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Today I fly to Havana.

I must say, I am feeling extremely anxious about this trip, which is funny because I don't recall being this nervous when I travelled to Spain during high school. It must be the fact that at this moment I am so incredibly oversaturated with everything Cuban: history, politics, culture, people, language. Everything seems just a little bit more intense.

For the past two weeks my classmates and I have been attending intensive daily three hour lectures where our three wonderful professors, Karen Dubinsky, Susan Lord, and Jennifer Hosek, have been inspiring us to dig down deep and fill up our souls to the brim with Cuba Cuba Cuba. We have learned more than I thought possible (yet I will discover late in my trip that I will be leaving Havana with more questions than answers...).

We've read about how a young Fidel Castro led his July 26th Revolutionaries through the Sierra Maestra mountain range, heralding socialism and denouncing corruption and class hierarchies.

We've seen iconic images of social humanist and national hero, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and recognized how his commitment to fostering the "new man" had followers finding satisfaction in moral incentives and the collective rather than in materialistic objects and individualism.

We've listened to the music of Cuban "folkstar" Carlos Varela, whose music has inspired, and continues to inspire, hope and revolutionary fervor amongst Cuban youth, most of whom sing-along, cheer, and weep during his live performances.

We've watched one of the most influential Cuban films of all time, Tomas Gutierrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment, which follows alienated main character, Sergio, as he wanders aimlessly through Havana and ponders the social changes that surround him.

We've attended the "Measure of a Revolution" Cuba Conference (which was coincidentally held in Kingston last weekend) where I had the pleasure of hearing Mariela Castro, niece of Fidel and daughter of Raul, speak about Sexuality and HIV/AIDS Prevention in Cuba.

So, after an average of about five hours of reading per day, I hope that I know at least something relevant about the destination to which I am about to travel. I have been thrust into learning about Cuban culture just like the way I am about to be thrust into an entirely new world. In just a few hours I'll be stepping off of a plane at the Jose Marti International Airport and into a third-world socialist country with only one political party (Cuban Communist Party), severe food shortages, and a 47-year economic blockade imposed by the United States, yet a nation with free education (yes, that includes university), universal healthcare, and a 99.8% literacy rate (which easily trumps Canada). I am eager to see socialism in practice, rather than in (what I will soon find out to be) overly-romanticised theory.

This should be interesting...

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