On Thursday, beyond the halls of government, hidden from the glare of cameras
                  and the jostling of reporters, the Gonzalez family began decompressing in a home
                  in the Miramar section of Havana.

                  Arriving in Cuba Wednesday night, the family went to the government guest house
                  for a stay of about three weeks so Elian can continue catching up on school work.

                  Cuban sources told CNN that Elian's father, Juan Miguel, has forcefully said that
                  "he never wants to see a camera pointed at his son again."

                  The neighborhood where the family and their entourage are staying has been
                  sealed off to outsiders.

                  "Life is normal but the press is not allowed," a police officer told reporters on a
                  nearby street. "You know the reasons why, and we are asking for your
                  understanding."

                  The government said the family will return to their hometown of Cardenas.

                  In Miami, spokesman for Lazaro Gonzalez and his family, who fought in court to
                  keep Elian in the United States, said: "They were very sad. Lazaro was very sad
                  that Elian was not happy when he got to Cuba."

                  "He's never wanted to go back to Cuba, and we saw it in his face," said the
                  spokesman, Armando Gutierrez. "We saw the fact that there was not even a
                  chemistry between Elian and his grandmothers."

                  Cuba presses attacks

                  Meanwhile, relations between Havana and Washington may never be the same.
                  Elian's return is clearly viewed as a victory by the Cuban leadership, which
                  seems emboldened, pressing attacks on U.S. policy toward the island.

                  Cuban officials have said the boy's return is only the beginning of their struggle
                  against anti-Cuba U.S. policies.

                  At a weekly foreign ministry briefing, spokeswoman Aymee Hernandez said the
                  Castro government will not only target U.S. policy, but will push for the U.S. to
                  get off Cuban soil.

                  "Our country will not only fight for the elimination of the Cuban Adjustment Act,
                  but also for the return of the U.S. naval base that is in Guantanamo," she said.

                  And while she praised the "good intentions" of U.S. legislators who moved to
                  free up food and medicine sales to her island, she said the media had mistakenly
                  interpreted the move as a historic "relaxing" of the economic sanctions on
                  communist-run Cuba.

                  "Let's get this straight," she told foreign correspondents in Havana. "What we see
                  here is a cosmetic measure which, far from relaxing it, is in fact strengthening
                  the embargo."

                  The move, promoted by the U.S. farm lobby and brokered by Republican leaders
                  in Congress, would allow food and medicines sales to Cuba for the first time
                  since President Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.

                  In final negotiations, anti-Castro Washington lawmakers managed to include in
                  the proposal a prohibition on official or private funding for the sales, and a
                  specific codification of an existing bar on American tourism on the Caribbean
                  island.

                  The legislation requires all deals must be in cash, "and you know perfectly well
                  that Cuba is a Third World country," Hernandez said.

                  Neither, under the embargo regulations, can Cuba recoup money by exporting to
                  the United States, much as it also would like to sell medicines such as its locally
                  developed vaccines or food such as oranges and guavas, she said.

                  "If it is approved, it will only raise more obstacles for clean and unconditional
                  trade between Cuba and the United States," Hernandez added. "The problem is
                  not whether we can buy medicines from the United States, but the onerous
                  conditions they impose for purchases."

                  How Cubans plan to fight for the Guantanamo base, a strategic U.S. military
                  installation on the eastern side of Cuba, is not clear.

                     CNN Miami Bureau Chief John Zarrella and Reuters contributed to this report.