Cuba is a beautiful country that has been cut off from the USA for over 50 years

Over the last 3 years - people have been discovering that Cuba's isolation has led to many awesome inventions!

I was recently watching Fast and Furious 8, it's a great film, I reccommend you watch it if you haven't seen it already. There was a scene at the beginning where Vin Diesel was on his honeymoon in Cuba and he's talking to some guy over an open bonnet and he says to his wife

"Thats a boat engine in a car, the Cuban spirit."

If you ever visit Cuba, you'll likely feel like you've traveled back in time to the 1960's - all their cars have remained virtually unchanged after 50+ years.

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Why Cuba became so isolated

1960s Cuba was a place of reform, at the time, a protest was being led by Fidel Castro to make Cuba into a communist country; when they did manage to make the change, the US weren't happy. As well as disagreeing with the authoritarian stance Castro took, the US was threatened by the thought of communism and Embargoed the whole country, sending them into poverty and shrinking their GDP by 30+%!

In 1961, the US cut all political ties to Cuba.

And to put the cherry on the cake; in 1962, Cuba let the Soviet Union build a nuclear attack base which would have been strategically positioned to destroy every major US city.

Embargo - Complete denial of all trade between two countries, it is often used to stop tyrannical leaders like Kim Jong Un from gaining too much financial power but can also be used to punish smaller countries with differing ideologies/beliefs.

When Cuba was embargoed by the US, they lost access to one of the biggest trading markets in the world, they also lost their closest geographical neighbor and their main supplier in technology and cars.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 90's, Cuba was left with no major allies, no money (the Soviets were paying Cuba handsomely), oil was also supplied by the Soviets and so was a lot of Soviet designed technology. They had nothing so they had to get creative.

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Why Cuba became a land of hackers and tinkerers

A lot of things actually had to fall into place for Cuba to have developed in such an unusual way.

As mentioned above, Cuba lost everything when they lost the US and the USSR. They practically became a third world country, but unlike other third world countries - they had lots of tech - lots of cars, bikes, metals and plastics to work with. As well as infrastructure and housing. But they needed to become adept at recycling, fixing, reusing and modifying in order to survive.

Another important factor in Cuba's DIY development was that with it being a communist country, everyone was entitled to a free education; an unusually high percentage of the population had an engineering degree which meant they already had a good idea of what they were doing.

Lastly, from the 1960's through til the 1990's, the Cubans were receiving all of their technology from the Soviet Union, and the Soviets had standard designs for each item (e.g. Aurika washing machine). This means the same parts can be found from the top to the bottom of the country, the Cuban people are very familiar with these parts which makes tinkering much easier.

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Clothes drier motors are common parts to find, Cuba has a warm climate so clothes dryers aren't necessary for the most part - the motor is better used in a lawnmower, for example.

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One guy turned his car into a boat by sealing the bottom and adding flotation devices.. barrels.

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This is a Cuban bus - it's also a truck with a metal box strapped to the back.

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Sources:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/isolation-generation-master-inventors-cuba
http://guff.com/how-extreme-poverty-made-cuba-the-life-hack-capital-of-the-world
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-severs-diplomatic-relations-with-cuba

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