The  finan­cial and com­mer­cial embargo imposed on Cuba by the United States since 1960 has weak­ened this country’s econ­omy for decades, bring­ing poverty to an oth­er­wise nat­u­rally wealthy island in the caribbean. Iron­i­cally 6.6% of Cuba’s imports are from the U.S– in fact the U.S. is Cuba’s main  sup­plier of food and agri­cul­tural prod­ucts, with many Cubans depend­ing on rations grown in Arkansas and North Dakota for their rice and beans.

On the other hand, Cuba’s exports include nickel and cobalt, oil and oil deriv­a­tives, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech prod­ucts, sugar and its byprod­ucts, tobacco, trop­i­cal fruits and cof­fee among oth­ers, being Canada, China and Venezuela the top 3 importers. Tourism is also a major source of  income, with most tourists spend­ing a few days in Havana and then quickly migrat­ing to the famous beaches in Varadero before head­ing back home with a good tan and car­ry­ing the most famous sou­venir you can take back home: cig­ars. At an indi­vid­ual cost of 4USD (Mon­te­cristo) in Cuba and whop­ping 20USD in other coun­tries cig­ars bring a lot of money to  Cuban familis that are well net­worked and can eas­ily reach tourists. This said the cig­ars are too high of a prize to give up so often, and even the most elderly enjoy this habit every now and then.  Usu­ally reluc­tant to hav­ing pic­tures taken, I was able to take this snap­shot at a fair dis­tance while walk­ing down one of Havana’s side streets.