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Published: February 2nd 2008
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Cuba - 29 December 2007 to 20 January 2008
For the Cuban part of our journey, we joined the Southern Cross Work and Study Brigade, which is a group formed of Australians and New Zealanders that goes to Cuba each January. This year there were forty nine of us in an excellent group that made the whole time really fun. We also had Cubans attached to the group for the stay, and Chela made good friends with Isabel, whose employment title was ´Specialist in Solidarity´. Certainly not a title one would find in Australia! It was a bit strange for both of us to be part of a group after all our independent travel, but we soon got the hang of it.
The group stayed in basic dormitory style eight-bed-per-room accomodation with cold showers but it meant that we quickly got to know one another. The food in Cuba is notoriously bland but we nevertheless came to enjoy the various combinations of rice, beans, pork, tomato and citrus fruits.
The brigade kicked off with a 5km marathon on the first day, in which Chela finished as the third woman. She thought it was a pretty good result, given
the total lack of running that she´d done in the last little while! Also participating in the marathon was the local running club from Caimito, the closest town to our camp, which is about an hour outside of Havana.
The beginning of our brigade also coincided with the 49th Anniversary of the Revolution on January 1. On New Year´s Eve we were treated to a tropicana-style show at the House of Friendship in Havana, accompanied by plenty of Havana Club rum. Then on the afternoon of the 1st, we went to a lovely ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Gran Teatro, which was only ten cents a ticket! The Cuban Ballet is excellently trained because of the long running associations that Cuba had (and, to an extent, still has) with Russia. A few of the dancers looked pretty Eastern European!
During our stay, we spent a bit of free time in Havana just wandering around. It's possible to spend days and days walking around the old city, seeing all the beautiful buildings, which are all World Heritage listed. Some are totally restored and others are near-falling-down, but it is an architectural paradise, even for novices such
as us! We visited the Capitolio, which is the pre-revolutionary parliament house, with a design which is based on the White House. Now it is the Faculty of Computer Sciences of Havana University. We also visited the old Presidential Palace, which is now the fantastic and huge Museum of the Revolution. Another old building we visited was the Bacardi headquarters from before the Bacardi family left for the United States when the revolution triumphed. We got a great view from the bell tower and the bat from the Bacardi logo was everywhere.
The famous Havana Malecon was also very beautiful to walk along. At one point on the Malecon, the United States ´Special Interest Section´ is housed, and it has bright red writing one storey high scrolling across the building, telling the Cubans of the evils socialism (As we all know, universal health care, free tertiary education and paid maternity leave are tools of the devil). It was funny to stand on the street and read that and then turn around and see all the kids playing baseball instead of selling wares as we've seen all throughout South America. What an interesting juxtaposition!
Also as part of our
visit we did six mornings of agricultural work. This did not involve all that much actual "work", but we felt like we were helping! We got up at 6am to a recorded rooster´s crow that was piercing and convincing, then went out to the fields to participate in activities such as clearing dead pawpaw trees branches, picking beans, clearing grass with machetes, pruning orange trees and planting guavas. Working with the machetes was another experience altogether and we confirmed our fears from seeing people working with them in other countries; they are really dangerous! But after our work each day, we all ate fresh pawpaw, guavas and oranges. We never knew that a pawpaw could taste so good!
We also had lectures and Q&A sessions with many people from all kinds of Cuban organisations. We met with the vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, who gave us a run-down on the Blockade that the United States continues to impose on Cuba and other foreign policy matters. We also met with other officials who informed us of the state of the economy, which is not only at threat from the previously mentioned U.S. Blockade but ever present meteorological dangers. We also had
Chela and Propaganda
"What is revolution?" a lecture on Cuban culture from the Head of the Writers Association, which covered music, theatre, literature and poetry from the time of Columbus to the present. We met with representatives of the Federation of Cuban Women, the Young Communist League, the Union of University Students, the Federation of Highschool Students. An exciting occasion was a meeting with students and lecturers from the Carribean School of Medicine, where students from Cuba and all over the rest of the Carribean study medicine in order to practice in their own countries. There were many Jamaican students, who spoke English with that fantastic accent! On another occasion, we had a meeting with the Combatants of the Cuban Revolution that was especially moving, as they told personal stories and met with a member of our brigade group who had also struggled as a student in his own country.
In the last week of our trip, we went to Santiago de Cuba, which is at the other end of the island. Here, we stayed with Cuban families. Our family was comprised of grandparents, Guillermo and Isabel, and their extended family, many of whom lived in the two story house in which we stayed. In
our house was also Dainé, a thirteen year old girl, and Rey, a nine year old boy who everyone affectionately called Reycito (Little Rey). Rey literally means ´King´ and there was also a Reina (´Queen´) living a few doors down. We had a really nice time with our family despite a big language difficulty. On the last night we had a street party with all the local residents. The massive community speaker was brought out to the street and everyone brought their furniture outside and had a party. There was a lot of Salsa, Conga and Reggaeton played! We couldn´t at all keep up with the natural Cuban ability to dance, not even with the one year old boy who boogied down the whole night with his mum!
Overall, we had a great time in Cuba and one that was totally different to our experiences in other Latin American countries. Travelling through other Latin American countries gave us an ability to compare Cuba to other 'third world' countries and gave us a broader perspective for our experiences. We were able to experience Cuba not only as tourists but as friends, students and (to a minor extent!) workers. Our visit
to Cuba was a special part of our journey.
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