CUBAN TRANSITIONS

So many of the things we saw in Cuba struck me right away. I wrote them down as soon as I had the chance and sometimes I felt like drawing to express what I was feeling at the time. One of the main themes I was feeling while we were there was just confusion. How could there be such a disparity between what we hear about in the United States and what we were being told in Cuba?

Seeing everything for the first time was pretty scary. But then that night we learned to salsa dance and even though I’m sure we all felt pretty foolish at one point or another, we all got over it and just joined in.

The night of March 5 we noticed how different the club scene and dance scene seemed to be from American culture. Everything had a step to it, a certain guideline. There was one main type of dancing and it was salsa. Whereas in American clubs if you’re dancing with someone it sends a message of interest, here in Cuba, everyone danced with everyone and it didn’t feel like it had to necessarily mean something. You were just dancing because you wanted to dance, not because you wanted to hook up with someone. As soon I started to pull my own dance moves and do whatever I wanted, they laughed and asked what I was doing. I was over the whole counting thing.

In my opinion the CENESEX lecture was one of the most interesting lectures we were a part of on this trip.  Although at times it seemed like we were there to be sold this modern forward facing Cuba, we learned a lot about the lengths that Cuba is going to educated their younger generations about sex and sexual orientation. We learned that Mariela Castro had done the most work against homophobia in Cuba. We learned that condoms are very accessible, that people have a right to an abortion in Cuba, and that CENESEX has a very satisfactory relationship with the Catholic church. In Cuba, children are taught at a young age that sexism and constructed sexual norms aren’t acceptable. “Playroles from few months to five years old to break this sexist concept. Boys playing in the kitchen etc. They receive this education where very one is focused on a binary for the sexes-no pink vs. blue.” Another thing we learned a lot about at CENESEX is how children with GID or gender identification disorder, are received into the community. “If this person is the object of discrimination in the communities, then CENESEX visits those communities and provides a solution to the situations.”

This is a drawing of the speaker at the CENESEX presentation, Dr. Lázaro Hernández Coterón, with Joel translating in the background.

While we were in Cienfeugos, Leeja and I went for a walk one morning and met a Cuban man, who, upon meeting us, insisted that we wait for him while he went to run and get what appeared to be a conch shell. As we stood and watched him, he showed us a tattoo of a giant bald eagle and waving US flag on his thigh. He talked about his dreams to go to visit his daughter in Seattle, mentioning multiple times how repressive his government is in not letting him leave.

When we were walking around Cienfuegos, we stopped at a school and talked to the administrators and teachers in the school for twenty minutes or so. We learned about how crucial watching the news is to a child’s education. A high school student said to Ishaira, “I learn about Abraham Lincoln, do you learn about José Martí?” That question threw me aback for a moment. Why don’t we learn more about Cuba in high school? Is it because they are supposedly less of an influence in our daily activity? Is it because they’re so much smaller than us? Or is it because we have an embargo with them?

While we were on the bus back to Havana from Varadero, Joel talked about foreign policy. He also went into detail about the meaning behind each license plate color. The color key is above!

The above journal entry is reinterpreted from one of the student paintings done at the Art School we attended.

All of these things we’re being told by lecturers and teachers and experts here in Cuba often serves to confuse me. But maybe that’s because I’m trying to pick a side, and figure out which one is right. I took many pictures on this trip, and learned a lot about how Cuba feels towards the United States. Before going to Cuba, I had a lifetime of hearing about how the United States feels towards Cuba. Maybe that’s just it–we have to be able to present both sides, and come to terms with the fact that we just don’t know enough to infer which country is telling the truth in which instance. Part of being a Vassar student is to question everything; I think we were able to go into Cuba with lots and lots of questions. We left with arguably even more questions– but many answers as well.