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A chance to see cool art, meet cool Cubans, and hear from people passionate about the cause of restoring friendly and fair relations between the USA and Cuba:
All Cuba Calling readers are invited to an exciting dinner party in San Diego tonight welcoming this year's 20th Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba arriving in San Diego on July 14, 2009 on their way to meet other caravanistas from all over the United States to continue to Cuba to deliver humanitarian aid and tour the island.
The evening's program begins with a Cuban meal (cooked by Cuban chef Ismael) and potluck dinner at 6 PM, followed by guest speaker Alicia Jrapko; a 13-minute documentary on the Cuban Five; a poetry reading; and concluding with testimonials from caravanistas on this year's journey, telling why they are going to Cuba.
The address of the event is the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4190 Front Street (across from the UCSD Medical Center), San Diego, CA 92101. For more information, call Betty Fry at 619-582-8288. Donations are welcome but not required.
Please reply to this E-mail letting us know you can attend. We're looking forward to an evening of solidarity and sharing.
I didn't make this video. I found it on YouTube. But it reminds me perfectly of my time in Cuba:
(NOTE: I received this from a friend of mine in San Diego, a wonderful lady to helps organize goodwill aide trips to Cuba. Perhaps some readers and fans of 'Cuba Calling' would be interested in contributing to this cause to provide assistance to the Cuban people. She mentions $100, but they'd gladly accept any amount you want to provide -- they're only $1,000 short!). Here is the message from my friend:]
The San Diego Friends of Cuba group has come within $1,000 of matching the $3,000 now available for purchase of a San Diego bus to carry humanitarian aid (medical supplies, wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, etc.) and caravanistas down to Texas and then Tampico, Mexico for transport to Cuba. The humanitarian aid goes directly to a Cuban interfaith center. The caravanistas tour the island and have a close-up look at many of the communities on the island. Our objective is to end the U.S. government blockade against the country of Cuba.
If we can get 10 people to give $100 each we'll reach our goal. All the person has to do is:
In response to the posting Varadero: Cuba's Cancun, 'Hola' said . . .
"Just one thing . . . Cancun would like for one day to be as beautiful as Varadero."
Comment from a young Habanero I met on the Malecon one night (translated from Spanish):
'Desertmom' said:
In response to the posting One Man's View of the Emabargo, 'Hola' said:
As expected, 'Cuba Calling' has elicited some heartfelt comments from several readers. For the next few posts, I will feature various comments, representing several perspectives. In some cases I will also offer a response to a comment. And, in the true spirit of the blogosphere, feel free to comment on the comments! As an added bonus, I'll illustrate each featured comment with a new photo or video clip from Cuba not yet presented on the site. Let's get started
In honor of May Day, I've posted to the upper right a podcast from a Scottish lad about socialism in Cuba from a perspective to which Americans are rarely exposed. Though recorded last August shortly after Fidel Castro took ill, it reinforces many of the things I saw and heard while visiting Cuba for 10 days last month. The full podcast discusses both China and Cuba and can be found at this link. I have edited it to include only the portion on Cuba, to the right, which runs just under nine minutes. To hear it, just hit the pink (get it?) "play" arrow.
It's the most common question I'm getting asked by my friends and coworkers about Cuba now that I've returned. Take a look at the picture of a Havana market and the video of a typical busy street on the outskirts of Havana and decide for yourself if Cuba looks like a poverty-ridden country.
My answer is always somewhere along these lines: they have a lower standard of living and make do with less than the average American is used to. But then I always say, "BUT."
BUT I saw no sign, anywhere, in neighborhoods shabby and spiffy, areas rural and urban, of anyone who had "fallen through the cracks." No homeless people sleeping on cardboard boxes like Market Street in San Diego. No mentally ill being dumped on Skid Row by uncaring hospital workers like Los Angeles. No dirty-faced hungry toddlers peddling Chiclets to passersby like Tijuana. No walls being built to keep slum-dwellers away from the well-to-do like Rio de Janeiro. No heartless teens beating a sleeping vagabond to death like Fort Lauderdale.
There were also no homeless shelters or circus tents devoted to the homeless -- because there were no homeless.
So, while communism in Cuba is kind of a drag to live under in some ways, from what I saw it has effectively eliminated some of the things about capitalism that are a total drag.
In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly voted for the 15th consecutive year to end the trade and financial blockade of Cuba by the United States. The vote was 183 to 4.
Las Terrazas is a rainforest ecological preserve in Cuba's westernmost province of Pinar del Rio, west of Havana. We visited it to see how Cuba is developing eco-tourism as one element of its tourist industry and planning transportation infrastructure to get tourists to sites like these. Las Terrazas used to be filled with coffee plantations, which destroyed the natural landscape. Here's more from the Global Exchange Web site:
For those Americans who dare to visit Cuba, this is what the United States Department of State tells them about the country:
COUNTRY DESCRIPTION: Cuba is a totalitarian police state, which relies on repressive methods to maintain control. These methods, including intense physical and electronic surveillance of Cubans, are also extended to foreign travelers. Americans visiting Cuba should be aware that any encounter with a Cuban could be subject to surreptitious scrutiny by the Castro regime's secret police, the General Directorate for State Security (DGSE). Also, any interactions with average Cubans, regardless how well intentioned the American is, can subject that Cuban to harassment and/or detention, amongst other forms of repressive actions, by state security elements. The regime is strongly anti-American yet desperate for U.S. dollars to prop itself up.
Scary truth? Scare tactic? Some of both? You decide.
Below is Havana's main Catholic cathedral. One night I walked by it and heard beautiful choral music coming from inside. I stepped inside and enjoyed a touching concert of religious songs performed by terminally ill children visiting from Venezuela. Only about a third of the pews in the enormous church were filled with concert-watchers.
These flags stand in front of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, which passes for our embassy absent full diplomatic ties. Behind the flags is an electronic sign placed on the side of the building by the U.S. government that conveys pro-American, anti-Castro messages periodically. Considering this propoganda, the Cuban government responded by placing a barrage of flags to block the sign.
I can only think of one country in all my travels where I possibly felt as safe, and seen as little crime, as I did during my ten days in Cuba -- and that would be Denmark, where I lived as an exchange student in 1985-86.
In my ten days in Cuba, I visited a dozen or so cities and towns, five of the country's 14 provinces, and several busy transportation facilities, including the main airport, train stations and bus depots. I walked through working-class housing projects. And, on my own and often late at night (one of the few times I could break free from my delegation), I visited shabby Havana neighborhoods that would have looked at home in some of America's worst inner-city gang territories.
Through it all, I never felt threatened or in danger, never saw a single crime or fight, never heard a major argument (unless it was about baseball). All I saw were Cubans going about their business, chatting in small groups of friends, sitting on park benches, playing chess and dominoes, dressed nice heading out to a night on the town, riding bikes, and, near tourist areas, a few hustling foreigners with offers of cigars.
I also saw police officers, lots of police offers. They stood on nearly every third or fourth street corner, in every other park or plaza, singly or in pairs. They would stand quietly on guard, saunter casually along, pull over speeding pedi-cab drivers, question overly drunk passersby and offer directions to lost tourists. They insisted to see ID cards from all Cubans they questioned and often wrote citations for what looked to me to be minor offenses. They were a constant presence and proved hard to get used to for this San Diegan, grown accustomed to living in one of the most under-policed large cities in America.
I walked some of Havana's darkest, dingiest alleys, almost to dare, challenge and test the surreal sense of safety and security I felt in this foreign country. Nothing bad ever happened to me, night after night.
I was told by several Cuban parents that, although their country's socialist system has some room for improvement, they cherish the fact that their young children can go out and play in the streets, even at night, without parental supervision . . . and come home again safe and sound.
It made me wonder how many parents in some of the worst parts of Tijuana, Chicago or Caracas -- or most other large cities in the United States and throughout most of the the rest of Latin America -- could say the the same thing?
In my opinion, Cuba's unbelievable lack of crime may be attributed to a few factors, including the heavy police presence, fear of imprisonment, less racial conflict, absence of sharp class differences, and a sense of national pride and community solidarity that usurps individual priorities.
I grew up and live in a country where TV news broadcasts feed us stories of murder, mayhem, crime and cruelty on a daily basis. I live in a neighborhood where muggings are on the rise, theft occurs regularly and the best the police can do is tell us to 'be on guard.' I have close friends who struggle to escape pasts scarred by gang violence. I live in a nation where emotional issues related to crime and punishment shape national dialogue, win and lose political elections, raise great walls around well-to-do neighborhoods, erect bars over the windows and doors of less well-to-do neighborhoods, and inject lifelong paranoia into the American psyche.
I had no idea that, in Communist Cuba, there existed a society and a system that had found a way to largely eliminate the kind of crime we hear about every day, and sometimes are victims of, in the wealthiest nation on Earth. It's a bright spot in Cuban society, one I never learned about in my own country, and a factor that the Cubans I met cherish greatly.
An absolutely perfect final day of a trip to country one is visiting for the first time is something I have only enjoyed a couple times in my life. I had such a day during the final afternoon (Friday, April 13, 2007) of my first trip to Cuba.
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