Traveler surprised by Cuba Visit overrules preconceptions

Editor’s Note: “Letter From …” is a monthly column by a Mainer, or person with ties to the state, who is living or traveling far away from home. Aran Shetterly, who grew up in Gouldsboro and Surry, traveled to Cuba in January with a delegation sponsored by Pastors for Peace, a program of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizing created to send humanitarian aid to Latin America and the Caribbean.

We flew into Havana from Montego Bay, Jamaica. I had done some reading but was unsure what to expect Cuba would be like. It loomed, mythic in my imagination, as a place of great hope and of great pain. Any sense of the day-to-day life that would begin to reconcile these extremes eluded me.

As we walked out of Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport, cheered by the airline’s complimentary champagne, and into the warm afternoon, I wondered what sort of transportation awaited us. Would we hop aboard an old Bluebird school bus, or a Soviet truck made of particleboard? After reading about how Cuba imported 1.5 million bicycles from China after the collapse of the Soviet Union, at the beginning of what Fidel Castro has called the “Special Period,” I half expected to see a giant rickshaw flanked by 40 Cuban peddlers, 20 to a side.

The rows of Soviet Ladas and 1950s American cars that fill the airport parking lot seem planted. Pictures of those cars fill the guidebooks. Our delegation, however, walked to a new Volvo bus loaded with conveniences (a gift, it was said, from the Canadians who were also responsible for the gleaming, modern airport). The bus would carry us the length of the country serving as haven, point of view, dais for waving to the Cubans we passed, mountain from which we descended into towns, and a colossal nightmare for its drivers who had to negotiate narrow, colonial streets.

Seeing the bus also taught me a lesson about Cuba that I would learn over and over again on this two-week trip: Be careful of what you expect Cuba to be. It will defy your expectations faster than you can say “Miami.” You’ll be left picking up the pieces of your imagination, or, blinded by your preconceptions, you will miss the realities of the place.

The trip was planned and led by our 26-year-old history student-guide, Ariel. He works for the Martin Luther King Center in Havana, speaks excellent English and seemed to know everything about Cuba. We asked him about Fidel’s first attempt at revolution, for example, the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. It’s quite a story and one that he enjoyed telling. As we drove east, out of Havana, he pointed out Alimar, a huge community of block-style housing where as many as 130,000 families live. Oil rigs pump away along the rocky coast, producing a low-grade crude. At dusk, we pulled into a little roadside cafe. Everyone ordered sandwiches and beer. We munched and watched the sun set. When we passed through Matanzas, known as the “Athens of Cuba” for its artistic and literary enlightenment, it was completely dark. There was a blackout in the area to preserve energy. I thought of California.

Day 2, Jan. 16 – Cardenas

We awaken in Elian Gonzalez’s hometown of Cardenas. The people here avoid eye contact as we walk down the street. Apparently, they are exhausted by and suspicious of the number of foreigners that have come here because of the Elian fiasco. We walk by Elian’s pink school. Lots of kids mill about acting normal. People move about Cardenas by taxi – horse-drawn buggies pulled by scrawny old trap horses. I first thought this was a gimmick. But Cardenas is not a tourist town and the passengers are Cuban.

In the evening, it was time to meet Raimundo Garcia Franco, the executive director of the Center for Reflection and Dialogue, where we are staying. Exhausted from a day of walking and mediocre presentations, we were weary, tempted to skip what would probably be an uninspired talk. Quite to my surprise, this man with glistening eyes inspired us with descriptions of his projects to produce energy from compost, efforts to engage Miami Cubans in dialogue, and his belief in the importance of forgiveness. Leadership, he assured us, should not be for “risk takers, people out for personal gain, or people who are not able to forgive.” We walked out of the chapel full of hope for humanity.

I am kept awake all night by the clip-clopping of the taxicabs. Apparently, what seems like a small and sleepy town requires 24-hour taxi service.

Day 4., Jan. 18 – Santa Clara

A band was playing on the roof of the Santa Clara Libre Hotel. It was after 10 p.m. and people from our group went up to have a beer and dance. From the top of the hotel you can see the Che Guevara Memorial lighted in the distance.

I waited for my new friends from the Matanzas baseball team. They’d promised me a signed baseball, and I wanted to buy them some beers and talk. They finally showed after midnight, feeling good about beating Santa Clara. They play in the top league in Cuba. The first baseman, Marcel Abreu, is 25 and was on the national team that played two games with the Baltimore Orioles last year, one in Havana and one in Baltimore. He’s studying to be a baseball technician, a profession which will keep him employed as player and coach for the rest of his working life, and is paid a student stipend of about $7 a month. His technique must be pretty good because he has a chance to break Cuba’s single season home-run record. In his conversations with me, he worked hard on his English.

Day 6., Jan. 20 – Santiago de Cuba

A writer in Havana said of the rival city, “In Santiago, they like to dance and drink.” So, after a day spent touring Santiago de Cuba and visiting a shiny, regional hospital, we headed for the Casa de Tradiciones, House of Traditions. We walked far from the center of the city into a residential neighborhood and up into a ramshackle old house, where a band played son, salsa and rumba for dancing, to a cement patio in the back where a smaller group had gathered to sing ballads. In another room a cartoonist and animator named Chicho held court. His cartoons covered the walls and a wide range of topics: pride, hunger, love, war and peace. He gave me a self-portrait made during the Special Period. His caricature stands emaciated in a pair of pants that look like they were made for a giant, but presumably once fit.

Walking back to the bus, we were escorted by one of the balladeers. He played his guitar and sang to us along our route. It was a magical end to a special night. A Cuban couple walked with us. They have had fun, too. “Here we have great music, medicine and education. If only we had food and clothes,” they said, smiling.

Day 9, Jan. 23 – Havana

We flew back to Havana today. The plane seemed to fly slowly, allowing us to get a clear look at the cane fields, rice paddies, mountains and rivers below. We flew over Playa Giron, otherwise known as the Bay of Pigs.

After dinner, we took in Havana. It’s the big city, bolder and more brash than the other places we had been. The huge, opulent buildings of the early 1900s hulk behind more columns than you can count. We peeked in at fancy tourist hotels, restored to their earlier grandeur. Come to Havana and play Hemingway for a week! There is no shortage of cigars and rum. We lighted cigars and strolled the length of the Prado, a raised, tree-lined boulevard that goes from the center of town to the sea.

On the cab ride back to the Martin Luther King Center after midnight, our 33-year-old cabdriver chafes against the system. A computer engineer by training, he drives a cab because it gives him access to dollars. He’s afraid that his daughter will look for dollars too, possibly through prostitution.

Day 11, Jan. 25 – Havana

Outside the Cuban union for artists and writers, children showed off the African dances they have learned to a steady beat of drums. One of the writers we had met tells us why he and the other Cubans march forward with the revolution: “I would rather rise up with the whole population than see how far I can go by myself.” We sipped our mojitos (a rum, lime and mint drink) and nodded.

When I told the Costa Rican woman who works in the Laundromat I use on Columbus Avenue in New York that I was going to Cuba, she got excited. “Aran,” she asked, “will you take something to my in-laws?” “All right,” I answered, a little nervous about what this would entail. She handed me a bag full of clothes.

My father and I flagged down a ’57 Chevy and delivered the clothes to Senora Alejandrina and her family. They live in a small wooden house not far from the MLK Center, where we stayed. When we arrived, the whole family began to gather. Sons, grandchildren, friends, a wife. We sat down in the kitchen to have a coffee. Senora Alejandrina pushed her husband in a wheelchair over to the door. He was blind and thin, but full of spirit. He flapped his huge hands in greeting. His sons told us how strong he had been, how he’d built buildings with his hands. He told us the names and ages of his sons. His grandson, he said, is a good ballplayer, a pitcher. He said he’d never forget this moment. We told him that we wouldn’t forget it either, and that Cuba had given us so much more than we had expected.