Landings, toilets, and locals

So much has happened in four days I figured a list would be the best way to attempt to catch up.

1. We arrived in Cuba in a terminal for only Americans. Walking down the steps from the plane and walking toward the airport, Stephanie turned to me and said, "Oh yeah. Best decision ever." I have to agree. To leave a snow-covered New England and arrive in sunny, 80-degree Cuba is as wonderful as you could imagine it to be.
All of the flights to and from the terminal were Miami flights - the José Martí Airport has this separate section for Americans in order to, uh, insure their legit arrival. And/or to keep security tight, and make sure that we know immediately that we are the bane of their existence. Many of the passengers on the flight brought toys, food, and medications for (presumably) their Cuban relatives. I heard today that they can only visit family once every three years, and can send $100 every three months (rules courtesy of the Bush administration). There was a fence behind which the families could wait, and sliding doors with a large black bar across it so they couldn't see in unless the doors opened. Driving away, there are lots of communist billboards telling us how much we suck. (¡Bienvenidos a La Habana!)

2. Weather = Perfection.

3. Toilets without seats. We have devised many different techniques for usage including: the sink grab (clutch onto the sink for dear life), tripod (fingertips on the bathroom floor), hover (standing at an angle in order to successfully deliver), etc. All result in extremely tired thigh muscles. Living on the twelfth floor with a really slow elevator also is quite the workout... we always take the stairs going down.

4. Habana Vieja is what you'd imagine it to be: beautiful, cobblestone alleyways, old buildings, bright colors, tourist traps, locals who mutter "Estados Unidos" to each other as we walk by chattering in English. The locals enjoy giving wrong directions to tourists just to mess with them. At one point in order to find a certain restaurant, we asked a security guy if he could give us directions. He ended up walking us to the place, and started chatting us up (as well as he could, as I kept having to say "lo siento" and asking him to repeat himself. He ended up asking me casually if I could give him a CUC, and I didn't have just one on me, so I couldn't. I feel bad, but oh well).



5. Classes are interesting. Definitely the best one thus far has been Cuba en Siglo XXI (Cuba in the 21st century). Yesterday we got a tour around the neighborhood from Gerardo, one of the Casa guys. He like the mayor - he knows practically everyone we run into, and greets them with hugs. He showed us a few different places where we could go to get cheap food, and then brought us to the neighborhood Bodega. Bodegas are warehouses that are in each area, and the local residents go there for the essentials. It's extremely cheap. There's rice, salt, sugar, milk, beans, and other such things that every person has a ration for. We talked to a woman there (Sonya, one of Gerardo's friends, of course) and she told us how they have a certain amount per person, then if someone has a job they get to get more. She admitted that the living situation and food situation is very frustrating for them, but they're all very hopeful that Obama will pull through for them.
Today in Siglo class we talked to a woman named Margarita who grew up in New York, then moved to Cuba (she has Cuban relatives, I think). She told us more about the Cuban government, and that sort of stuff. I didn't know that they have a parliament system like Canada and Great Britain, and this was established after the revolution in an attempt to find a system of government that's more "just" than the American puppets that were the presidents before (Batista, etc.). It's a good system, but she said that there's only one political party (the Communist party) because dissenters can't quite organize themselves. The only dissenters that actually get attention are usually American mercenaries. There was a group of "librarians" that just had some books in their rooms and called themselves librarians, and spread anti-Cuban sentiments were breakin' laws, etc. and were put in jail just so that the Americans could say that Cuba was imprisoning librarians. Craziness.

That's it for now. Lots of other stuff has happened, but I figure I'll get this up here sooner than later now that I have the internet.

Ciao!
Meg

Some photos:

el malecón:
our room:
en habana vieja: