Cuba Day 1 - Part II

Hola Familias y Amigos!

Tonight’s update won’t be as descriptive as I want it to be and the photos are not as organized, but it’s important to record thoughts no matter how scattered. Honestly, the way I felt at our first dinner tonight is how I usually feel at the farewell dinner for our programs. We got off the plane in Havana this afternoon, and something just clicked for us. We all helped each other with our bags (Max leading the charge in pulling at least 30 bags off the carousel), we got through customs quickly without a single issue, and once we felt the wind and saw the palm trees and old cars, it finally hit us we were where we were, and we dove right into the program.

 On the bus driving into the city center, students asked our guide Frank question after question in Spanish, and by the time we got to the hotel and I began checking in with kids in their rooms, I saw Sophie already wrote a page and a half in her journal, saying, “I’m so happy and there is so much to write down.” I know the feeling, girl. 

We went to dinner a one-minute walk from the hotel, and it was our first paladar experience. A paladar is a private restaurant usually in a house that is converted into a restaurant. Our food of fish croquettes, empanadas, salad, ropa vieja, and various pastas/pizzas were delicious. Literally two minutes into the meal, I looked over at Jesse’s plate and it was like someone took a vacuum to it. 

There were two major highlights from the dinner: dancing and Cuban friends. A band wandered into our part of the house/paladar and began playing amazing live music, which led to a dance party and multiple kids coming up to me saying they just cannot believe how happy they are. There is immense economic suffering and frustration in Cuba that is undeniable (there was a blackout in part of our restaurant toward the end of the meal–a reminder that it’s not easy living here), but culturally, the happiness is as thick as the humidity, and I loved watching these teenagers let the stress of school melt away and just dance. 

Many of our kids talked to the musicians in Spanish and some even talked to two Cuban friends I brought to dinner with me: Chiqui and Marcela Alvarez. Chiqui was my abuela’s best friend growing up. I contacted them over the weekend to see if they could come to dinner tonight, and they not only said yes, but Chiqui apparently immediately went to her closet after talking to me and tried to figure out what to wear—that was how excited she was. 88 years old and not even 5 feet tall, you should have seen Chiqui on the dance floor. Marcela even made us a homemade guava cake to welcome the group to Cuba. This moved me so much because Marcela and Chiqui have so little (I packed half a suitcase full of food and medicine for them) and yet they managed to make us a cake.

While the group took a walk along the Malecon–the sea wall also known as Havana’s living room and the world’s longest couch because people sit along it–I split off for a few minutes to meet a doctor and her husband outside of our hotel who urgently needed supplies. The husband is a cousin of one of my neighbors, and slow tears dripped down his face as I gave them a bag of medicine and food.

Our week will be like this: moments of deep celebration juxtaposed with sobering moments of desperation and gratitude from impoverished individuals struggling to feel hopeful after a pandemic that wreaked havoc on an already fragile island. 

Tonight was deeply joyful, and I can see how increasingly hungry our kids are to get to know every nation’s greatest monument: its people. 

In the words of Johanna tonight after I found out she and Reese jumped into the pool with their clothes on: “YOCO.” You only Cuba once.

 

And so we’re acting accordingly. 

Buenas noches!