March 4th, 2010

Yesterday we began another month of Spanish classes, this time much less frequent just to keep us in practice. Because there are only three of us, they could not provide us with our own teacher as expected so we began class with the Alabama kids who live in our hotel (by chance- what a small island huh?) and guess what!? It was too easy. Kind of nice to feel like I’ve improved even just a little. Hopefully we’ll figure out some better option. After class we went to a 24 hour sandwich stop, a busy pizza place, and a stand by the bus stop- none of which were open for lunch. Oh well. That morning we started the day with Third World Underdevelopment and Politics class near the hometel where we got into a heated argument about a recent news story about a political prisoner dying of a hunger strike in a Cuban prison. It was exhausting.

Then today we got up early and hoped on a bus to Camagüey for a program excursion. Parts of my credit hours include various visits and these trips to other parts of the island. I had a really great time on the last excursion to Santa Clara, and I promise to take some pictures while here as I’ve left the camera in its bag recently- my apologies.
I don’t know much about Camagüey or Las Tunas, but it is an inland area in the middle of the island. We spent pretty much the entire day on a long (seven hour) and extremely bouncy ride (no shocks on the bus and bad roads) through the country. Totally worth it; I really enjoy the country landscape, the horse carts and the giant oxen trudging through the red dirt.

2/8/10

Spanish class today and then met with the Federation of University Students- Federacion estudiantil universitario. It is the student body group that Fidel was involved in (I believe) as the revolution picked up. It is definitely cool and inspiring to see a student body so influential and integral in the makings of a revolution. It is something to be inspired by, though less applicable in Tufts U.’s riot-proof dormitories. I was reminded a lot of Thailand, today because Veronika (who is taking a Cuban culture class rather than language) told us about the superstitious beliefs held by some Cubans.
-Most Cubans don’t wear black because they believe it brings heavy/dark things
-Some Cubans pay thousands of pesos (aka hundreds of dollars) to become saints if they believe it will make them have better times.
-Santeria, a common religion, sometimes uses voodoo.
-Some people will seek and follow advice which leads them to stop working or change careers, stop eating a certain food, or following certain routines to improve aspect of their lives. Obviously, this could be very difficult in a place where money does not come easily.

I had experienced similar things in Thailand, where, following the advice of a monk, people would avoid driving, change jobs, or follow other instructions for several months. Of course, a lot of Cuba is not religious at all, and would prescribe such behavior as silly. To each his own.

The day involved Spanish class (subjunctive, I wish that you were easier!), meeting students from the FEU student union (we will be having continued contact with them and they seem very nice!), strawberry ice cream, and a bus ride home. Venezuelan news on tv again. They don’t have the much praise for the United States, just in case any one is wondering.

2.4.10

Now that classes have started, there has been less time to blog. I was placed in advanced Spanish, which was nice. The four of us all got assigned that level, so it will be good to do homework together some nights. The class has about 14 students in it from Japan, Italy, the US (Princeton), Germany, Algeria, England and Canada. There are a variety of ages in the class, 20 being the youngest. Anyway, we were all saying our names and where we were from and the teacher asked how old I was because you had to be 18 to be in the class. I got super red and told her I was 20, which drew some laughs. THEN she says, oh! 20, I thought you were more like 12 or 15. Later the same day this guy we see around the neighborhood came over to say hello and gave the other girls a kiss on the cheek and me one on the forehead. Then he asked whose daughter I was, anyway. My life!
But in any case we have now had a couple days of Spanish class and though my brain is fried after, they are fun and I think/hope they are helpful. We’ve also been cooking for really cheap, so I can now make a pretty good medley of things, or at least enough to get by on.
The last update I have is on a really neat experience we had yesterday. A few days ago we met a professional Cuban boxer who was working his second job as security at a club. He invited us to see him box and we decided to go. It was so cool! His class was a wide distribution of ages, from 5 to 35 or so. It was so interesting to watch them learn the sport. We had a really good time and hope to go to one of his matches.