April 20b 2010

Tuesday, the 20th of April marked my last diving adventure (in Cuba : ( ). Our driver (a friend of the previous one) seemed a bit nervous, and when asked, admitted he hadn’t slept much the night before because he was preoccupied with the idea of crabs crossing the road and of flat tires. In any case, we got off to a much earlier start and arrived about two hours earlier than the previous time, taking far fewer crab lives in the process. The visitors from Presbyterian College brought me an underwater camera p’ my request and I couldn’t wait to go. The first dive, honestly, was a bit of a disaster. Everything had gone so swimmingly (sorry! Pun intended) the dive the week before that I wasn’t expecting such setbacks. First I had a hard time equalizing and had to slow my descent considerably. Then, though I didn’t realize it until I surfaced later, I got a bloody nose during the middle of the dive. My underwater camera wasn’t working for me, and I just couldn’t get into the feeling.
An hour later, after a pick me up of some wheat thins I brought from home which I shared with my diving buddies (they thought they were very strangely colored for crackers,’ but… yeah, I’ll take some more…’) I was feeling a bit more optimistic. Coco told me not to worry- we would take a slow descent and the bloody nose was nothing to be concerned about even if it came back during the second dive. At first my ear killed. I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to dive at all to be honest. But with some patience and time, we managed to go down quite a few meters and eventually made it to the terrace edge. This last dive felt really, really solid. I feel like I can control myself and navigate in and around the reef beds. When we were in a patch reef Coco directed our attention to a large barracuda not too far in the distance. We swam slowly up to it, and it watched us with a wide toothy grin. We got about two meters away and I snapped a picture. Then we decided to move on… I was feeling uneasy because I had the inkling that my bloody nose had come back and I could only imagine the starter course a whiff of that might provide this meat loving fish. After we had swum a bit we turned around to see the barracuda had followed us a short ways. The next scene was pretty hilarious. Simultaneously and as if on cue, Katie, Orlando and Coco all pointed at each other. “Take them, not me!”, they signaled to the fish. It left us alone when we couldn’t reach a sacrificial consensus.
The dives were amazing. I hope my pictures came out and I’m so grateful to have had the camera. When I was younger I would dream of having the ability to fly and to my surprise, diving has given me that sensation. I predict I will thrist for flying…or rather, diving this summer. I am going to look into doing it in Portland. We grabbed a sandwich and some ice cream for lunch on the way home and joked with each other on the ride. I am going to miss a lot of Cubans when I leave this place, but my diving team is definitely high on that list.

22 de Abril

The last couple days have truly been a whirlwind of activity. I am getting very concerned about leaving this place so soon. I feel like a quarter of the time, when I’m smooshed into a crevice on the bus, as I leave the grocery store empty handed, or I see a new tourist checking into the hometel, I can’t wait to leave. But the majority of the time it is just the opposite. Today as I rode a maquina to a Cuban friend’s house it struck me just how little time I have left here in this country. While my list of things to do is not very long (drink a mojito- Check! on the malecon-Check!) I have come to the conclusion that I could stay here for an extended period of time and be happy. My time here is running out! I write this fifteen minutes before midnight, after which I will have exactly 11 days left in my study abroad experience. Of course the fact that we filled out course and program evaluations today did not help to give the feeling of longevity to my stay here.
I feel very guilty for getting so behind on this blog. The girls and I recently hosted a few professors and directors from Presbyterian College (the college who runs this study abroad program). I had a similar experience to the time when I sat in on the intermediate Spanish class. We found ourselves explaining the intricacies of Cuban life and culture to these visiting professors of history. While I certainly do not profess to know all there is to know about Cuba (I am SO far from that reality), I felt, to an extent, that I had gained a more profound understanding of how society functions here and it was pretty validating to explain what I do know to our visitors. They also took us out to dinner which was a welcome break from our unvarying meals. Interestingly, we ended up at one of the restaurants we went to during orientation. It was another serendipitous moment to see just how far we have come from our original naivety.

4/18/10

Yesterday I was walking through old Havana with some of the group. Beautiful ladies- a guy called. We tuned it out and kept walking. ‘Ugly ladies!’ he shouted. We looked over our shoulder… excuse me? ‘See, ‘beautiful ladies’ you do nothing’ he said, ‘ugly ladies you turn around’’. He got us. Kudos for wit.
We went to an artisians market (which was huge). I’d really like to buy and bring home a painting. I find, however, that when I’m at the vendors’ stalls and people are trying to get me to buy their goods, I loose all perspective. Why would anyone want to buy this art that they sell at literally every stall here, I wonder. But when I’m home I’ll wonder, ‘god, why didn’t I buy that art, I’ll never have that opportunity again, for sure! In any case, I’m sitting on it- I’ll go back if I need to buy anything.

April 15th. written in Cuba posted in the US

Normal routine of class, reading, an adventure at the market and cooking dinner today. I think I am becoming a better cook because we’ve gotten sick of eating just rice or just pasta for dinner.

For my dawgs!