Cuba starts return to normal as mourning for Castro ends
HAVANA — Music is playing in the streets again. Tourists are sipping mojitos at sidewalk cafes. Flags are flapping at full staff. After nine days of national mourning for Fidel Castro, Cuba is slowly returning to noisy, boisterous normality.
Cuba is a country where sidewalks serve as living rooms and social clubs, but during the mourning period people mostly stayed indoors, watching television and avoiding any appearance of joviality.
With a government ban on selling alcohol and on playing live or recorded music after Castro’s death, Cubans paid tribute to their longtime leader in near silence.