex unitards sashay down the streets, salsa sings on radios, rumba parties throb down the block, Cuban movies play at the cinema, rock concerts boom through the Teatro Nacional. And people everywhere want to talk. According to what many Habaneros were saying, neither Castro nor the Revolution are throwing in the towel yet. In fact, thanks in part to the buildĀ­ up of tourism and the foreign currency it brings, the Cuban economy has been slowly recovering from the devastating lows of the early 1990s. People even seemed surprised that we outside of Cuba were so sure the country was on the brink of its own perestroika. Many Cubans were complacent about the prospects, believing that Castro would remain in power until his death, when his brother Raul Castro would simply carry on in his place. Instead of blaming the embargo for making daily life so difficult, they often blamed their own government's hold on Cuban resources. There are few streetlights in Havana and sometimes the power goes out altogether. The city looks best in moonlight, when the pockmarks and peeling paint don't show. We arranged ahead of time to rent a private apartment, which is cheaper and less cloistered than a stateĀ­ run hotel. If you're going to be in Havana for the first and maybe only time, why stay in the Habana Li bre or the Hotel Nacional with a bunch of European and Canadian tourists? The apartment we rented belongs to a woman who says she doesn't live there anymore, she just keeps it to rent out. But her clothes are still hanging in the closet, her son's toys are neatly stacked agai nst the wall in one of the bedrooms and her ration of rice is still delivered once a week. Our broker, Jose, also showed us a darker, smaller place, home to a Cuban family of five. They were ready to leave right away if we wanted to rent it. Jose was an engineer for 20 years, but now earns more in one day renting rooms to foreigners than he did in a month as an engineer. He says he pays a state tax of $250 per room, per month, and covers the tax for all his associates who provide apartments and rooms to let, in exchange for part of the

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