Fun times

Hello all,

This is going to be a long one…so bear with me. Sorry for the long time between updates! PS- I’m putting bit of news this up front since this is a giant post and you might get bored. News is getting leaked little by little here that on February 24^th it will be announced that Raul Castro has beat Fidel in the vote that happened here on the 20^th and will assume the position of President and Commandante en Jefe. He has given some speeches in the last year that indicate changes on the horizon and this news seems to solidify that train of thought. So, it’s not official yet, but that’s the way it’s looking right now and I’ve heard it from a few sources.

This weekend we ventured to the beach, Santa Maria, about 15km outside of Havana. It is absolutely gorgeous! Clear as any Caribbean beach could be, white sand, palm trees and palm branch huts. We went swimming for about 2 hours, tried body surfing the waves, but I didn’t catch too many good ones. The water was pretty warm, but it’s still the winter here, so it had a little chill to it. All of the Cubans were laughing at us for going to the beach in January. It’s all good, we had fun and I ended up with a bit of a tan…yay! After that I got to talk on skype with the fam and Clairita, so all in all it was quite a good day.

Sunday we hung around the house for a while and I did laundry (in the sink!). Then I got a phone call from Dad and Lizzy, we got to talk for a while and could actually understand each other for most of it, which is awesome for international calls here. Mark and I went for a run down on the Malecon in the afternoon and found a pick up soccer game between the beautiful Hotel Nacional and the US Interests Section. He joined in, but they told me that I couldn’t because I’m a girl and the game would be too rough for me. Machismo is still pretty prevalent, and they weren’t very physical at all, except for one…who did a bicycle kick straight onto cement. That was crazy. After dinner, we went downtown for a celebratory march for Jose Marti’s birthday. It was AMAZING! There were thousands of people by the university with tin can torches and shouting traditional slogans and quotes of the revolution. I had a long talk with a 10 year old and her mom all about the march and its meaning and Cuban schooling. It was nice to get that perspective. I also got a talking to by a random teenage boy for not knowing that the song that I was dancing to was a rumba and not a salsa…apparently I can salsa? The whole march was ridiculously energetic and one of those scenes that you can only see to believe, so I’ll link pictures when I can. Until then, check out Mark’s videos at www.vimeo.com/653910 and www.vimeo.com/653767

Monday we started classes. First up was the Rise of Cuban Nationalism, aka history of Cuba, with an awesome professor named Rosa. From what we’ve gathered, she was very active in the revolution…I think there’s more to that story, so I’ll try to find out. We learned a lot about the history that I wouldn’t have otherwise known and it definitely reflects some of the cultural patterns that I’ve been observing. After that we found a great peso restaurant with malanga (like potatoes) sandwiches…so good…and only 6 pesos (aka....24 US cents). Next up was international relations with Carlos. He is amazing, definitely my favorite professor ever. He spent about an hour doing introductions and told us all about his family and how they’re coming to Havana with his new granddaughter and he’s going to be a gushy grandfather and bring her into class. Plus, he’s been an ambassador to about 8 different countries and makes Cuban international relations ridiculously interesting. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s going to put me in contact with the Cuban National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation, which is the governmental ministry of sports so that I can get a feel for sports diplomacy. SWEET!

Tuesday was my first Spanish class. I tested into the Introduction to Cuba course, which is an advanced studies course taught in Spanish by a panel of rotating professors. It sounds like it will be pretty cool and cover a lot of topics, like economics, international relations, religion, Cuban politics, race relations, and gender studies.

**oh…side note** through all of these classes we’ve lacked a classroom. The university is under construction and ran out of room for exchange students. So we’ve been on the patio of the UNC residence and in their cafeteria. It’s worked out fine and been a fun se la vie experience, pues eso es Cuba!

Class ended at 10:30, so we went back to Santa Maria beach for Lauren’s 21^st birthday. It was a bit chilly, so we mostly tanned and read. Unfortunately, it’s still possible to burn if its cold…I forgot that one. So I’m as red as a tomato, yeeeeah. Oh well…at least I’m not winter white anymore! We came back to ANAP (our house) for dinner, then had a fiesta for her b-day and learned to salsa dance. Unfortunately sometime in there, Cate and my room flooded, so Katie and I played plumber and diagnosed that we have a leaky pipe between the sink. ANAP gave us permission to fix it, since their repairman couldn’t come until the next morning, so we shut off the water lines that run to and from the sink, then realized we didn’t have a wrench to do anymore. So we mopped and called it a night. All in all, we were pretty proud of ourselves on that one and used our new Cuban know-how to improvise. Woot woot!

Wednesday we had culture class at the Ludwig Foundation, starting with Cuban architecture. Our professor was interesting and showed us different ways to identify the time period that certain buildings around Havana were built in. Part of the class is also site visits, so we went to Habana Vieja and explored some of the pre-1900s architecture in the plazas there. Class ended at noon and I went for a run down random streets and somehow ended up in the next suburb over, Miramar. Apparently it’s a lot closer than I thought. I cam across a beautiful temple that’s by itself on a jetty that heads out from the end of the Malecon into the ocean. The sun caught its gold tiles just right and it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen here yet. Plus, it was in my line of sight with a sign that congratulated the Communist Party on a great 50 years of the revolution…a pretty awesome combo. After the run, I explored further down the Malecon and discovered an Adidas store (no Cuban track jackets!?!?!), a sports clothing plaza, a peso bookstore and a flea market. Then I met up with Cate and Lauren for some free internet that was expiring that day, but got cut off pretty quickly, so it was just enough time to copy and paste emails before the wind got the best of our connection. We were greeted back to ANAP by a flooded room again, apparently the repairman turned on the water lines and fixed the wrong part of the pipe. So we repeated the drill of Tuesday, but it wasn’t as bad this time around and was made completely better by a perfect sunset over the ocean.

Today we had another round of history and Introduction to Cuba, which were unfortunately the same lecture, just in different language. They were still interesting, but I think group consensus is that we could use a break from all of that tonight. For lunch, we found an agro (agricultural market) 3 blocks away from our house that has to go boxes of rice and beans, with salad and lime juice for 10 pesos (40 cents) AND chocolate, coconut twist soft ice cream for 1 PESO! THAT’S ONLY 4 US CENTS!!! So that’s pretty much my new favorite place in Havana. It also has fresh fruits and vegetables that are all in pesos, so between that, peso pizza and malanga sandwiches, I’m set for life.

All in all, things are going well. I’m still in awe that I’m in Cuba, but things are becoming to be a little more normal everyday, like seeing 50s cars and guards in commandante hats. It’s fun at dinner that we are all getting a sense of the neighborhood and can know where other people are talking about or how far things are from each other. People are getting to know us in the neighborhood, so the cat calling is decreasing a bit each day and we are making friends. I’ve made friends with Alejando, our receptionist, and the security guard outside of our residence, who is the most adorable 70-ish year old man ever, named Jose, and he and I talk about baseball together. We’re all also learning how to play dominoes, salsa dance, and Mike and I think that we’re going to take boxing lessons. The intricacies of Cuban life are slowly but surely coming along, like how to call a peso taxi versus a tourist one, how to know when an advertised party is real and when it’s a hustle and where you shouldn’t talk politics. Other random things, Js are really difficult to pronounce here like we do in the US, so people have reverted to calling me Yenny or poco…yup yup, or the best one is rubio aka blondie/white girl. Coffee is wonderful here, I’m hooked. As we experience more things, different perspectives about Cuba are developing, but who knows…it’s still early on.

On tap for the next part of the week-Intro to Cuba class tomorrow around noon, swimming in the Riviera pool tomorrow afternoon, chocolate museum Saturday?, visiting Mike’s aunt and uncle on Sunday and learning how to cook Cuban food and salsa dance.

SWEET! We just had a black out in the hotel while I was loading this to the blog! That was awesome!

So…that’s about it for now! Update again soon!

xxx,

Jen