Day 108: Cuba
I knew that going to Cuba was a big deal. We all knew that going to Cuba was big deal. But I don't think we understood how big of a deal it was until we got there.
I woke up early enough to go to breakfast before we had to gather in the Union for the first welcoming event. We were joined by many members of the University of Havana and were officially welcomed by the Rector of the University. He didn’t speak any English so the Dean of the Language department at the University translated. He introduced everyone who was there with him and said that they were very excited to have us and were equally as excited to learn from us.
When we were dismissed from the Union everyone tried to mad dash to the gangway to get off the ship first. But then Dean Rita came on and announced that they were going to be dismissing us in our seas. We all gathered in Amanda's room because it was the closest to the gangway. She lives on deck 2 and has as small porthole that looked out over the gangway and the customs area. Looking out it revealed the dozens of news cameras and reporters set up, waiting for us to disembark. All of the RDs and crew members were getting ready to hand out passports and there were 5 or so customs agents waiting.
I started taking pictures of all the cameras when suddenly one was pointed right at me. The guy waved at me and motioned for me to keep taking pictures. All of us waved to them out of the porthole and eventually all of the cameras were pointed at us. We didn’t even realize that they could see us through the port hole. It was a really cool moment.
There were 17 busses waiting to take us to the University. I really wanted to end up on the same bus as Molly and everyone so I decided to just get off with her sea instead of going with my own. No one would know.
Well, one person would know. Her sea was called second and as I was walking off the ship Nathan saw me. He just looked at me and said, "You cheater."
As we were waiting to go through customs people were being pulled aside to be interviewed. The students that spoke spanish were loving it, they were being singled out and were just having so much fun.
On the other side of customs I got stopped to be interviewed by guys who said they were with NBC. I pulled Molly in with me and we answered their questions about what we thought of Cuba and how we felt being there. Molly fails at being interviewed. She just kept agreeing with what I was saying, except right at the end when she said something good about comparing the Cuban culture in Florida to actual Cuba. Then she completely failed at stating and spelling her name at the end. I will not let her live it down.
It was fun to be interviewed and talk about how excited we were to be in Cuba. When we left those guys I got pulled by another lady to be interviewed a second time. This one was harder because she started asking me political questions and what I thought about Cuba/America relations. It made me feel like I was not at all qualified to talk about it. I have learned a lot more about Cuba and our issues with them over the past few days but I still do not know all that much and certainly am not qualified to discuss it.
This ended up being a recurring issue because people loved to talk about it. That was really surprising. We spent a lot of time with the students from the University and they all loved to ask us about our thoughts and talk to us about politics. It was awesome that they were so open but I still never really felt comfortable having an opinion on the matter.
We were given a bag of goodies on the bus. There was a baseball hat, a poster, and some informational materials.
On the drive to the University I got this great moment out of Molly after I noticed the boat next to our ship and mentioned that we were bunkering.
Molly: Or it's fuel
Me: That's the same thing…
Molly: …I've learned nothing.
When we got to the University we all gathered near a monument right in front of it. Once we were all unloaded from the busses some words were said to welcome us and then we all climbed the stairs into the University together very ceremoniously. It was to symbolize us coming together as nations to learn or something like that.
There was then a long presentation made in the main square. Deans Nick and Kathy each said some words and then someone from the school told us all about the University of Havana. Everything had to be translated. When they spoke it was repeated to us in English and when our Deans spoke it was said again in Spanish. It is difficult to listen to something twice. My brain got tired really quickly because it would basically shut off during the spanish and then come back on for the English.
The crowd started to get restless during the part about the University itself. It went on for a very long time and you could just hear everyone getting louder and louder.
It eventually ended and we broke off to go to one of three lectures. One was on Cuba/America relations. That one filled up quickly. We ended up in one about the University of Havana and all of its programs.
When we got in the room they gave us a newspaper that had some really interesting articles about how horrible the U.S is. One was about Guantanamo Bay and how the U.S is just using it to do things that are illegal in America, another was about the five Cubans that we were arrested in 1998. Apparently there is an ongoing campaign to free them. It was very interesting to read and get a sense of their views.
I am not going to lie, I didn’t really pay attention in the lecture. It was in Spanish with a guy translating and they did not have a good rhythm so they would talk over each other. It was overwhelming. My brain was tired of having to figure out what was being said so I spent most of the time writing notes in my journal about the morning. Then Molly and I passed notes back and forth to each other and played the 'count how many people are sleeping' game. There were 5, including some professors.
When we got out of the lecture there was a dance party happening in the square. They had multiple different people perform dances and sing songs for us. It was really cool and showed how long they spent preparing for our arrival. The whole thing felt very welcoming and warm. They seemed genuinely exciting to have us there.
Back on the ship we had a late lunch. It ended up being very late because all 575 of us got back at once so the line to get back through customs was insanely long.
After lunch I attempted to take a nap and then got ready to go out. Molly and I were going to the cultural event that they had planned. It was free and at the local amphitheater.
It was a show consisting of songs performed from 15 different musicals including Phantom of the Opera, the Wizard of Oz, Mamma Mia, A Chorus Line, Les Mis, Cats, Chicago, New York New York, and Cabaret.
They do the show in that amphitheater every Saturday and Sunday night. They were doing it specially for us on a Monday.
Every night of the week there is a cannon that goes off at 9pm. The show starts as soon as the cannon goes off. That’s a literal statement. There was suddenly a terrified cannon blast and then music from Phantom started and people ran out on stage. It was very dramatic and very awesome. The show including costume changes and dances. Two of the songs were sung in English: Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Singing In the Rain. The rest were sung in Spanish, but it was still awesome. I love musicals.
We met a Cuban student who was part of the group that walked us to the amphitheater. He sat with us during the show too. He was really nice and was really interested in talking to us. He didn’t speak English very well but was thrilled to have the chance to practice with us.
When the show was over Molly and I wanted to go out but we didn’t have a clue of where to go so we asked some other SASers what their plan was. Our new friend would not leave us alone. It was really frustrating. He didn’t really understand that we wanted to go to a bar or club or something like that and just really wanted to sit and talk to us about politics.
He wouldn’t let us go off on our own. He insisted that he would escort us everywhere until we were back at the ship. It was really hard to communicate with him what we wanted. The other girls just decided to go back to the ship, Molly and I didn’t really want to go out alone with this guy so we just went back to the ship too.
When we got close to the ship our friend suggested that we just sit outside the ship and talk for a bit. I was really over it, I just didn’t want to deal with him. I was really tired of having to translate my conversations. We finally shook him and got back on the ship.
It was such a bust of a night.
The amphitheater show was the best part of the first day.
Molly and I went to the piano bar to get food and ending up talking to Jerry, the crew member working, for about an hour. That was a lot of fun.
I guess it was a good thing that we called it a night because we had to get up at 6 for our field program the next day.
