Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez holds up a letter signed by Cuba's President Fidel Castro, during a meeting with Cuba's Vice-President Carlos Lage at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Wednesday. Chavez held up a letter and said, "I'm going to show you something, for those who say that Fidel is dying, that he can't talk, that he can't move." - Reuters

HAVANA (AP):

Some Cubans express frustration, others apathy as 80-year-old Fidel Castro battles an unnamed illness and remains unseen six months after handing power to his younger brother.

But most seem willing to wait patiently to see how Acting President Raul Castro might change things after his brother is gone.

"We need to give him time, to see what he does," Joaquin Hernandez, 70, said of the younger Castro. "Raul is more family oriented, so he might reach out more to the Cuban people to better understand their problems. He is also more approachable, and seems to listen more to his advisers."

The caretaker government has done nothing to lighten restrictions on freedom of speech or to change a punishing economy in which state salaries averaging about US$15 are not always enough to buy basic foodstuffs not always provided by government rations such as cooking oil or milk for older children and teenagers. Cubans still lack details about their leader's medical condition.

Life on the island has been virtually unchanged since Fidel Castro announced on July 31 that he had undergone intestinal surgery and was provisionally relinquishing power to his brother Raul, the 75-year-old defence minister.

There have been no obvious signs that anything extraordinary occurred since the older Castro stepped aside after nearly a half century of rule.

Adults go to work, children go to school, the government's nightly public affairs show focuses on the same recurring themes: Miami exiles it terms the "Mafia," Cuba's highly touted social programs in Latin America, the U.S. war in Iraq, American sanctions against the island.

Fidel Castro is mentioned in the state media as if he were still a constant of daily life, often through historical articles. "Fidel took Caracas," read the top headline in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Monday, recalling the huge welcome Venezuelans gave him on his first visit to their country in 1959.