Florida

Florida                       March 31, 2017

"In Florida, you never go into the woods.  Because things never die here, they just get bigger."    
 Advice from a long-term resident, formerly of East Boston, Mass.

Because I'm the thorough type, I'm including recollections of Florida, even though we were there before we went to Alabama, making it a bit out of sequence.  

We spent a week in Florida, after returning from Cuba.  It had been meant to be a brief interlude, primarily to check out Venice, Florida.  It seemed that half the folks in our town of Gorham are spending time there in the winter.  Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but quite a few people that we know use Venice as their winter escape, including my cousins Gary & Diane Olsen.   Bruce and I could envision the day when trips to third world countries would be just too demanding.  Would Venice be a place for us, when that day came?  

Off we went in a rental car, starting in Ft. Lauderdale, just outside of Miami.  We had contemplated trying to make do with taking busses in the south, but we're glad that we sprang for the car.  It made life so much easier and allowed us to roam around more freely.  

Robert's lovely home was situated close to the airport - and wedged between two Interstate highways.  Pretty noisy.  

After spending a couple of days in a wonderful Airbnb in Ft. Lauderdale, hosted by a fellow named Robert, who became a new friend over glasses of wine and sharing of stories, we set out on Alligator Alley.  It's the long, straight road that crosses south Florida, partially through the Everglades, from the Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Mexico coast.  We were excited to be seeing this part of the country for the first time - with our own set of wheels, something that we hadn't had for 6 weeks.  The day was sunny and bright; the land was flat and open and surprisingly undeveloped.  Guess it's hard to build on swamp land.  

Along the way, there were several places to stop and fish in the waterway that paralleled the highway - or to just gaze at herons and try to spot alligators.  

Gary & Diane's "park" in Venice, where they hang out in their RV from January through April, was several miles from the closest Airbnb that we could find for our 4 nights there.  Our host was a bit of an oddball.  Luckily we had things to do every day, and we spent very little time at his house.  It was a "manufactured house", located in a massive 55+ development with an abundance of American flags and lots of golf carts.  

Over the course of our few days in Venice, we got a flavor of life in this pretty, planned community.  One day we rented bikes and, with Gary, wheeled along a fabulous off-road trail that went for miles along the inland waterway, over bridges and through neighborhoods. It was glorious, and I was very happy!

              Spinning along on an off-road bike trail in Venice, Florida.

 Another day the Olsens took us to nearby Englewood, where we had lunch at a beachy resto. Venice itself was full of boutiques and nice little restos, a museum that told its interesting history, a theater, etc.  

                                       Good times with Gary and Diane.

On our last evening, we took a picnic to a beach to watch the sun dip into the ocean, something that we don't get to do in Maine.  It was too windy and chilly to dip ourselves into the water!  

    Diane, Gary, & Bruce, bundled up and huddled against the wind.  

Venice had great infrastructure for outdoor playing, i.e. bike trails, beaches and parks, plus golf, tennis, and yoga - but we're not sure that it's right for us.  After our 3 days, we continued up the west coast of Florida.  Skirting Sarasota and Tampa and St. Petersburg, the traffic and development and congestion seemed never-ending.  As the non-stop shopping malls and chain stores and big, busy highways were beginning to peter out, we stopped at Tarpon Springs, a cute town known for its sponge-fishing heritage and Greek roots - and tourist shops!  Back on the road, long stretches of woods and rural poverty began to dominate the scenery.  

After spending a night in a Days Inn in a forgettable northern Florida town, we took an hour to explore Manatee Springs State Park.  Now that was not forgettable!  A woodsy boardwalk took us along a river of clear water fed by springs, where we saw manatees hanging out just below the water's surface and trees filled with huge, black vultures.  

                                     A momma manatee, so we were told.

                          These vultures were BIG and a bit intimidating ...

                                           especially when up close!

Our destination that day was Pensacola, on the Florida panhandle, just shy of the Alabama border.  We stayed a couple of nights and one full day there.  The day was spent visiting the National Naval Aviation Museum, a huge and surprisingly (for me) fascinating place where one can learn about the historical development of our nation's use of air power in military conflicts.  I'm sure that much of the credit for my enjoyment of the experience goes to our guided tour, given by a retired black pilot who was engaging, witty, and knowledgeable.  

The WW II-era training plane used by 18 year old George H. W. Bush, youngest naval aviator at the time.  The museum put the #41 on it.  

Both evenings we ate at Five Sisters, our introduction to upscale soul food, within walking distance of our Pensacola Victorian B&B. 

                 Outside wall mural near the Five Sisters resto in Pensacola.

In our admittedly limited time there, we found Pensacola to be refreshingly diverse in relation to Venice.  Unfortunately, the B&B was located near a railroad track.  We had no idea that so many nocturnal freight trains could be tooting their way through Florida! 

                              Front porch at the Pensacola Victorian B&B.

So, that was our Florida experience.  It was brief, only a week, stretching from the suburbs of east-coast Miami, over to the retirement havens of the west coast, and up to a coastal city energized by its military presence and cultural diversity.  The next day we continued north to Montgomery, Alabama, where our story continues in the last - and next - posts.  

The Struggle for Freedom and Equality

The Struggle for Freedom and Equality      March 29, 2017

"...until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."              Martin Luther King

I hadn't known what to expect in Alabama.  Bruce and I have traveled very little in the south, never in this state.  It has a pretty horrible history in the human rights realm, especially during the time of the civil rights movement.  This is the state where George Wallace reigned supreme in his hateful, strong-arm governance.  There's a reason that so many of the civil rights sites are clustered in Alabama, places fraught with incidents of unimaginable violence.  Even now, it's where our current President has gone looking for his Attorney General, an allegedly racist individual.  (BTW, today we stumbled across a beautiful college campus in Montgomery and discovered that Jeff Sessions is an alum!)  I guess that I did have expectations, after all.  But, it's been many years since most of those egregious events took place.  And, the other side of the hateful history is a story of towering courage and human dignity.   What would Alabama look like, feel like now?

One of the first hopeful signs as we traveled north on the interstate highway from Florida was the happy discovery that National Public Radio has a strong presence in Alabama!  Yay!  We were headed for Montgomery which we hoped to use as a hub for our civil rights tour.  It's within a reasonable distance from Selma, Birmingham, and Tuskeegee, which were also on our tentative agenda.  We booked 4 nights in an Airbnb in Montgomery which turned out to be one of the best we've ever stayed in!

                         Alabama State capital building in Montgomery

Montgomery is the capital of the state of Alabama, situated about a third of the way up from the southern border of Florida's panhandle.  Its population is about 200,000, a bit smaller than Birmingham, which is to its north.  I tell you all of this because I, myself, wasn't familiar with Alabama before we arrived.  I did know that Montgomery is the location of a cluster of sites which were important to the civil rights struggle - and that's why we're here.   These include the Dexter Street Baptist Church and its parsonage, where ML King preached and lived with his family as a young minister just out of seminary.  At great personal peril, he was called upon to lead the bus boycott that resulted, after 13 months, in desegregating local buses.

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church which a young M.L. King served as pastor.

Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white person in 1955, brought the struggle to a head, has a museum dedicated to her in Montgomery.  The Southern Poverty Law Center, long an advocate for social justice, has created a wonderful Civil Rights Memorial Center there, dedicated to 40 people who lost their lives during the civil rights movement.  There is also a museum honoring the Freedom Riders, young folks who risked their lives by riding buses into the south in an attempt to desegregate interstate transportation.  These brave kids were brutally beaten in both Montgomery and Birmingham.  The 1960's era effort to secure voting rights for black citizens in the south, punctuated with murders of political activists and ordinary people trying to secure this most basic right, ended with the famous march from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery.  Obviously, this city had a lot to see and absorb about that pivotal time in our nation's history.

          Rosa Parks statue at the museum honoring her in Montgomery

On a spring Saturday in 2017, more than 50 years after these struggles, there were not a lot of people visiting the museums in Montgomery.  We visited both the Rosa Parks Museum and the Civil Rights Memorial Center in one day.  Both were impressive buildings with thoughtfully presented information.  Reading the personal stories of the victims and seeing the number of individuals who lost their lives in this struggle is compelling.   The Civil Rights Memorial, while focused on American blacks, also reminds us, through its displays, of the civil rights of other groups - immigrants, gays and transgendered people, Muslims.

Beautiful memorial designed by Maya Linn to commemorate people & events of the civil rights movement.  It's located at the Civil Rights Memorial & Museum in Montgomery, sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, headquartered across the street.  

Two days later, Bruce and I went to the small town of Tuskegee, about a half hour east of Montgomery.  The town itself is pretty shabby with boarded up homes,  empty storefronts, two Dollar Stores, and a big Piggly Wiggly.  We were to learn later, as we traveled across the state on secondary roads, that Tuskegee's look of poverty and abandonment, is typical of many towns in rural Alabama.  Our actual destination, however, was outside of town.  The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site is where the US Army had hosted an experiment during WWII to see if African-Americans had the mental and physical abilities to become fighter pilots.  The Tuskegee Airmen became celebrated, skilled, and fiercely courageous pilots.  They were fighting for a "double victory", both to help win the war and to improve the situation for blacks at home.  They returned to humiliating conditions of segregation, and worse.

                             Tuskegee Airmen training for duty in WWII

We also visited Tuskegee Institute, another National Historic Site and the college founded by Booker T. Washington.  It is a thriving college on a beautiful, historic, 5000 acre campus.  We ate lunch in a lovely dining room in the Kellogg Conference Center (established by the Kellogg Foundation) where students who are studying the hospitality industry or nutrition can get hands-on experience. Arriving a bit late on a Monday, there was only one other couple eating there.  It was quiet but delicious.

Detail from the amazing stained glass window in the Tuskegee Institute Chapel, featuring bits of lyrics of black spirituals.

Our Montgomery story wouldn't be complete without a description of our Airbnb there.  It's one of the best we've ever stayed in, and we loved it! It's a former in-law space on the back of a 1930 home in the Capital Heights historic area.  Because it's owned by a young art history professor and her sculptor/carpenter husband, it's very artsy and beautifully appointed.  We had our own entrance with an outside lawn area where we could sip our evening white wine.  And it was reasonably quiet, despite being fairly close to downtown.

  Note the piggly wiggly painting - on cardboard - above the bed :) and all the natural light!  

On Tuesday, we left Montgomery, heading toward Memphis, our final civil rights stop.  Montgomery had been surprisingly pleasant - traveling as a privileged white couple in 2017.  It has lovely wide boulevards and pretty, historic neighborhoods.  We hadn't made it to Birmingham or all of the sites that we had hoped, but it was time to move on.  We are anxious to get back home.  And we have a few more intriguing places to visit first.

On our way west, about 50 miles from Montgomery, we planned to stop in Selma, the famously significant town in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Although blacks had had the right to vote at that time, they had been prevented from doing so by a culture of terrorism, not to mention various impediments such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and other laws.

The Selma story unfolds along the 50 miles of Highway 80 that leads to the state capital of Montgomery.  This is where the march in support of voting rights took place, over the course of 4 days.  It had begun in Selma, some time after Bloody Sunday, when local police had beaten back marchers with billy clubs and dogs and tear gas.  When ML King asked for clergy from throughout the country to march with him, the group grew eventually to 25,000.  The Voting Rights Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson as a result.

Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, over which the civil rights marchers traveled.  

I must say that the National Park's Historic Sites has done a fabulous job of documenting this historical era.  All of the museums that we visited were extremely well designed with a plethora of informative pamphlets available.  And it is all FREE!  Even the two private museums that we visited were either free or very inexpensive.  I have never visited a city/state with as many public tablets situated along the streets, describing events and neighborhoods and important buildings.  We are learning so much, backing them up with google searches!

We traveled through many Alabama towns as we wended our way west on secondary roads.   We seemed to be seeing the un-doing of rural, small town America.   Between down-trodden towns, the countryside seems to be keeping up with the times.  We passed many large fields, flooded with water to raise catfish and tilapia.  The land is flat and gently rolling.  Rare is a real hill.  Springtime is brightening the fields and bringing forth hopeful tiny green leaves on trees. While we drive, we're listening to Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, a fascinating memoir of growing up in Appalachia.

Looking at the map, we had decided to break the trip into two days.  Oxford, Mississippi, seemed like an interesting place to stop for the night.  It's the home of Ol' Miss University, where William Faulkner lived and taught for many years.  As we were to be reminded, it also has a strong civil rights connection as the school where James Meredith's effort to study broke down another barrier to blacks.  In 1962, when Kennedy was President, James Meredith took it upon himself to move the ball forward by applying to Ol' Miss, a bastion of whiteness.  It took the power of the courts and US Marshalls and a resulting campus riot and the death of a French journalist, but he finally was admitted and graduated.  Nothing has come easily in this struggle!  

So, here we are in Oxford, staying in the Airbnb, serendipitously, of a music-loving young journalism professor at Ol' Miss.  He's gone off to teach and left us with a houseful of wonderful books!  We may never get on the road :).

Cha Cha Cha: Cuba Music

Cha Cha Cha Cuban Music                        March 23, 2017

Hearing Cuban music was one of the goals of our trip.  We didn’t hear a lot, since it required staying up past our bedtimes!  But one evening we did hear a quartet at a favorite resto.  A singer, a keyboard player, a drummer, and a guitar player, sounding to me a lot like Buena Vista Social Club, kept us intrigued for an hour or so!  

One of the most interesting experiences that we had in Cuba was connected to Bruce’s two violin lessons.  He had arranged them before we arrived in Cuba.  At the appointed time on our 2nd full day in Havana, a cute young fellow appeared at our BnB to escort us, by taxi, to the music school, which was several miles away.  That was our first taxi experience, chugging along and crossing our fingers with each downshift.  

When we arrived at the school, a small building with a cozy anteroom entrance, we were eagerly greeted by the school manager.  He immediately introduced Bruce to his teacher, Julian, an older fellow who has played violin with the symphony and on the recordings of Cesaria Evora, a Cape Verde singer!  This second bit really got our attention, since Cesaria Evora is a favorite of ours!  

Bruce's Cuban fiddle mentor, Julian

While Bruce began learning Cuban tunes in a back practice room (lined with egg cartons for sound-proofing), I had a great chat with the young manager, who was fluent in English, knowledgeable about American politics, and knew the capital of Maine!  

I also met a young artist (lots of young folks in this story) who was working on a mural that filled a whole wall space in the office area of the school.  From a low perspective, it looked up at a large fiddle player.  I couldn’t help but wonder (later) if it was a painting of Julian and if its size symbolized the great esteem in which he is held at the school.   

During the week between his two lessons, Bruce serenaded our BnB hosts with fiddle tunes as he practiced.  The Afro-Cuban beat was very different, and it was challenging. Nothing like the Quebecois/Cape Breton tunes that are the staple of Fiddlicious, his fiddle group in Maine. Luckily for someone who plays by ear, Bruce had recorded the songs on his phone and could listen to them frequently.

The second lesson took place the day before we left Cuba.  By this time, we had been taking taxis for several days.  It was still a stressful operation, in that the route to the school of music required two different taxis, which meant two instances of hailing an old American taxi and negotiating a price for where we were going.  If that weren’t challenging enough, there was the added pressure of deciphering which currency was being used, the currency for Cuban nationals or that for tourists.  The two got mixed up and caused confusion!  

Having successfully undertaken the taxi ride itself, we found ourselves in the area where the school was located.  However, we didn’t have a street address, just a small paper map with a dot on it and couldn’t remember exactly where the school was or what it looked like. We wandered around the neighborhood, asked 4-5 different people, and finally a worker on a big electrical project on the street said, with authority, “Venga!” (Come!). With us following behind him like baby ducklings, he crossed the street - and there was the school.  His buddies were lined up watching and laughing at the spectacle.  But we got there!  

The pleasant ante-room of the music school

The lesson went along well, despite the fact that there was no power in the building due to the aforementioned electrical work going on in the street.  This meant that the practice room was too dark and too hot, and so the lesson was moved to the office area.  Very typical of Cuba, we found.  Flexibility and patience are essential.  The reward for Bruce was a priceless musical souvenir.

This is my last Cuba post. Bruce and I are in Pensacola, Florida, right now, just about to cross into Alabama to begin the civil rights part of our trip. Stay tuned for a post or two about the American south.

In the meantime, I have a couple of links that may interest the curious reader who wants to learn a bit more about Cuba. One is a fascinating piece from today's NY Times, describing an American-conducted survey of Cubans' dreams for the future:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/world/americas/cuba-survey-economic-growth-and-opportunity.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span

The other piece is a couple of years old, but seems relevant still, about the food situation in Cuba, from the Manchester Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/24/cubans-food-struggle-rations-consuming-obsession

Classy Cuban Chassis

Classy Cuban Chassis March 21, 2017

One of the things that Cuba is known for, of course, is her classic American cars.  We noticed them immediately on our way into the city from the airport.   I had expected to see a few in Old Havana - but it turned out that they were everywhere!  The spiffiest of them, mostly convertibles, are used as touring cars for tourists, driven by guys wearing straw hats.

  

Many of the rest, old and rusty, sputtering along amidst clouds of exhaust fumes, are used as taxis.  We had a few rides in those, and they were an experience: no shocks, each change of gears a miracle, sharing the space with anyone else who needed a ride.  I read that after the revolution in 1959, Castro had forbidden private citizens to buy cars due to the American embargo and the lack of gasoline.  So, folks have had to hang onto the cars that they had at that point, repairing them as best they could and passing them on to family members as part of their inheritance.   

We also saw old Russian Ladas, which apparently have a less than stellar reputation in the western world. Bruce asked someone if Ladas were "cheap", referring to quality. The response was, "There are no cheap cars in Cuba." HE was referring to price, which is probably uppermost in the minds of Cuban citizens.

A patriotic Lada.

We also saw some newer foreign cars, such as Hyundais, Kias, and Peugeots. I'm guessing that they were purchased by government employees for government business, such as the official taxis ferrying passengers back and forth to the airport.

But no new modern American cars, for obvious reasons.  The old ones, both the shiny convertible touring cars and the shabby old taxis are such a testamony to the mechanical ingenuity of their owners, who must scrounge or invent parts when needed!

Here are a few others that I caught in my lens:

Love this hood ornament.

The old cars in Cuba were a bit of a trip down memory lane for Bruce and me.  I thought of my dad, who loved Pontiacs.  Mom was a Chevy gal all her life.  Aunt Nellie always bought Fords.  My family definitely bought American - until I came along!

My mom had a Chevy like this, which we named Tillie!

We think this is a Ford.

Bruce’s memories tended toward the more exotic.  He told me about his uncle Phil, a pharmacist in Southwest Harbor, Maine, who somehow got his hands on a German car, a Borgward.  Bruce tried to get his dad to buy a Citroen - without success.  His dad did purchase a British Ford, smaller and more boxy in shape than an American Ford.  My first car was a Saab, which I loved but owned for less than a year before my marriage required downsizing - to Bruce’s car!  His car at that time was a Nissan Datsun which twice took us from Maine to Arizona and back.  

The old cars in Cuba are treated gently, even reverently, befitting machines that have lasted for 60+ years and are expected to keep on going.  I noticed that no one slams the doors shut. If a driver anticipates that you might be going to shove it a bit too hard, he'll reach over and catch it and then close it like it's his baby - or his meal ticket!

   

Cuba - What a Trip!

Cuba - What a Trip March 17, 2017

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”  St. Augustine

Our time in Havana, Cuba, was fascinating - the pastel buildings, the classic American cars, the turbulent history,  the current political situation, the music, the people.  Our Spanish language skills got a real work-out!  We learned a lot about the culture, the society, and the city in general.  It’s a Latin and Caribbean culture inside of a Communist system.  The only other Communist nation that we’ve visited is Laos, five years ago.  Thanks to the openness of the Cuban people, we were able to learn a lot more about life there than we did about Laotian life.  

Our first three days were spent at an Airbnb in Vedado, an area of once-lovely homes in Havana, now in a severely declined state. Traces of the original art deco design or the colonial grandeur can be seen, and some homes are in good condition.  However, most are in need of paint and repair, having become dingy, often with a boarded up window, laundry handing on the front porch or across a window, dirt yards.  The sidewalks, while wider than those in Guatemala, are broken and pose all sorts of hazards to the unobservant wanderer.  

In some ways, that’s the superficial stuff, though it says a lot about conditions there.  The people are another story.   We were warmly received by the Airbnb hosts in both places where we stayed - and by many other people!

Elisa, our first host, was a woman in her thirties, tall and dark and intelligent and what I would think of as an elegant Spanish lady with bangles and a certain pizzaz in her dress.  She was friendly and open. In addition to husband Pablo, she had a friendly, efficient housekeeper who came each morning to fix us breakfast and to clean, after she got her own children off to school.  Although Elisa’s Airbnb site lists her partner as her sister Anita, it turns out that Anita is in Spain, studying to be a doctor!  

Our first host, Elisa, and her housekeeper, Valerie.

Our first Airbnb. That piazza is where we had our yummy breakfasts.

Elisa’s pretty home was situated on the second floor of an early 20th century building, on a busy city street.  Since our room was in the front, we were often awakened by loud engine noises - big busses, trucks carrying cement pieces, cars in need of mufflers, etc., most belching clouds of engine smoke. But the inside space at Elisa's home was lovely, with tall ceilings and artsy, antique decor.  I had a wonderful place to write, on a glass table facing tall French doors that opened onto a piazza furnished with comfortable wicker furniture.  

               I loved the glass table in front of the tall French doors. 

Nearby was a large, aqua-colored primary and middle school.  We could watch the children arrive in the morning, accompanied by their parents. They wore uniforms that looked to me like quintessential Communist outfits - red shorts or skirt, white shirt, and a red bandana around the neck.  

                 This public school serves primary up through middle school students.

                             School children out for a field trip in Old Havana. 

Because Elisa could accommodate us for only 3 nights, we had made arrangements to stay in a different area of town for the rest of our time in Cuba.  We moved to Miramar, a neigbhorhood a bit farther away from “Old Havana” and more upscale.  This area is said to be the most elegant - and it certainly was lovely.  The main avenue (5th Avenue) is a broad boulevard with a narrow park down the middle.  It is lined with gorgeous old mansions - probably owned originally by those who fled to Miami after the revolution - that are now used mostly as foreign embassies or offices.  Our abode, on a side street was, oddly enough, much more modest than our space at Elisa’s.  

In our second Airbnb, our room was upstairs in the front corner. We ate breakfast in the tiny outside space where the shade is partially down.

The traffic noises were replaced by barking dogs and crowing roosters (we were in the Caribbean, after all).  But all of that was made up for by the nicest, most helpful hosts that one could ask for, Pedro and Stefany, who also outdid themselves with creative, beautifully presented breakfasts! They are a young couple with two little children.  He speaks good English and made himself available to our every need :), including escorting us to a wonderful nearby resto, showing us the ropes in taking taxis, finding internet access, and getting money changed.  She is a wonderful mother, a university grad on a year’s maternity leave, subsidized - to a small extent - by the Cuban government.  

We were close to the beach in Miramar and made the short walk to the shore each evening to watch the sun set, one of our sweetest delights. 

I had expected the weather to be very hot and humid in Cuba.  It was actually a bit cooler and drier than I had expected, probably in the low 80’s, though we heard that summer weather is much steamier! Mid-day walking in March got pretty warm but evening was like a lovely July evening in Maine. Speaking of Maine, one day we were walking along a street, past a well-kept building with a gate and a guard.  We began chatting with the guard, an 80 (!) year old fellow.  When he learned that we were from Maine, he brightened up and emerged from his guard box to tell us about having spent a summer of his youth with his family on Cobbosseecontee Lake (where I spent many summers of my childhood!).  We missed much of his free-flowing Spanish tale but were able to immediately understand his motion of paddling a canoe!

Ernest Hemingway famously lived in Cuba for many years.  His haunts are all great draws for tourists.  At the Hotel Ambos Mundos (Both Worlds) in Old Havana, where Ernesto spent a lot of time in the 1930’s, we spent an hour or so relaxing, sipping limonadas, listening to live music, and reveling in the old world feel of high ceilings, dark wood-framed windows, and tall French doors open to the outside. The lobby bustled with tour groups, many taking an antique, iron elevator up to Hemingway’s 5th floor room, left as it had been when he stayed there.  

Hotel Ambos Mundos was a delightful spot to sip a limonada and watch the people.  

We had some wonderful, open conversations with various residents about the state of affairs here in Cuba.  There is great pride in three pillars of the system:  the education system (free at all levels from pre-school to PhD), the excellent free medical care for everyone, and the general level of public safety since no one is allowed to own a gun. Wow - what's not to like? Given the high percentage of black citizens in Cuba, I wondered about racism.  A white fellow proudly volunteered that racism does not exist in Cuba.  A black fellow says that there is “soft” racism.  In any case, it seems that much of the population has some black heritage and the racial divide is much more muted.  

Difficulties in Cuba seem to center on economic issues and include the lack of goods, the poor quality and high prices of those goods, along with very low salaries.  We have heard that it is hard for people to buy a car or a home. It’s not unusual for people to have two jobs to make ends meet, including doctors who may drive taxis on the side.  This hardship is often attributed to the American embargo.  In fact, we passed a large poster downtown, showing a picture of a big noose strangling Cuba, with the word “Bloqueo” (Embargo).  As one might expect in a Communist nation, there is a lot of propaganda written on marqees and spray painted on walls and neatly printed on sides of buildings, telling how much Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are appreciated and instilling communal values.  

     Unofficial wall murals.  There still seems to be a lot of passion about the revolution.  

There is also general frustration at the lack of information about the outside world - but that is changing, “thanks to Obama and Google”, in the words of one person.  Access to the internet is limited to wireless hot spots, businesses, hotels and Internet cafes.  Few people have Internet at home.

           These folks gathered spontaneously one evening in a hot spot for internet.  

We, ourselves, would appreciate access to the internet without having to go to a central location, pay a fee, and wait for a turn.  It is possible to buy a card that’s good for an hour of use - outdoors in a park, where there apparently is wifi (we don’t know how this works!).  We have seen clusters of folks with their laptops or phones, sitting where there must be a “hot spot” for wifi,  on a curb or outside a hotel.  

More to our liking was the internet space in a modern business center where we sat in a large, air-con room with about 30 other folks, renting a desk computer for an hour.  It reminded us of our internet cafe days in France 10 years ago.  We restricted ourselves to one visit, mid-way through our 10 day visit. While we did not miss the daily barrage of disturbing US political news that we listen to at home, we certainly felt cut off from personal news while we were in Cuba.  We crossed our fingers that all would be well at home, while we were out of contact.  But, as Tom Friedman notes in his book, Thank You for Being Late, the genie is out of the box.  Now that the underdeveloped world has access to the internet, even limited access, they know what they are missing, in terms of freedom and basic goods, not to mention luxury items and connection to the rest of the world.  Pressure will be put to bear on leaders to improve life everywhere.  

We are Cuba.

We are aware of the fact that the American embargo is seen as standing in the way of a better life for Cuban citizens. They very much value the social gains that they have achieved.  Most are uneasy about possible changes in the future, despite wanting higher incomes and an easier life.  When asked what he would hope for in a relationship between the USA and Cuba, one thoughtful person responded, “Respect and lifting of the embargo”.  There is a lot about this society to respect:  they have thrown off the yoke of a colonial power, overthrown a dictator, resisted the invasion of their powerful neighbor, the US - all in their attempt to improve the lives of the common person.  We heard little to nothing about a heavy-handed, repressive government, which surely does exist in Cuba. However, respect by our country for their admirable achievements and lifting of the embargo seem like reasonable and achievable goals.