Travel for All

500 years of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Baracoa.

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On August 4th to the 16th I traveled to Cuba with the St. Augustine-Baracoa Friendship Association (www.staugustine-baracoa.org ), which is a sister city organization between the oldest city founded in North America, St. Augustine, and the oldest city of Cuba, Baracoa.

This was my second time to Cuba, as I had travelled to Cuba with a small student delegation from my school in March of 2010. This time I travelled independently, meeting many new and wonderful people and having the best time of my life in Cuba. The town of Baracoa was celebrating its 500^th year of existence, as it was founded on August 15^th, 1511.

The beautiful colonial town of Baracoa was bustling with activity, as people were painting and working on restoration up to the final day. There were trucks everywhere and so many people that the city was bursting with its small colonial era streets so congested that I believe this was the first time that Baracoa had experienced a traffic jam! The leader of the delegation, Soledad, helped set up an arrangement for me to meet a medical around my same age who was having trouble learning English as she thought maybe I could be of some help. It turned out to be the best thing to happen to me there, to make a genuine friend. He and I spent lots of time together, mostly just walking around town talking about whatever.  

Every day was a celebration, but there were a few highlights of my visit there that stand out. The first is seeing a presentation of Afro-Cuban folk performers, which was a very intense and spectacular event to experience. The way they move their bodies to the rhythm of the drums is fascinating, and the way they danced was so powerful that I could feel the pounding of their feet on the pavement of the road they were performing on. Then there was my walk with my friend to Yara, a fishing village with piers that the locals made themselves. Then there were the conga lines that randomly formed near the center of the city. This was a unique Afro-Cuban Conga, with drum players and a flute player that guided the crowd of hip-moving dancers. I joined one with my new friend, and this was easily the best experience of my life. The pulsating energy of this dance was so intense you could feel it everywhere.

The final celebration on the night before the 15^th, there was a huge crowd gathered at La Punta to watch various events that would lead up to midnight with fireworks celebrating the day of the 500^th birthday of Baracoa. The thing was that the celebration was nearly ruined by torrential rains, and my friend and I ran back to his uncle’s house through the pouring rain and streets turned into rivers. The celebrations continued, with the fireworks going off amidst the storm. The enduring spirit of the city would not be ruined by anything, truly Cuban.  

Cuban Family.

My name is Jonathan and my most recent trip to Cuba was from December 22nd, 2009 - January 12th, 2010 and I was able to go with my Abuela through Cuba Travels in Los Angeles, Ca. The main purpose of this visit, was to get to know my family more and also to take my Abuela with me so that she can experience Cuba before it’s too late. 

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Cuba in 2004.

I’m not one to seek out tour packages, but in 2004 I decided it was time to bite the bullet and see Cuba. I found an 8 day trip sponsored by the Jewish Community Center in suburban Chicago for $3000, not including airfare to Miami. I was the youngest in my group of 18 by a good 20 years, which was great fun. We visited the Jewish community in Havana, and brought them prescription drugs and other hard-to-come-by items like car batteries and shock absorbers. We toured the sites in Havana (cigar factories, Hotel Nacional, Old Havana, art museums, concerts, etc.) and spent an evening at an all-exclusive in Varadero.

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Next Year in Havana.

Fidel Castro…Ernesto “Che” Guevera…Jose Marti. These names are important in Cuban history, but they are not the names that were important to the group of us who traveled to Cuba in the winter of 2006 with an Adath Jeshurun mission led by Hazzan Howard Glantz and his wife Dayna. Instead, we will remember Rosa Behar Hazday, Adela Dworin, Jose Miller Fredman, David Tacher Romano, Julio Rodriguez Ely, Jacob Berezniak, Isaac Rousso Lilo, and the other members of Cuba’s Jewish community who warmly and enthusiastically welcomed us to their “Chosen Island.”

Our mission was to deliver medical supplies and personal items to the approximately 1500 remaining members of this community. We visited three congregations in Havana (Beth Sholom, Conservative; Adath Israel, Orthodox, and the Centro Hebreo, Sefardi) as well as two small communities in Santa Clara and Caibarien. All prescription medications were delivered to Beth Shalom (“The Patronato”), the largest congregation in Havana. There, the medications are catalogued and dispensed, as needed, to people in the community whether or not they are Jewish. Supplies are also distributed to more rural areas of the island. The Patronato pharmacy is run by Dr. Hazday, a specialist in Gastroenterology and President of the Cuban branch of Hadassah International. Another smaller pharmacy is maintained by Congregation Adath Israel.

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Visiting our Future.

My first trip to Cuba was perfectly set up by my previous months exploring Latin America on sabbatical in 1991: yes, I would see Cuba’s problems and hear the complaints, but the fear in my Salvadoran friend and the desperation in two Guatemalan boys singing for coins would put in perspective the worst of what I was to see in Cuba. All my trips to Cuba were during the Special Period, when things were the hardest.

Though my three trips with Pastors for Peace’ US/Cuba Friendshipment Caravans were my favorites, all eight of my trips to Cuba – my solo sabbatical trip, two with Global Exchange (including an eco-trip), the Venceremos Brigade, the Labor Exchange to an international labor conference – were great lessons in what we could be.

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Semper Fi.

The sun was breaking as I stood on the bow of my boat, Semper Fi and gazed south at what looked like ominous clouds. The last thing I needed was a storm off the Cuban Coast.

It was January of 2002, just a few months after 9/11, and I was headed to Havana from Key West. I was born and raised in Miami and grew up in the fifties and sixties. In Miami we also lived the overthrow of Batista, the Missile Crisis and The Trade Embargo. My school did drills in which we climbed under our desks to protect from Nuclear Attack. My dad worked on construction crews building missile bases in South Florida. I watched thousands of troops heading south on US 1 to be deployed behind sandbags. Now I was closing in on the island that had created so much emotion in my young life.

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The Conundrum: Cuba.

My third trip to Cuba in July 2009 was with the stellar Witness For Peace group. Me and twenty-seven other U.S. educators and artists were immersed in the eclectic and electric culture of Cuba lock, stock, and barrel.  Fabuloso!  Even though I had made two other trips, my spirit, intellect, soul, and body remained wide-open to the infinite possibilities of learning more about the wonderful people of Cuba, and the machinations of that society; really. Granted, I was ever prescient of the heinous authority of the Cuban State Security system, especially since I was followed two times during my July 2007 trip.  Undaunted yet not an “ugly American”, I remained tiny and cautious all-the-while absorbing and reveling in the fulsome warmth of the people, colors of their world, society, ambiguities, and landscape of Cuba.  What ultimately guided me in 2009 were two things: 1.  I knew that Yoani Sanchez and her colleagues were working hard via their incredible blog, Generacion Y, to instigate change from within, and 2. That my beloved friends, Mildred and Rolando Diaz and children, with all other Cubanos (except the politburo) were at the affect of the lack of food, medicines, etc.; more so than when I saw them in 2007.

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90 Miles Away.

My church, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC, has had for approximately 20 years a sister church relationship with Matanzas Baptist Church in Matanzas, Cuba.  It’s another story about how the churches came to be so closely affiliated.  Because of that relationship, each year, 2 or 3 times, different groups will travel to visit, staying 1-2 weeks. It could be the choir going, or the teenagers, or a group of interested adults.

I was fortunute to be a part of the group 2 times: traveling once in 2003 and in 2007.  The first visit makes the biggest impression.  We walk into the church courtyard, travel weary, and are welcomed and greeted so open-heartedly by church members that all our weariness disappears.  While getting food to feed large groups of people can be probablematic in Cuba, the visiting group would never know that. Our meals are lovingly prepared in the small church kitchen for us daily—each one a joyfull feast.  However, we do see all the leftovers carefully packed for others to share.

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REUNIFICATION.

A year ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson Disease. I was some what  traumatized with the thought that I would progressively lose abilities to maintain an active life and especially travel. My sister sensed my fears was extremely generous and offered my husband and I a trip to where ever we wanted to go in the world.  At first I thought of Hawaii, but as I thought about it, I realized the place I truly wanted to visit was Cuba.

My parents came to the USA in the 1940s during WWII from Cuba. My mom was recruited as a doctor to provide care in the US as many doctors were overseas taking care of the wounded soldiers. The family settled in New Jersey where eventually my brother and I were born.  Every year the family traveled to Cuba to reunite with our large family there. That was until 1959.

Most of my family came to the US in one of the waves to the US but a handful stayed.  They stayed for non political reasons.  The generation before mine kept the communication going among the family, but my generation lost track.

Then January 2011 there was news of a policy for families to travel to Cuba directly. I just came back August 20th, 2011 from a three week stay in Cuba where I got to see my only living uncle of 93 years and his daughter! A cousin who I had thought died in Angola years ago, but was alive and well. Another cousin who, when his family migrated to the US could not come because he had to serve his military service. Lastly I got to see a cousin who also has Parkinson and helped me accept the future with the disease.

I was the first family member in 45 years that the cousins had ever seen. It was my first time seeing my uncle and cousins. The love and stories we shared in those three weeks were priceless. I came home with a full heart.

Now I read that others may not have the same experience of reuniting with their family.  Will my cousins need to wait another 45 years for a visit?

Making Friends in Cuba.

When people I know in the U.S. ask me “What is Cuba like?” I often answer “It is a different world”.

Having been born in Cuba and having relatives on the island, it gives me a privilege that most Americans are denied: that of traveling to Cuba.

A small incident on my trip early this year proves the point of the uniqueness of the island. It was February and I was a Cuba to partake in the wedding of my cousin’s daughter.  When I go to Cuba I enjoy staying in the little town of Cojimar where I was born and where I lived the first eleven years of my life.

In the early morning, I enjoy going outside and watch the town come alive. This morning I noticed the parents taking their children to school.  Since few Cubans have cars, most parents walk their children to school or ride them on a bike or a motorcycle.  I had my camera with me and I was photographing this event  daily.  The house where I was staying was near the top of a hill and riding a bike with a passenger was not an easy task. I noticed this gentleman riding his daughter to school and I took their photograph. They smiled and they kept on riding, I kept shooting away with my camera.

I repeated this the second day and this time the father and the daughter waved. On the third and last day when I took his photograph again, the father yelled at me “Oye, turista, un dolar por la foto”  (“Hey, tourist, one dollar for the photo”). They laughed and I laughed also.

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