OBAMERICA!

I cannot explain how elated I am to have found out that Barack Obama will be our next President!!! Picture a group of students in the melia cohiba hotel, at 11 pm at night, crowded around a tv watching intently to see that Obama had reached 270 electoral votes. It was the most emotionally charged thing I have ever sat through, and when we found out that he had won, we all were crying and hugging and so happy to be alive at that moment. This is history, people. Obama is a person who has united so many different constituencies, so many different people can see themselves in him. He is pursuing the same dream that my grandfather pursued, he represents everything that my grandfather and other Italian-Americans worked so hard for in this country, which is equality, a good life for their families, and hope for a better future for his children. He represents everyone in this nation equally, regardless of skin color, or age, or economic status. I couldn't be happier, and walk around everywhere here with a smile, proud to say "I'm American!!" once more, something I feel like I couldn't do before.

When you have the opportunity to study history from the perspective of a Latin American country, the US comes off as much less benevolent than your typical US high school class would lead you to believe. The US has often played the role of imperialist bully in the world, and it makes me disappointed to see the country I love so much head down such a bad path. I have hope for the future that we will rebuild our international relations, renew our economy, and go back to the glory days of Clinton. (Nonno, I hope you know I wrote that!).

The fact that Obama is half black and half white was such a beautiful factor in this equation. The significance of this for me is twofold, because in Cuba everyone is so excited to have a president who looks like them, and will TALK to Raul Castro!!! WOW! And our first family is now black. It's a beautiful thing when diversity is becoming the face of America, and I'm so happy that it's finally reflected in the white house. I couldn't be prouder of my country, and where we are going right now - OBAMERICA!

I cannot stop smiling, nor do I think I ever will. My generation has been through so much, and cannot wait to see what happens as history unfolds itself. I think that being in Cuba has made me appreciate my love for my country so much more, because it's such a rare thing to be an American in Cuba. Here, I am not from Massachusetts, I am American, and now I'm proud to be labeled as such, because my president is someone I can take pride in, and someone who can unite my country together like it has never been united before.

GOD BLESS THE USA, ESPECIALLY FOR THEIR EXCELLENT CHOICE OF A BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING PRESIDENT!!!!!!!

Game Time (from Nov. 3rd)

Hello, everybody!! So, we’re officially past the halfway point of being in Cuba!!! Yayyy! I feel much more acclimated to the pace of the city now, and am starting to get more comfortable engaging in activities and knowing my way around. I still slip up, though, from time to time, as is wont to happen in a very different country. For example, I had seminario (basically a graded question-and-answer session) today in my Sociology of Work class, and ended up reading the wrong “lectura” (reading), and gave a short schpiel on something entirely unrelated to my question. But, our professor, in all fairness, had not clarified which article he wanted us to read, and he just laughed it off, because we’re innocent foreigners who didn’t know any better. I think that means that he will give us a good grade for our presentations (they were only about five minutes or less). I did pretty well on the pop quiz he gave out, so I’m hoping that’s a good sign… : )

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about trying to branch out and be involved more in academic and cultural activities, because I feel as though I have been moping around in the house feeling homesick for the past few weeks, and am ready to take advantage of all the opportunity I have here to learn from people. There are a lot of centers here of various kinds – centers for psychological studies, centers for culture, centers for the CDR (don’t worry, I’m not becoming socialist!), etc. I just want to make sure that I have milked this experience for all its worth, but these past few weeks it had been difficult to deal with the fact that I’m so far away from home. I think the trick is just to stay busy, so that you are so busy having fun and getting involved that you don’t miss the people you love most in this world – otherwise, you’ll drive yourself crazy. It’s a blessing and a curse to have so much time to think, because sometimes, thinking about certain things (like homesickness) too much can cause an idea to tangle itself up in your brain and mess up your other thought processes. I’m glad that I’ve been so busy with schoolwork this week!

But, not only is this the week of crazy seminario work (I have THREE in TWO DAYS!), but also the week of THE ELECTION OF THE NEXT US PRESIDENT! All of us here are ridiculously excited and eagerly awaiting the results of the election. We’re going to camp out in a nearby hotel and take over their lounge area tv for the day, coming intermittently through class.

Then, seeing as we will hopefully want to celebrate Wednesday night, we decided to make a group dinner (I’m making pasta!!!). I went to the CUC market the other day to buy meat (I have yet to buy onions still from the agromercado, which is like an open-air market, as opposed to the CUC market, which is basically in a mall), and discovered that all the meat was: A) frozen, and B) VERY not-fresh-looking. ALSO, can I take this time to mention how there is NO ground beef anywhere here??? I found giant turkey legs, really gross looking ribs, and tons of deli meat, but no ground beef! I ended up with a package that looked less questionable marked, “res,” or “beef,” and brought it back to ANAP. Little did I know, the “hígado” part of the label, which I had overlooked beforehand, actually means, “liver,” meaning that I had bought cow liver to flavor my pasta sauce with. Uck. I gave it to Camilo and Pablito (our cooks - we’re pretty good pals, me and the kitchen staff – I hang out and talk with them a lot in the kitchen and the restaurant…), and Pablito told me that Camilo could probably make a “picadillo” (ground-up meat dish) out of it, after we had a good, hearty laugh with Joanca, a waitress who works at ANAP, about the fact that I had bought COW LIVER instead of beef. Oh, how funny those language barriers are!!! : )

Needless to say, the pasta sauce is going to be vegetarian, I guess… : ) No Italian sausages here in Cuba… : )

I’m really really really excited to be cooking. I love and miss the smell of garlic in olive oil, with onion and tomato sauce. Everything here is fried, but in vegetable oil, so it will be so good to have a real, authentic Italian pasta dish, when typically pasta here is served with a very basic thin, salty tomato paste. I’m just glad I was able to find olive oil (!) and oregano (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) in various locations. It’s so hard just to find, let alone stomach the prices (olive oil was 6 bucks for a little bottle!!) of certain “luxury” foods here.

Well, I’m off to study for my seminarios tomorrow (one is on Freud and the interpretation of dreams, the other is on Cecilia Valdes, which is a 553 page book written entirely in old, Cuban Spanish. I read the WHOLE THING, which I’m so so so proud of myself for (I don’t mean that to sound egotistical, it’s just that I have never done anything like that before!), and even though I didn’t understand it all, I just plugged through it, and was amazed that I was able to read it all and can use it now in my seminario and speak intelligibly about it). I suppose if the Holy Spirit caused the apostles to speak in tongues, it can help me read a book in Spanish, right?

Love you and miss you all!,
Christina : )

Back to our regular programming...

As we near the middle of the semester, I am becoming more and more reflective of my experience here. I have developed a healthy addiction to watching Grey’s Anatomy and The Sopranos (on at 10 and 11, respectively, Tuesday and Thursday night). My friend Brigid and I have a running date to chill out in her room on those nights and watch those shows together, so you can imagine that I was very very surprised last night to find that Grey’s had been moved to 11!!! Explanations that Brigid and I reasoned out: Cuban tv programming hadn’t been adjusted to accommodate daylight savings time (we move our clocks back a week ahead of the US here), or had been adjusted to accommodate ads supporting Camilo Cienfuegos, a Cuban revolutionary whose birthday (I think?) was yesterday. I love Cuba.

Ale, or Alejandro, the carpetero who works at the front desk, speaks English, so he often shares in my frustrations with Cuban life. Linda, our program director, was able to buy a dial-up internet connection, which is really slow but cheap (80 hours/month for 60 dollars, compared to two hours for 12 dollars at the hotels!!!!), and Ale was telling me how awesome it is that we can open up more than one internet explorer window at a time, because Cuban internet is SO SLOW. I cannot wait to get back to pervasively extensive wireless internet access at Harvard (I could probably get internet access in a school bathroom, it’s that extensive). Gosh, that seems so many worlds away!

In school news, I recently got my first grade on a paper (eek!) which was a four (out of five!) for a paper I wrote on Karl Marx’s Eighteenth Brumario of Louis Bonaparte. It was a ridiculous 86 page document that I found online in English, and I wrote a seven-page paper on it in Spanish. I’m just so happy I did well! (Thank God!!!).

As far as the beautiful weather goes, it has been delayed temporarily due to a cold front that came in. It’s basically 70 and breezy, but Cubans are freezing. I just laughed, thinking of how it was like a New England fall and was NOTHING to a seasoned Bostonian. No ten-foot snow drifts?? No problem. : )

Anyway, things are going pretty well and I’m starting to miss home more as we reach the halfway mark of the program. I can’t wait to get back to my family, singing with the Callbacks, working with the library, and visiting all my friends on campus. It’s crazy that I have already been here so long, and gotten so used to Cuban-style living. I’m just craving highly capitalist products, such as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Barnes and Noble, etc. It’s funny what almost two months without chain stores signs does to one’s psyche! There are definitely the beautiful parts of the socialist system, don’t get me wrong, but I still miss the ability to have access to any material that one wants without having to wait for it to be in stores.

Sometimes, I really want a certain item from a store, such as the lemon-lime national-brand soda, and it won’t be available in stores. Or, sometimes the power just goes out for indeterminate amounts of time. The resources here are very limited, and cut out without explanation or knowledge of when they will come back. I like the surety of the US’s supplies, and appreciate a smoothly-functioning system even more now!!

Take care you all, and God Bless!! : )

And now, a short commercial break from our feature presentation...

Hey there everyone! I just got back from a lovely weekend in Santiago de Cuba, one of the most important Cuban cities in terms of both the revolution and general culture. Basically, Santiago is where the Revolution started, so there’s a ton of museums and a giant cemetery hosting Cuban greats such as Jose Marti, Mr. Bacardi, and musicians from Buena Vista Social Club. It was great to get to see another side of life in Cuba. Santiago is different from Havana in that there are more jineteros (because Santiago is not as comparatively “wealthy” or big of a city as Havana), and there is more “culture” (meaning starving artists and more flavorful food).

We met up with a Harvard grad student named Grete in Santiago, who is studying the Haitian population in Santiago, and showed us around her stomping grounds. We all stayed in casa particulares located on the same street, which were REALLY nice and decked out with tons of goodies like antique furniture, toilet paper, and beautiful gardens. A “casa particular” is basically somebody’s house that has rooms for rent. It’s the Cuban version of a bed and breakfast. Many Cubans seek extra income by renting out their rooms to people, but these enterprises are heavily regulated and taxed, so many people can’t afford to keep up the business. Plainclothes inspectors come to casa particulares all the time to make sure that the houses aren’t filled up over capacity (owners are only allowed so many guests), and ensure that everything checks out. Also, houses that can’t afford things like toilet paper, fruit, hot water, and various other niceties that foreigners look for cannot compete with other casa particulares who offer these goods. It’s crazy how all the things that I took so much for granted in the US are considered to be luxurious commodities in Cuba!!!

The casa particular I was staying at was beautiful – giant ceilings (as is typical of Cuban architecture, but well maintained, which is not), beautiful beds, a polished China cabinet, photo frames, air conditioning – it was a PALACE! The woman who Bolaji and I lived with treated us “like daughters,” and spoiled us rotten with good food and great hospitality (said to be a very Santiaguero trait!). We had [what had to be black-market!] eggs for breakfast, pineapple, a kind of weird sweet-potato-like reddish fruit, guava, warm, soft bread rolls (with butter!!), JAM!!!!!!, TEA!!!!!, HONEY!!!!, and milk. It was crazy-luxurious, and I enjoyed that mint tea like nobody’s business!!! It was so satisfying after having craved tea for so long! One can develop an addiction to Cuban (read: STRONG) coffee, but tea is still my favorite!

The best part about Santiago, though, was the sightseeing (outside of our casa particulares, of course!). We played tourists for two days shopping at bookstores, looking at artwork, and meeting awesome Cuban experts on culture and history. We met up with the city historian for Santiago, who gave us a great tour of Santiago and explained some of the history behind the city. We also met with a woman who specializes in “artes plasticas” in Santiago, with an artist who is one of the most famous poster artists in Cuba (he did a lot of political posters, painted by hand, commissioned by the government!), and with a man who is an expert on the history of the town of Cobre, where there is a shrine to the Virgin Mary, which I’ll go into more detail about later. It was totally enlightening and, honestly, refreshing, to meet such genuine people!

As for our tourist-y roundabouts, we visited the cemetery of Santiago, where we saw the tomb of Jose Marti, which was a BIG DEAL and has guards to watch it that change every half-hour similar to the tomb of the unnamed soldiers in Washington DC. He’s HUGE here, so his grave site is really extravagant – you can probably tell where he’s located in the cemetery from a mile away. We also got to see a museum located in a working school where there was an invasion at the beginning of the Revolution. For some reason, most Cuban museums are obsessed with displaying blood-stained clothing and showing gruesome pictures of dead bodies and torture devices, so that was, as always, a rather disturbing part of our visit. Although, I did find it quite comical that the “bullet holes” on the outside of the museum / functioning school (it still is a working school and there were kids playing soccer outside when we visited!) were actually conveniently added onto the building for dramatic effect. Gotta love those Cubans.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was visiting the tiny town of Cobre, though, which is just outside Santiago. History has it that two fishermen got caught out on a tiny boat during a storm off the coast of Cobre, and the Virgin Mary appeared to them on a board saying, “Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre.” When the men returned to shore, they built her a church, and the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre became Cuba’s patron saint. The church was absolutely beautiful, but it was so strange to see the people selling beautiful bouquets of flowers in roadside stands that would probably go for 15 or 20 dollars back home, selling them for the equivalent of US $2.50. Cobre is a pretty poor-looking town, but then again, so are most small towns in Cuba.

The entire week, I have been struggling with two pretty difficult realizations that have been cascading down on me constantly. One: Cubans are ridiculously poor, and the fact that I can go to fancy schmancy restaurants and afford (or, Harvard can afford to pay for) a $15 plate of food feels so guilty to me. I realize that giving away money won’t solve the problem, but how does one even begin to tackle the realization that the only way to get more money to Cubans is to drop the embargo??? It’s sad, really, that our countries can’t even talk to one another, which brings me to my next realization. Two: Cubans are inherently continually disrespectful or discriminatory against foreigners. I am not by any means a forceful person. But, what upsets me the most is when Cubans behind the counter hand you back the wrong amount of change, or ask you to wait in a line you already waited in, and hand what should be your ration of food to some Cuban who came after you did, or give you an up-and-down when you ask for a discount on something because you are a Cuban university student, and present your carnet (ID card).

At the airport (where, by the way, we waited for around 9 or 10 hours for our plane to arrive after its scheduled departure time at 9:30 am – we got on at around 7pm-ish), one of the members of our group forgot his paper ticket, and the airlines forced him to purchase an entirely new ticket for $116 CUC. He was listed in the computer as having purchased the ticket, under his name, but the airlines wouldn’t have it. There is no customer service here because people are their own bosses, but there was no recourse for us as foreigners trying to get back to Havana. It was so frustrating, and I guess that’s just the general theme of Cuban life. It’s frustrating to be treated differently because of who you are, but I suppose that’s what immigrants in the United States go through on a daily basis.

In a way, I’m glad to be experiencing the discrimination that I am. It’s a lesson in patience, most definitely, but it’s also giving me a brief glimpse into a world that most people find too unpleasant to even think about. I never understood before the feeling of not belonging, and here I most DEFINITELY do not belong. Although most people are not blatantly and openly prejudice against foreigners, there’s a sort of disdain (and not unmerited, in my opinion) for somebody who can blow a month’s salary (about 15 bucks) on toilet paper, or a couple of drinks at a fancy hotel. Cubans just can’t mess around with that sort of thing.

Alright, enough philosophical ramblings – I’m going to go read about US-Cuban relations for my Spanish class. It’s a sixteen-pager in Spanish – wish me luck!!! : )

Be safe, be well, and God bless!!! : )

She works hard for no money... da-nuh, da-nuh!

Sorry for the lack of postings lately!!! I have been busy with school, meeting new people, attending social events, and doing trabajo voluntario, or voluntary work, to help the farmers in Pinar del Río, a largely rural region that was struck very hard by both Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. We got up at 5 am this morning to get on a guagua (bus) leaving at 5:45 from the FEU center (basically the student activities center), and took the two-hour bus ride to San Cristóbal. They had done a great job of cleaning up after the storm, but still needed help taking care of the “agricultural rebuilding” aspect of the aftermath.

Because Pinar is a largely rural area, most of the land there is used for agriculture of some kind, growing avocados, potatoes, etc. When the storms hit, a lot of the plants were uprooted, and farmers lost their crops. This area is NOT rich, trust me – most people live in what look like one-room bunkers, and a lot of people can’t afford the sturdy building materials of concrete or cinder block, so their wood houses get torn down during storms.

Basically, our job today was to help farmers plant boniato plants (a type of sweet potato). The farmers had assembled cartloads of seedling plants, which we laid into rows of earth, and the farmers plowed over with cow-led hoe. It wasn’t really hard work, but the process was fascinating. It was basically like a service project at school, and there were a lot of foreigners there (apparently foreigners are the only ones they can really convince to sign up for voluntary work, because we’re suckers for these kinds of things).

After we had planted about half of the field, we stopped working and ate lunch (they gave out lunch and water), and then headed back to the central plaza in the town where students with megaphones were shouting out how awesome our solidarity was and how important our work here was. Then students started shouting “Viva la revolucion!” and talking about capitalism and I remembered where I was.

In addition to working, though, I have been meeting a bunch of new friends from the University. It’s starting to get easier to feel like I’m kind of fitting in, and even though I obviously stick out, it’s easier to make friends now.

Love you all and miss you!!!

My Cuban love interest!

Alright, so it’s finally happened. I am officially in love with a Cuban. He’s about three feet tall and turned five years old today, and his name is Antony. This child is precious, and is the son of one of the waitresses at ANAP. He reminds me of my cousin Olivia, because he’s just so darn cute, even though he is QUITE the handful (in addition to being extremely precocious). He also loves Transformers, and has memorized the entire beginning to the Transformers tv show, just like a certain Anthony I know…

I kept on telling him, "Entonces, somos novios, Antony?? Eres mi novio??" (So, we're boyfriend and girlfriend, Antony? You're my boyfriend??); and he kept on saying, "'Miga, es que, pues, somos AMIGOS. Oiste? AMIGOS" (Girl, it's that, well, we're FRIENDS. You hear me? FRIENDS.). Oh my goodness he's so cute. Then one of the cooks, Pablito (who is the sweetest man on the face of the earth) asked Antony "estas enamorado con Christina? Christina, pienso que el este enamorado contigo!" (are you in love with Christina??? Christina, I think he's in love with you!!) and Antony said, "Nooooooo, somos AH-MI-GOS!"

I was supposed to read a social anthropology reading last night, but Antony ended up coming into my room, and I ended up playing with him (of course). A much better pasttime, if you ask me... :)

My friend Christine took some pictures of us together, two of which are on my Flickr site (link is on the left).

In other news from ANAP, there is apparently a famous Cuban actress staying with us in ANAP, the lead from the film “Lucia.” I just saw her at dinner!

Additionally, I just wanted to point out that there is now a links section on the left-hand side of my page with links to my Flickr account and to my roommate’s blog, for another perspective of our lives in Havana. Be sure to check them out!

Good times never seemed so good… SO GOOD, SO GOOD, SO GOOD!

October 4, 2008

Adjustment time is officially over now, and I’m starting to really be able to enjoy all my experiences here! Classes are getting more regular, although the schedules still continue to change. Cuban students, when they enter University, are in what they call “carreras” here, or “tracks.” They specialize in a certain “facultad,” or division of the University, such as Artes y Letras (Arts and Letters – languages, sculpture, etc.), Historia y Filosofia (History and Philosophy – social sciences), and Derecho (Law). When a professor changes around class times, it doesn’t usually affect Cuban students, because their carrera requires that they stay in the same classroom from 8 am to 1 pm and just take whichever classes are in their carrera’s curriculum for their specific year (first year, second year, etc.). So, when a professor switches classes, it’s with the understanding that the students will have no conflicts. Foreign students, however, can take classes from different facultades, thus making it much easier to have conflicting classes when a profe decides to switch up the days and times of class meetings. This would be potentially disastrous, were it not for the wonderful and extremely caring Cuban professors.

Such a scheduling fiasco occurred the other day when my profe for History of Cuban Culture moved our class to a time when I had to go to another class, Sociology of Work. He told me not to worry about it – that he would give me a personalized review session of what he went over in class, and that it would be – this is the best part – IN ENGLISH. I thank God SO SO SO SO SO SO much for placing this profe conveniently in my life!!! He sat down with me and went over all the points of lecture the other day, going over parts that I had questions on, and gave me his email address, telling me to email him if I had any questions on anything. He was so incredibly kind and thoughtful, and I cannot be thankful enough for his attention to detail and making sure that all of his students are learning, including the foreigners. He is the best University professor I have had thus far in my college experience, I must say. Sometimes it feels like professors at Harvard could care less how well you understand class, but this is really his passion, and it shows!!

In addition to class, though, all of us down here in the Cuba study abroad program are eagerly following the Presidential election, and we trekked to the Melia Cohiba hotel on Thursday to watch the VP debate. Our favorite part was when Sarah Palin mentioned the “two Castros,” at which point all the Americans sitting in the fancy schmancy Smoker’s Lounge where we were watching the tv started shouting, applausing loudly and laughing. Oh, Cuba! I also appreciated the reference to “Malakawi Talabani” (what????), and Joe Biden referring to himself all the time in the third person, in addition to mentioning Scranton like fifty times. CNN is truly a godsend. I love American political figures, but American politics… not so much! : )

The last really exciting event of the week was our trip to Miramar, which is a really ritzy part of Havana where all the embassies and nice houses are located (it’s fairly close to Vedado, which is also a really nice neighborhood). Miramar doesn’t look that different from the rest of Havana, but the houses are most definitely nicer, and there was a GIANT GROCERY STORE (Hallelujah!!!)!!!! Had there been shopping carts, I would have jumped onto a cart and starting singing as I coasted through the aisles, like that old Staples back-to-school commercial (“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!). There were pickles, frozen meat, yogurt, juice, soda, cookies, olives, herbs, seasonings, flour, cake mix, tomato sauce, baby food, etc!!! It was AMAZING TO BEHOLD!!! My favorite part, however, had to be encountering PEACH ICED TEA (from the same French no-name brand that brought me my PEACH RINGS last week!!!), which I had been craving, and the AISLE OF BARILLA PASTA. I almost cried – there were definitely tears in my eyes. Pasta here, though, is much more expensive that in the states – it’s about 2.50-ish per box. BUT BARILLA – JEEZ A LOO! It’s really weird to see all the European brands that I’ve never seen before in the stores, but it’s not like Cuba can just import American brands of everything. It was just such a surreal experience to be shopping and NOT see tons of American brands! : )

Earlier that day, we had gone to get our fingerprints taken for our carnets, or ID cards. We went to this special compound-ish location for foreigners, and entered in through a cast-iron gate to this little complex of shack-like buildings, then entered into this little building where a woman called us up and fingerprinted us, then wrote down how tall we were (in meters, which she guestimated haha). Apparently it can take up to two weeks just to laminate our carnets before we get them, but I suppose such is the bureaucracy / red tape of Cuba! I’m getting pretty used to it by now!

I remember that yesterday I had a flashback to the time when a professor had given me a book to look up in the Fung Library at Harvard, but he hadn’t told me the name, and I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find it or it wasn’t available or something. Now, I just started laughing at myself for getting so frustrated about that stupid one book. It’s crazy, but I think that this experience is making me approximately ten times more patient and understanding of craziness. I’m starting to fall in love with Cuba, but don’t worry, folks, I’m still missing my Boston a TON (I still love that dirty water… oh, oh, Boston you’re my home!!!). I have my friend Zehra’s postcards that she gave me from Boston up on my wall, in addition to my guardian angel and St. Theresa prayer cards, and my pictures of HCL Tech Services, my best friends from high school, and my fam-fam.

I miss you all and hope that the semester is going well for you!!! Also, if you are in a swing state this election, please let me remind you ever so gently that YOU MUST GET OUT AND VOTE!!! THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIMES!!! GO GO GO!!

Eh-hem. Sorry about that. God bless and hope everyone’s keeping safe and healthy!!! : )