I travelled to Brazil a number of years ago with the union, in 1999. There's no country in the world without problems.
One thing I did notice about Cuba was the unique perspective they take toward workers. They don't lay off workers there. They may not have enough material or enough work to go around, but everybody goes to work every day, and there's a sense of pride for workers, whereas here you'd get laid off. I've been laid off, been without a job, and had to go to an unemployment line. That doesn't happen there; if there's work for an hour, they go and work for an hour, and then they go home.
I talked to a fellow who was an economist at a cement factory in Cienfuegos. He worked for four hours in the morning, from seven until eleven, because that's all the work they had to do. I found it to be quite amazing and quite unique that nobody gets laid off from work because of a shortage of materials or anything. They'll go to work and work for an hour or eight hours or six hours or two hours--whatever work's available--and maintain their job. It maintains their dignity when they maintain their job, and that's unique to Cuba. I've never seen it anywhere else.