Las Papas y El Papa

What an interesting week in Havana. Firstly potatoes are officially in season! It is pretty great, I can now get all the French fries (papas fritas) that I want, and I have also been enjoying mashed potatoes at dinner. I have also become acutely aware of the difference between the word LA papa and EL Papa, the first being potato and the second being the Pope. As I’m sure you have all been made aware by the press the Pope just made his tour through Cuba. It seemed to be a really crazy week of lead up to the pope’s arrival here in Havana as well as the day he was here must have been the strangest day in Havana by far. It is interesting to have seen a bit of what the NY Times has had to say about the Pope and what the official newspaper (the Granma) here has had to say. For example there was a group of protestors that were arrested out of a church a few days before the Pope came to Cuba. The NY Times had an article about the arrest… and the Granma had had an article with the letter written by the church requesting the removal of the protestors…. For sure the police have been on extra alert, there has been way more police on duty, it seems they wanted to prevent any unwanted problems. The actual day of the Pope was very strange, The entire city was basically shut-down; the busses only ran in the early morning and the late evening, most taxis weren’t operating, almost all stores besides cafeterias were closed. The Mass was supposed to start at 9 and under the impression that everyone in the west side of Cuba was going to be there. My roommate and I headed out from our house at 6:30 am,to make the 10 to 15 minute walk to Plaza de la Revolución, we were in a standing section near the middle section of the plaza, and waited for close to 2 hours for the Pope to arrive. However, this was probably the most interesting part because I was able to talk to some people and observe the crowd that had assembled, something that was way more interesting to me than the actual Mass. When the Pope arrived we got to see him drive around in his ludicrous Pope-mobile
(basically a glass box that he sits in on top of a Mercedes.  Finally the Mass started and we got to hear an old germen man (he is german right?) speak Spanish (surprisingly well) – sorry if that sentence was too sacrilegious. To be honest I didn’t get much of his Mass, it was very hot by this time and very hard to pay attention. My roommate and I left about halfway through. So impressions…. First of all, there were not nearly many people there as I had originally thought that there was going to be, there was still a lot of people but it wasn’t even close to completely filling the Plaza and I figured that it would be bursting at its seems. Furthermore, after the mass started a large group of people left, not just us. It seemed like a lot of people came (like me) to say they were there but didn’t really care to hear the actual Mass. It seems like a testament to how much less religious Cuba is in comparison to other Latin American countries. Second,  I found the juxtaposition of the pope and the plaza that he was in to be really striking. The Plaza de la revolucion is comprised of a giant plaza at one side there is a giant obelisk like structure that you can go to the top of, it is the highest point in Havana, under that is a giant statue of Jose Marti, who is the most beloved figure of the first Cuban revolution and an academic whose writings are quoted constantly; on the other end of the plaza are giant cold-war era buildings with giant pictures on them, one a giant representation of the famous Che picture with the often quoted phrase, Hasta la victoria siempre (until victory always), and on another building a giant picture of Camilo Cienfuegos (another comrade of Che and the Castros). It was just a really strange feeling to be in this plaza that celebrates the revolution so strongly and then the pope in front of it all…. It seemed to be like complete opposites mixed together almost haphazardly.Well anyways, that is more or less my experiences of the pope in Cuba. Until next post.

March already....

I’m very sorry about the long time since I’ve posted, there is a decent amount to tell here though now. Over the last few weeks I have had a really terrible cold, so for about a week I was pretty out of commission, so I hadn’t really done anything of interest during that time. Luckily Francisco, the owner of the house that I’m staying in was very helpful and gave me lots of advice for how to get better. One piece of advice that I followed and, actually I think it worked pretty well, was to drink a concoction made of oranges from his orange tree (these are sour cooking oranges, not oranges for eating), a splash of water, and a spoonful of sugar. It worked like magic on curing a pretty nasty sour throat. I still have a bit of a cough but I’m feeling much better now, I think the Havana air is not doing anything for my cough (the downside to being in a city that still runs cars from the `50s). Luckily I was able to get out of the city for the weekend. This last weekend we all took a bus down to a rural town called Viñales. It is a really beautiful area of Cuba with an indescribable landscape (although because I can’t post pictures, I will try). Mostly it is farmland, Tobacco mostly, although many of the other foods we eat here we were able to see growing there. There was also incredible mountains that looked like nothing I had ever seen, they are not very tall (for a mountain that is) and they are super steep, like almost vertical, and in places the top is actually farther out than the base. They would be a rock-climbers dream.  The tops of the mountains are rounded so they just appear to be hills raised on super steep walls…. I’m doing my best here to describe it but not that successfully…. I’d suggest just googleing Viñales, Cuba to see some pics of the landscape. Another really gorgeous part of the place was the color of the ground; some patches were bright earthy red, others almost orange, and some yellow. On the first day that I was there I went with a small group with a guide to a cave that was a good 3-hour hike out of town. On our hike the guide taught us a lot about the environment there and we made a few pit-stops at interesting places. The first was at a tobacco farm, where the farmer taught us how they grow tobacco, dry tobacco and finally how to roll the leaves into a cigar. After the farm and almost at the caves, we stopped at another guys farm for refreshments, he gave us fresh pineapple slices, a full coconut, and a glass of freshly squeezed sugar cane juice (which was incredible! And we got to help squeeze the sugar cane in the machine). Everything was super good, and in the end the guy only asked us to pay what we thought was fair, which I thought was very nice, although I imagine that a general tourist would give way more than necessary, especially with the different currencies. After this guys farm we went to the cave, it was super incredible, we had to pay a guy to show us into the cave, which was pitch black dark without his light. Once inside the cave we were able to swim in a large pool. The water was freaking freezing though. We explored a bit deeper into the caves and then turned around and went home for the evening. The night-life of Viñales was pretty interesting, it all revolves around a single plaza, but basically same as any small town. The next day I went horseback riding around the country side with another small group it was really amazing and I feel like I got to see a whole different side of Cuba. Anyways that is in a nutshell my trip to Viñales, it was really a great weekend, but it has made me very tired for this week. Well ‘til next post, 

Long time no post.... my bad

Wow, sorry I know it has really been too long since the last time that I posted. So much has happened.  My days here for the most part have fallen into routine: class, class and more class. Luckily all of my classes are pretty interesting. The only one that I’m not super stoked about is my Art History class… but I knew I was going to not like that. The last week has been a giant citywide book fair. I was able to go to the main event in the Morro Castle and buy some books for ridiculously cheap prices. I ended up buying a book on Cuban Marxism, a book of poems and short stories by Piñera, a book of children’s stories, and a book of poems by a poet that I had gone to a lecture about. In total I think I spent less than $2! I also went to a lecture about the Grenada revolution, the Puerto Rican independence movement and the black power movement under Malcolm X. It was a really interesting talk about topics that are too easily skipped over in the states, however I found it to be too one-sided and narrowly minded. We went to the beach Santa Maria as a group on the weekend. Actually every weekend since I posted last we’ve gone at least once. It is really easy to get to, maybe a 20-minute car ride and generally it only costs $1 CUC. The beach is amazing, you can walk out at least a half a mile, the sand is super fine and the water is crystal blue. Last week, I went with a few International Affairs students that are in the program here to the ISRI (Superior Institute of International Relations) we tried to see if we could take classes there, however they said that we wouldn’t be able to. Although they did say that we can use their Library and maybe even talk to their professors. Then oddly enough the Sunday following our visit to the ISRI, I met an ISRI student at a party that I was invited to. It was a party for English students here in Havana that wanted to practice their English with native speakers. The ISRI student was super interesting, her point of view was so interesting and different, and really very thought provoking, It was really refreshing to be talking about International Affairs stuff again, and have a very intellectual conversation. I’m hoping to be able to meet with her again soon, so that we can continue the conversation, and hopefully this time in Spanish! Anyways sorry for the long delay in posts, I will try to rededicate myself to posting more often. Best,

segunda semana

It has been a truly incredible week. It is hard to believe that I have only been here for approximately a week. It feels like it has been much longer, everyday lasts so much longer. I think it is that there is just so much to take in. Constantly here I am bombarded with new experiences, whether it is the language, the sights, the sounds or the taste of the food. It has been really crazy because we have yet to really fall into our routine, however, I expect that to happen more this week. We are starting to have more and more homework, and I’m actually feeling like I’m in school again. Internet from Cuba has been really crazy, some days I’m able to get decent internet but other days it will take up to an hour for me to try to post something here. I have yet to figure it out but hopefully I will be able to continue to post somewhat regularly as well as check my email. I try to check my email often, but gmail is a bit slow sometimes and my ISA email address is always super fast, so if it is crucial that is a better place to send the email to! My address is kpwhite@isa.cult.cu. Classes last week went well and I’m already starting to be able to understand more and more, even with the crazy accent and shortening of words. On Thursday night, I headed back towards the ISA to go to a coffeehouse concert where ISA students supposedly go, but there wasn’t too many people there and it was way to loud to try to talk to any of them, however, the music was fun to listen to. On Friday, we got out of class early and went to the beach. It was a really great day until a guy stole one of my friend’s bags as we were leaving! It was really awful, we tried to chase after them but were unable to, however, it did provide us with lots of Spanish practice as we had to recount the story to maybe 20 police officers at the beach, and of course to the Cubans that were interested. So many of the Cubans were so nice and came up to apologize to us for this one person. After a few hours of searching the police did not find the guy unfortunately and we had to go to the police station to make statements. Besides of course the heightened attention to the possibility of theft, I had a few other take-aways from the incident. First, never in the United States would you have gotten the police reaction that we had for a stolen backpack. In the states if you called the police they may come in like 15 minutes, write down you name and number and that would be about it. Here in Cuba, we had at least 3 cars, 20+ police officers (the police station was only like a street away), and even two off duty police officers on their motorcycles looking for the thief. I can never imagine that reaction in the States. However, my other observation was that they were a bit unorganized and we had to repeat ourselves over and over again. However that might be just a police thing, I’ve never really dealt with the police much in the States. While we were being called in to do statements the rest of the group would wait in a back room. Here enters the most surreal moment of my life, in our boredom we decided to watch a movie on a David’s laptop, we decided on Galaxy Quest and preceded to watch it in a Cuban Police Station. So ludicrous. The next day, I went to this really old cemetery in Havana. It is literally like city, it has its own streets (with street names) and goes on for ridiculously far. There is hardly any grass and most bodies are buried in the elevated stone graves or within elaborate structures, some of the graves were super old, and of course we were able to see many of the major figures of the first Cuban revolution (Spanish/American war) like Gomez and Maceo. It was really very impressive; I had never seen anything like it. Sunday we were planning on going to the beach but the weather was not agreeable to laying out on the beach (it was kind of rainy although still warm of course) so instead we went to an amusement park and botanical gardens that were outside of Havana. ExpoCuba may give Galaxy Quest in a Cuban Police Station a run for its money for the most surreal moment of the week. This place literally made no sense. It is really hard to describe how strange it was. Literally all of the rides were broken in some way, when we arrived non of them were open, there were large exposition spaces all over that were totally empty or that were filled but locked. Then there was random other stuff like a Cuba Airlines plane that people could go in complete with flight attendant to bring you snacks, two old fishing boats (held up by rusting metal) that were closed, and so much else. There was a tower in the center of the space many stories high. At the top was a restaurant. In the middle was the kitchen, and the space around the kitchen moved slowly constantly so that your view continued to change. Also the food was extraordinarily inexpensive there, including drinks. I was able to get a mojito for only 10 pesos, which translates to less than 50 cents. Later in the afternoon some of the rides opened up and I rode 2 (despite hearing my mothers voice in my head say no, how could I pass up the opportunity to ride old rusty Cuban amusement park rides! Don’t worry everything was fine!). As a semi-permanent resident I was able to get into the park at the Cuban price rather than the tourist one, only 1 peso as compared to 8 CUC. Either price is a lot cheaper than the $50 that it costs to go to 6 Flags, although I guess you get what you pay for. After spending the day there, I was a bit less wierded out by the place. It was obviously built before the Special Period ruined Cuba’s economy. I think it was supposed to be really grand when it was made to showcase the advances of the state of Cuba since the Revolution. All of the exposition spaces were ways to convey these achievements, there was a transportation one, talking about the building of railroads, and the national airline etc; there was a culture one, with Cuban political art, there was a sciences one; a agriculture one; and many others. Obviously however, during the downturn in their economy, it was never kept up and has since deteriorated. Only in Cuba, that is for sure.

I had meant to post the above entry on Monday, but Monday and Tuesday, the Internet at the ISA was out. On Wednesday, we had our Voces class and the speaker was a very famous Cuban actress who is the wife of the recently decieased famous director of Cuban cinema, including Fresa y Chocolate (actually she acted in that movie too). It was a super interesting class. Anyways, until my next post. 

… Because it’s Cuba
       The last few days have been a complete whirlwind. I wish I could explain in detail
everything that I’ve seen and heard but it would be far too much. Instead I’ll have to tell you
only the bare bones.
       The trip was hectic and very long. I finally arrived in Cancun on Thursday at around 4.
However because of customs and busses etc we were not able to leave the airport until after 6.
When we finally got to the hotel for the night we were exhausted, yet energized because of the
prospects of the trip. We had dinner at the hotel and later I had a great time hanging out with
everyone on the trip. The next day our plane was supposed to leave at 4:30. However moments
before getting on the shuttle to take us to the airport we learned that the flight had been moved
back to 6:30. Why? –No one knows, and that brings me to the title of this post – because it is
Cuba. This has become somewhat of an answer to any of our adventures. So much of getting
used to this country is getting used to things being delayed, but it seems to be common and
very well tolerated here.
       We flew Cuba Airlines into Cuba and got to ride in old soviet planes…. They seemed pretty
safe though. When we finally arrived in Cuba, it took another few hours to get through customs.
We met out trip contact Julia, and were able to get in taxis and go to our homes.
       My home in Vedado (a neighborhood in Havana) is incredible. I was so impressed by the
house in general. It is an old home, probably built in the 40s. I’ve included pictures so you can
see a bit of it. The inside of the home is amazing, with super high ceilings and amazing old
doors. Our room is located in a separate area of the house, actually above the garage. It is
actually very nice because we have basically our own apartment, complete with kitchen,
bathroom, bedroom, sitting area, and a small private outside balcony mostly for hanging our
clothes to dry. One fun adventure we’ve had here, is leaning to light the hot water heater that
hangs above the toilet in our bathroom, which now that we’ve figured out seems to be a very
efficient way of doing it.
       That first night after getting to our rooms, we immediately went out to get dinner with the
group. We met at the corner of ave. de los presidentes y calle 21. It is a busy area of the
neighborhood even at 12:30ish when we met (of course it was Friday night). When we first
walked to the Habana Libre, which is the Hilton that was taken over by Castro and renamed, in
order to exchange money.  Once we had CUCs (the currency that is convertible to foreign
currency) we headed off to eat. At about 2:30 we were back at home and slept amazingly.
       Francisco, the man that owns our house, had breakfast ready for us, which includes toast,
eggs (maybe we got it the first morn but not the second), coffee, grapefruit juice, and a piece of
fruit (so far bananas). On Saturday, we walked around our area in Havana. We walked up to the
Malecon (the street that lines the water way) and then back towards Ave de los presidentes, were
we met our group for lunch, at a very nice restaurant. After eating, we went to Freddy’s (our
group leader) house for an informative meeting that Julia gave to us in rapid Cuban Spanish.  By
the end of it my head actually hurt from trying to take in so much in Spanish so quickly. Luckily
we went over everything enough that we all got it. After the meeting, Julia took us to a concert
celebrating Jose Marti (basically the father of Cuba) at a amazingly beautiful patio in old Vedado.
It was hosted by the department of Culture. There were many different artists that played
amazing music but it was all so fast that I hardly could understand any of it. As possibly
mentioned, Cuban Spanish is so fast! The concert ended at 10. We all went to our homes and
reconvened one of our homes. From there we went to a restaurant, were I got an amazing
chicken meal. That night we hung out on the malecon and watched the waves splash against the
sea wall while we drank the local drink: Havana Club rum. Which coincidently is made in the old
Bacardi factory, it is very good rum and only costs us 8 CUC (although we could have spent
much less if we had exchanged our money to the mondeda nacional).
       On Sunday, Walter (my roommate) and I went to explore Habana more. We went up to the
Malecon again and went farther east. I had lunch at a small restaurant, however it was not very
good. From the restaurant we started walking into Havana and ended up in Central Habana. We
saw a new side of Cuba there, it is much poorer than Vedado, and it shows in the level of
disrepair that the homes were in. The homes here were also much smaller. We had to hurry
through this area though in order to get back to meet the group. We met them outside of our
group leaders house and caught Boteros (the old 50’s cars that run basically like buses) to
Habana vieja. It was like a completely different world there, it was very touristy and nice. The
buildings were old and beautiful.
       We started class on Monday at the ISA. It is in an old country club. It has been very nice
here. So far the classes have been in very fast Spanish but I think they are doable and very
interesting. We are taking a Spanish class, a class on the revolution (which I thought was
supposed to be more history, but seemed more like philosophy), a class called Cuba:
Expreciones Artisticas (Artistic expressions). Tomorrow we take our next class, which is called
voces, which is at a different school much closer to my house.
       Today we tried to take the boteros to school and instead of taking us to the ISA, the driver
took us to Lisa, a less than great neighborhood in Havana but luckily a guy there helped us get
back on track and we made it to class only one minute late. So far, so good. Until the next time
that I can post!

so it begins....

Well here goes my first blog entry ever..... No I am not in Cuba yet, It’ll be another few days yet, but I officially leave the States tomorrow morning at 7am! I’m flying from Denver to Cancun, then I leave Cancun the following day for Jose Marti airport in Havana Cuba! While all of fogs my mind with fantastic daydreams I’m forced to pull myself back to reality.... I have to pack! In typical Kerry fashion, I have waited until the day before I leave to do any packing; and also in Kerry fashion I seem to want to pack everything I own. So far I have my large suitcase filled to almost exactly 50 pounds (the limit), my carry-on suitcase, and a small day-pack. At least I’m pretty sure I won’t be lacking much, I mean it IS 3+ months! And I have gifts for my host family in there!

Well anyways, my head is continually racing trying to make sure I don’t forget anything, although I almost undoubtedly will! And if stressing about packing isn’t enough, I now have to go and finish off my applications for summer internships! When will I learn that procrastination isn’t the answer? (I imagine I never will.)

While in Cuba, I will only have internet access while I’m at school. I will try to update this blog regularly (my goal is once or twice a week), but it will be limited based on my access. With that in mind, while I’m sure that many of you (especially my mom) will be waiting to hear that I have made it safely and easily to Cuba, we don’t start school until Monday of next week, which means that I will not have internet access until then!

While I’m dreadfully missing all of mis amigos at LC, and I’ll be sad to say goodbye to the padres and the puppies, I am most certainly ready for this adventure to begin.

hasta luego,

Kerry P White