Thursday, July 23, 2009
Photos are up!!
http://picasaweb.google.com/aileenbean/JuneToJulyCapitalismToSocialismTheStatesToCuba?authkey=Gv1sRgCNa658fM6L6WRA&feat=directlink
Monday, July 20, 2009
On a flight from the Bahamas back to NY then FINALLY to OAKLAND, CA!!!
I am leaving this warm, tropical island full of sandy beaches, shops, and strolling tourists to reutrn to my warm, dry, ,bussing, growing and gritty-at-times Oakland, California. I imagine walking around the lake feeling like an average, normal person. I imagine sitting on some steps in my neighborhood without strangers' stares due to my ethnicity or whistles and smooching noises due to my gender. I have never looked forward so much to seeming like nothing more than ordinary.
The transition to Cuba to the Bahamas was rough for me. It was definitely very exciting to meet up with Lacy, a Social Studies/History teacher at our school, and compare our travel experiences and discuss the implications of the month in Cuba that Miquila had enjoyed (and at other times endured). However, to paraphrase Omari to whom I had described the experience, I was going from being an outsider looking only able to look in to being in a country full of outsiders, and the lifestyles seem to be at opposite extremes.
I will probably never forget when in Cuba, after learning that the average income is about $25/month, Miquila and I were strolling around a mall and noticed a dinner place set of plates and bowls for 4 people that cost the equivalent of over $60. We stood, stared, and wondered how the average Cuban could ever afford something that we Americans would not think twice about purchasing, perhaps multiple times in a life time. It seemed to take but a blink of the eye to be transported to the Bahamas and its streets full of jewelry stores, clothing shops, and affluent foreigners perusing all of this stuff. Our cab driver told us about the million dollar condos being built here, there, and everywhere. I couldn't help but imagine how many homes could be bought and/or upgraded in Cuba for the cost of one condominium on the land of its neighboring island. I saw for the first time in a month McDonald's, Burger King, Quiznos, etc., and it made feel uneasy that I could be in a different country, thousands of miles away from home, and still feel like I was living the typical American lifestyle.
Then I saw a small fruit stand, a rogue business without a sign on the side of the road with just a small woman standing behind a wooden plank that served as a table, and I began to appreciate the uniqueness of Cuba.
The transition to Cuba to the Bahamas was rough for me. It was definitely very exciting to meet up with Lacy, a Social Studies/History teacher at our school, and compare our travel experiences and discuss the implications of the month in Cuba that Miquila had enjoyed (and at other times endured). However, to paraphrase Omari to whom I had described the experience, I was going from being an outsider looking only able to look in to being in a country full of outsiders, and the lifestyles seem to be at opposite extremes.
I will probably never forget when in Cuba, after learning that the average income is about $25/month, Miquila and I were strolling around a mall and noticed a dinner place set of plates and bowls for 4 people that cost the equivalent of over $60. We stood, stared, and wondered how the average Cuban could ever afford something that we Americans would not think twice about purchasing, perhaps multiple times in a life time. It seemed to take but a blink of the eye to be transported to the Bahamas and its streets full of jewelry stores, clothing shops, and affluent foreigners perusing all of this stuff. Our cab driver told us about the million dollar condos being built here, there, and everywhere. I couldn't help but imagine how many homes could be bought and/or upgraded in Cuba for the cost of one condominium on the land of its neighboring island. I saw for the first time in a month McDonald's, Burger King, Quiznos, etc., and it made feel uneasy that I could be in a different country, thousands of miles away from home, and still feel like I was living the typical American lifestyle.
Then I saw a small fruit stand, a rogue business without a sign on the side of the road with just a small woman standing behind a wooden plank that served as a table, and I began to appreciate the uniqueness of Cuba.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
7-15 High hopes plummet WAY down…. :( :( :(
I don’t even know how to describe the back-ass-ward-ness of today’s events in Cuba.
We arrived two hours early for our 12pm flight to the Bahamas on Cubana Airlines. There was a separate tour group who had booked their flights last Sunday waiting in line with us. The agents directed this group to the front of the line. Shortly thereafter, they told us that the 42-seat airplane was full. We looked around and saw that about 40 passengers had been left stranded at the airport. We waited about another hour, and finally they booked us at the Hotel Chateau in Havana, where Miquila and I had a lunch of bruschetta and then promptly got sick.
Que lástima. Cuba is not doing a very good job of asking us back....
Aileen
We arrived two hours early for our 12pm flight to the Bahamas on Cubana Airlines. There was a separate tour group who had booked their flights last Sunday waiting in line with us. The agents directed this group to the front of the line. Shortly thereafter, they told us that the 42-seat airplane was full. We looked around and saw that about 40 passengers had been left stranded at the airport. We waited about another hour, and finally they booked us at the Hotel Chateau in Havana, where Miquila and I had a lunch of bruschetta and then promptly got sick.
Que lástima. Cuba is not doing a very good job of asking us back....
Aileen
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thursday, June 9th, 2009
At the mouth of the cave, where we stopped to be photogenic, he suggested we take off our shoes and leave them there. Even in this seemingly remote area, we hesitated much before complying. And just when we had decided it was ok, he said, “Take off your pants.”
Touching shoulders that we might be able to follow his path through the pitch darkness, our fist time in a cave, we ventured forward barefoot and barelegged. When you’re half naked with cave water up to your chest and have no idea what squishy thing you’re stepping on, following a 23 year old guide whose name you don’t even know in a strange country far from home, you become giddy. We giggled the whole trek through until we saw the sunlight again.
To get back to… grass level?... we climbed boulders with only our wet toes for traction. I’ve always considered myself adventurous in these sorts of nature-adventure experiences, but this time I found myself the most cautious of the bunch. Each gap between the boulders sent my heart racing anew. “Como que no vas a pueder?” he asked, but I made it.
At the top he points to a plant that looks much like all the other plants and says, “Don’t step on that. Don’t even run your skin on it. It’ll sting you bad.” Then he hurries ahead of us. I call out, “You’ll tell us when there’s another one like it?” But he is too far ahead to answer. I avoid everything green while treading as lightly as possible on the pokey ground. I don’t know where he has gone, or how long this walk will be, and consider stepping in horse poo to relieve my feet. I refrain, and soon we arrive at a pond-ish lake with a little waterfall. We take a break in the water.
Half an hour later we remount our horses and head to farmer Juan Cabeza’s house. I forgot to mention our horses. Aileen’s, called Cookie, is definitely the alpha horse, and insists on being in the front at all times. Mine has my mom’s maiden name! The horse Lucero is a lollygagger, who moseys about at his own pace and stops to munch whenever the guide is not paying too much attention to him. Anyway, Juan cuts us coconuts from his tree, slices them open with a trained hand and adds honey to its water. His wife brings out mangos and pineapples while he talks to us about what it’s like to be a farmer in Cuba, about the difficulties of leaving for the States, and about hurricanes like the one that tore down his hand-made house last year. Then he taught us about Tobacco and making a pure Cuban cigar.
Lets see what I can remember of this, and then I’m going to end this entry. Tobacco is a really tough plant to grow. 90% of his tobacco, by law, goes to the government at a price which they determine. The other 10% he sells himself. You cut the top of the tobacco plant to make it stop growing up and start growing wide. From the bottom layer of the plant, you take 2 leaves, from the next lowest layer, 3 leaves. These, the government uses to make cigarettes, because they are the weakest in strength. From each of the next three layers he takes another 3, except maybe the top layer, called the Corona, from which I think he takes two. Leaves taken from the Corona are the strongest, and the darkest. The darker the leaf, the stronger it is. The leaves are dried and rubbed flat, the ones that crackle into pieces are put inside the cigar. Nicer leaves are used to roll it. He used honey like glue to keep it closed. I’ve tried a couple cigars while I’ve been here, and this was by far the best tasting. He ferments his leaves in rum, honey and lemon juice!
At the mouth of the cave, where we stopped to be photogenic, he suggested we take off our shoes and leave them there. Even in this seemingly remote area, we hesitated much before complying. And just when we had decided it was ok, he said, “Take off your pants.”
Touching shoulders that we might be able to follow his path through the pitch darkness, our fist time in a cave, we ventured forward barefoot and barelegged. When you’re half naked with cave water up to your chest and have no idea what squishy thing you’re stepping on, following a 23 year old guide whose name you don’t even know in a strange country far from home, you become giddy. We giggled the whole trek through until we saw the sunlight again.
To get back to… grass level?... we climbed boulders with only our wet toes for traction. I’ve always considered myself adventurous in these sorts of nature-adventure experiences, but this time I found myself the most cautious of the bunch. Each gap between the boulders sent my heart racing anew. “Como que no vas a pueder?” he asked, but I made it.
At the top he points to a plant that looks much like all the other plants and says, “Don’t step on that. Don’t even run your skin on it. It’ll sting you bad.” Then he hurries ahead of us. I call out, “You’ll tell us when there’s another one like it?” But he is too far ahead to answer. I avoid everything green while treading as lightly as possible on the pokey ground. I don’t know where he has gone, or how long this walk will be, and consider stepping in horse poo to relieve my feet. I refrain, and soon we arrive at a pond-ish lake with a little waterfall. We take a break in the water.
Half an hour later we remount our horses and head to farmer Juan Cabeza’s house. I forgot to mention our horses. Aileen’s, called Cookie, is definitely the alpha horse, and insists on being in the front at all times. Mine has my mom’s maiden name! The horse Lucero is a lollygagger, who moseys about at his own pace and stops to munch whenever the guide is not paying too much attention to him. Anyway, Juan cuts us coconuts from his tree, slices them open with a trained hand and adds honey to its water. His wife brings out mangos and pineapples while he talks to us about what it’s like to be a farmer in Cuba, about the difficulties of leaving for the States, and about hurricanes like the one that tore down his hand-made house last year. Then he taught us about Tobacco and making a pure Cuban cigar.
Lets see what I can remember of this, and then I’m going to end this entry. Tobacco is a really tough plant to grow. 90% of his tobacco, by law, goes to the government at a price which they determine. The other 10% he sells himself. You cut the top of the tobacco plant to make it stop growing up and start growing wide. From the bottom layer of the plant, you take 2 leaves, from the next lowest layer, 3 leaves. These, the government uses to make cigarettes, because they are the weakest in strength. From each of the next three layers he takes another 3, except maybe the top layer, called the Corona, from which I think he takes two. Leaves taken from the Corona are the strongest, and the darkest. The darker the leaf, the stronger it is. The leaves are dried and rubbed flat, the ones that crackle into pieces are put inside the cigar. Nicer leaves are used to roll it. He used honey like glue to keep it closed. I’ve tried a couple cigars while I’ve been here, and this was by far the best tasting. He ferments his leaves in rum, honey and lemon juice!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
7-9 Finally, to answer your questions….
From Lacy
So you are taking Spanish for a week? I mean we teach kids all year and they learn nothing, what is a week going to do?
Ha! You sure have great enthusiasm and hope; I can’t wait to work in the same house with you.
Without student visas, they would not let us enroll in the classes. Plus, it turns out that Habana University only has 2-week long classes. The time and budget constraints meant that we couldn’t learn Spanish at the University, but of course we continue to practice the informal way – through the many interesting conversations with the talkative Cubans and through reading math and other books at the local library here.
What exactly do the Cuban representatives say when asked (about limited TV and media availability)?
I asked our hostess at the hostel and the expression on her face seemed to say that she thought it was an absurd question. She does not think there is censorship here. There are 4 main channels – two educational, one with news from around the world, and another with movies, TV series, and soap operas. There is an additional channel which broadcasts province-specific information. Our tour guide from Global Exchange also said that foreign movies, including those from the U.S., are available although certain portions are censored, such as scenes involving sex. Ironically, Cubans seem to think that the media we get in the U.S. is much skewed and perpetrates the illusion of freedom.
From Anne Ferrell
Do the students wear uniforms? Are some students named "Pioneros? sp....are there ways to recognize special achievents? What level do parents participate? Do the students rest from 12 to noon? What is the academic year like?
There is a uniform for primary school and one for secondary school. It seems like primary school students are called pioneers and it is mostly a name attributed to defenders of the socialist system. There is an initiation ritual which goes along with becoming a pioneer and includes receiving a pioneer “bandera”/scarf. We spoke to the father of our hostess who has been a primary school teacher for 42 years and he says that students receive awards in assemblies and sometimes along with a small item such as a pencil or notebook. Parents definitely participate a lot. Before starting school, there is a program called Educa Su Hijo which specifically teaches parents how to teach their kids (e.g. how to ask guiding questions so that kids are observant and curious learners). In elementary school, each class has a parent representative as part of the Consejos de Padres. I’m not sure in middle/high school, but we’ll be finding out soon. The students do get a lunch time. I’m not sure for how long. Their academic year is very similar to ours with school starting the first week of September after the teachers have one week of preparation time. They get holidays amounting to a comparable amount of time as the U.S. They also get about a month and a half off during the summer, and have to come back about a week before the school year starts to prepare as a staff.
The beaches are great. Do you have lectures, presentations, tours every night? Have you seen any of their jazz greats? visited the music conservatory in Havana? are you going to Oriente? What's planned for July 26th? Do you have any pins?
With Global Exchange, we had lectures, presentation, and tours every night. We have been able to go to cultural events, including Teatro Mello to see a Jazz/Hip Hop show by Banay Suarez and the Karl Marx Teatro to see a ballet of Romeo and Juliet, although we didn’t visit the music conservatory. We decided not to visit Oriente since we didn’t budget for such extensive travel throughout the country in our Fund for Teachers grant, and, unfortunately, transportation for foreigners here is much more expensive than for Cubans. The prices are actually comparable to US travel prices. For instance, you can take Greyhound from Sac to SF for $16. Here, for a trip of similar distance we paid CUC$12. I guess we’ll also miss the celebration of the revolution on July 26th as we’ll be back in the States on July 20th. We’re not sure what you mean by pins. They have pins, like of little flags, in the tourist stands. Did you want one?
From Omari
Have you sworn off capitalism yet?
I think I was actually more anti-capitalist before I came to Cuba than I am now, but my previous anti-capitalism was born out of ignorance of any alternatives. It’s funny because now that I know more about Cuba and their version of socialism, I feel even more uncertain about my opinion on the subject. I suppose the way things usually go, the more I learn, the less I seem to know. I do know for sure, however, that I would like to experience the European version of socialism.
I can see advantages and disadvantages to both systems. The Cubans are very warm, inviting, there is a very strong sense of community, and the country overall seems to have a sense of solidarity. Every person knows who Che and Fidel are and the central values of socialism. Starting in first grade, they are exposed to the history of the country and are familiarized with people instrumental in shaping the country into what it is today. We don’t have that kind of solidarity in the United States. Nor do we have this belief that absolutely everyone deserves the same basic necessities of food, shelter, and an education. And, of course, I love the fact that the government truly does support education. However, the people here live in poverty. The lower class in the United States lives in luxury compared to the middle class here. As much of an anti-materialist as I am, I relish in the fact that I have so much stuff available to me in the States – I can eat a vegan diet, I can go out and buy clothes on a whim, I can live in a top floor, studio apartment, etc. However, the biggest criticism I have of the Cuban system is the lack of internet communication. I think if people are to develop an understanding and acceptance of each other’s cultures, it has to start with being able to communicate with others.
From Susan Cristancho
I've read that the Cuban people are 98% literate. Can you find out if this is true?
Yes! This is true. In the year 1961, there was an anti-literacy campaign which lasted 11 months which effectively eliminated the previous literacy problem (almost 1/3 of the population could not read beyond a fifth grade level). The campaign was called “Yo si puedo,” and was comprised of teachers and volunteer elementary and secondary school students, focusing on those in rural areas and women. The teachers relied heavily on video taped curriculum. The elementary and secondary school students lived out in the rural villages along with the fellow citizens whom they were tutoring. There are very touching pictures of the young teaching the old. While the curriculum went up to fifth grade, there were optional classes for those interested in further advancing their level of literacy. The final exam for this program was to write a letter to Fidel Castro.
- Aileen
So you are taking Spanish for a week? I mean we teach kids all year and they learn nothing, what is a week going to do?
Ha! You sure have great enthusiasm and hope; I can’t wait to work in the same house with you.
Without student visas, they would not let us enroll in the classes. Plus, it turns out that Habana University only has 2-week long classes. The time and budget constraints meant that we couldn’t learn Spanish at the University, but of course we continue to practice the informal way – through the many interesting conversations with the talkative Cubans and through reading math and other books at the local library here.
What exactly do the Cuban representatives say when asked (about limited TV and media availability)?
I asked our hostess at the hostel and the expression on her face seemed to say that she thought it was an absurd question. She does not think there is censorship here. There are 4 main channels – two educational, one with news from around the world, and another with movies, TV series, and soap operas. There is an additional channel which broadcasts province-specific information. Our tour guide from Global Exchange also said that foreign movies, including those from the U.S., are available although certain portions are censored, such as scenes involving sex. Ironically, Cubans seem to think that the media we get in the U.S. is much skewed and perpetrates the illusion of freedom.
From Anne Ferrell
Do the students wear uniforms? Are some students named "Pioneros? sp....are there ways to recognize special achievents? What level do parents participate? Do the students rest from 12 to noon? What is the academic year like?
There is a uniform for primary school and one for secondary school. It seems like primary school students are called pioneers and it is mostly a name attributed to defenders of the socialist system. There is an initiation ritual which goes along with becoming a pioneer and includes receiving a pioneer “bandera”/scarf. We spoke to the father of our hostess who has been a primary school teacher for 42 years and he says that students receive awards in assemblies and sometimes along with a small item such as a pencil or notebook. Parents definitely participate a lot. Before starting school, there is a program called Educa Su Hijo which specifically teaches parents how to teach their kids (e.g. how to ask guiding questions so that kids are observant and curious learners). In elementary school, each class has a parent representative as part of the Consejos de Padres. I’m not sure in middle/high school, but we’ll be finding out soon. The students do get a lunch time. I’m not sure for how long. Their academic year is very similar to ours with school starting the first week of September after the teachers have one week of preparation time. They get holidays amounting to a comparable amount of time as the U.S. They also get about a month and a half off during the summer, and have to come back about a week before the school year starts to prepare as a staff.
The beaches are great. Do you have lectures, presentations, tours every night? Have you seen any of their jazz greats? visited the music conservatory in Havana? are you going to Oriente? What's planned for July 26th? Do you have any pins?
With Global Exchange, we had lectures, presentation, and tours every night. We have been able to go to cultural events, including Teatro Mello to see a Jazz/Hip Hop show by Banay Suarez and the Karl Marx Teatro to see a ballet of Romeo and Juliet, although we didn’t visit the music conservatory. We decided not to visit Oriente since we didn’t budget for such extensive travel throughout the country in our Fund for Teachers grant, and, unfortunately, transportation for foreigners here is much more expensive than for Cubans. The prices are actually comparable to US travel prices. For instance, you can take Greyhound from Sac to SF for $16. Here, for a trip of similar distance we paid CUC$12. I guess we’ll also miss the celebration of the revolution on July 26th as we’ll be back in the States on July 20th. We’re not sure what you mean by pins. They have pins, like of little flags, in the tourist stands. Did you want one?
From Omari
Have you sworn off capitalism yet?
I think I was actually more anti-capitalist before I came to Cuba than I am now, but my previous anti-capitalism was born out of ignorance of any alternatives. It’s funny because now that I know more about Cuba and their version of socialism, I feel even more uncertain about my opinion on the subject. I suppose the way things usually go, the more I learn, the less I seem to know. I do know for sure, however, that I would like to experience the European version of socialism.
I can see advantages and disadvantages to both systems. The Cubans are very warm, inviting, there is a very strong sense of community, and the country overall seems to have a sense of solidarity. Every person knows who Che and Fidel are and the central values of socialism. Starting in first grade, they are exposed to the history of the country and are familiarized with people instrumental in shaping the country into what it is today. We don’t have that kind of solidarity in the United States. Nor do we have this belief that absolutely everyone deserves the same basic necessities of food, shelter, and an education. And, of course, I love the fact that the government truly does support education. However, the people here live in poverty. The lower class in the United States lives in luxury compared to the middle class here. As much of an anti-materialist as I am, I relish in the fact that I have so much stuff available to me in the States – I can eat a vegan diet, I can go out and buy clothes on a whim, I can live in a top floor, studio apartment, etc. However, the biggest criticism I have of the Cuban system is the lack of internet communication. I think if people are to develop an understanding and acceptance of each other’s cultures, it has to start with being able to communicate with others.
From Susan Cristancho
I've read that the Cuban people are 98% literate. Can you find out if this is true?
Yes! This is true. In the year 1961, there was an anti-literacy campaign which lasted 11 months which effectively eliminated the previous literacy problem (almost 1/3 of the population could not read beyond a fifth grade level). The campaign was called “Yo si puedo,” and was comprised of teachers and volunteer elementary and secondary school students, focusing on those in rural areas and women. The teachers relied heavily on video taped curriculum. The elementary and secondary school students lived out in the rural villages along with the fellow citizens whom they were tutoring. There are very touching pictures of the young teaching the old. While the curriculum went up to fifth grade, there were optional classes for those interested in further advancing their level of literacy. The final exam for this program was to write a letter to Fidel Castro.
- Aileen
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Two in one day!
7-8
Conversation with Oralys’s dad who has worked for 42 years as a teacher:
Why are Cuban students so successful? The students have exact same thing as teacher – all of them – and can follow along with exactly what the teacher does. I’m thinking he meant graphic organizers.
How are new teachers trained? Older teachers are tutors for new teachers. The younger teachers watch a master teacher for the first six months of the school year, then the following six months they go back to the university. New teachers can have support for six years. After the third year of university, a new teacher goes to a school and has their own class. The master teacher/tutor and someone from the university observe the new teacher each week. Tutors plan classes with the new teacher together. There is a ratio of 1 tutor: 1 new teacher. To qualify to be a master teacher/tutor, you must have received your license (graduated).
What if there is a bad teacher? Everyone tries to help. During the first year, especially, teachers need help. The director, people from the municipality and province, and co-workers, all will observe and give feedback to help the teacher. You can never fire a teacher. The job of the director (something like U.S. principles) is to teach the teachers.
How are school sizes? Some have 300 students per school; in the rural areas there may be only 30 students. Class sizes may vary but in primary school it is no more than 25. (There is a 20:1 student:teacher ratio in these classes. If the class is larger than 20, there are two teachers in the room).
How much do teachers/directors make? Right now, I make 22CUC/month. This is more than enough. Directors do not make any more than teachers.
What sort of rewards are there for students? At the end of the school year, students receive a diploma. If they don’t receive one, they need to repeat the grade. It is not unusual to have 2 kids per year held back. Some teachers also give awards in front of the whole class/(not sure if he said class or in a larger assembly), like a certificate and maybe a pencils, notebook, etc.
What about bad conduct? Normally, the teacher talks to the students and parents. We meet with ALL the parents one day per month. There is Special School for severe conduct and learning problems, such as aggressive behavior (hitting, throwing, etc.) or when the student is unable to learn at the same pace. Students stay at the Special School for as long as necessary; some return soon other stay for the rest of their academic career.
7/8
The Cuban View of Fidel
So let me jump straight to it. Most Americans see Fidel as a dictator ruling over oppressed people, many of whom drown to see America shores. I came to Cuba with as open of a mind as I could. Given that what I had heard of Fidel through talks with others and the media seemed to be very negative, I was careful to try to put that lens aside during this trip. Granted, I don’t have a good sample population, but 3 out of 4 people who I’ve had the opportunity to have in depth conversations with – an elementary school teacher, an editor at an educational news station, a high school Spanish/literature teacher, and a farmer – seem to overall have very positive views of Cuba. And, to be honest, I am impressed by Fidel, Che, et al. Where else in the world has there been a Robin-Hood-style operation done on such a grand scale (in Cuba’s case, to the tune of 11 million people)? Where else in the world guarantees that the poorest of the poor, including the beggar on the street, will receive a free education all the way through the doctoral level along with free healthcare?
I spoke to Miriam, the high-school Spanish teacher, about Fidel and the economy and her response was remarkably like those I’ve heard earlier. She said that the economy is so-so, but that she has everything that she needs. She showed me her one room shack, with concrete block walls, tin roofing, two beds, and a toilet. There were square holes in the concrete that when covered by fabric made for windows, and the door mat consisted of half of a pair of red denim jeans. She offered me “mangitos” – one to eat and three to take home – a bucket of water to wash my hands in, and a rag to wipe the runny juices off of my arms. I felt poor in that I had nothing to offer her in return. And then she spoke of how in the United States we are blinded by the media, our eyes covered from the truth, and that there is none of that blindness in Cuba.
I also spoke to Juan, a farmer descended from generations of farmers. While he was hopeful that travel restrictions would be relaxed with a new president in the U.S., he was certain that he wanted to stay living in Cuba even though he complained that the government took a lot of his profit (note that farmers are the amongst the wealthiest people here). I wonder how much validity there is in each side’s version of the truth, and I also wonder about the validity of each sides’ judgment of the others’ government. My fellow citizens of the United States from Global Exchange and friends back home believe to varying degrees that it is unnecessary for Cubans to live in such impoverished conditions and many believe the government is purposely oppressing the people. The Cubans I’ve met believe it is unnecessary for U.S. citizens to live without values, community, solidarity, and that the revolution will one day come to our shores too – i.e. that the people will not always be blinded. But, really, who is either one of us to impose such judgment? Perhaps we should revel in the fact that we are exactly where we want to be or else find a country which suites us. After all, where does all of this judgment really get us?
Conversation with Oralys’s dad who has worked for 42 years as a teacher:
Why are Cuban students so successful? The students have exact same thing as teacher – all of them – and can follow along with exactly what the teacher does. I’m thinking he meant graphic organizers.
How are new teachers trained? Older teachers are tutors for new teachers. The younger teachers watch a master teacher for the first six months of the school year, then the following six months they go back to the university. New teachers can have support for six years. After the third year of university, a new teacher goes to a school and has their own class. The master teacher/tutor and someone from the university observe the new teacher each week. Tutors plan classes with the new teacher together. There is a ratio of 1 tutor: 1 new teacher. To qualify to be a master teacher/tutor, you must have received your license (graduated).
What if there is a bad teacher? Everyone tries to help. During the first year, especially, teachers need help. The director, people from the municipality and province, and co-workers, all will observe and give feedback to help the teacher. You can never fire a teacher. The job of the director (something like U.S. principles) is to teach the teachers.
How are school sizes? Some have 300 students per school; in the rural areas there may be only 30 students. Class sizes may vary but in primary school it is no more than 25. (There is a 20:1 student:teacher ratio in these classes. If the class is larger than 20, there are two teachers in the room).
How much do teachers/directors make? Right now, I make 22CUC/month. This is more than enough. Directors do not make any more than teachers.
What sort of rewards are there for students? At the end of the school year, students receive a diploma. If they don’t receive one, they need to repeat the grade. It is not unusual to have 2 kids per year held back. Some teachers also give awards in front of the whole class/(not sure if he said class or in a larger assembly), like a certificate and maybe a pencils, notebook, etc.
What about bad conduct? Normally, the teacher talks to the students and parents. We meet with ALL the parents one day per month. There is Special School for severe conduct and learning problems, such as aggressive behavior (hitting, throwing, etc.) or when the student is unable to learn at the same pace. Students stay at the Special School for as long as necessary; some return soon other stay for the rest of their academic career.
7/8
The Cuban View of Fidel
So let me jump straight to it. Most Americans see Fidel as a dictator ruling over oppressed people, many of whom drown to see America shores. I came to Cuba with as open of a mind as I could. Given that what I had heard of Fidel through talks with others and the media seemed to be very negative, I was careful to try to put that lens aside during this trip. Granted, I don’t have a good sample population, but 3 out of 4 people who I’ve had the opportunity to have in depth conversations with – an elementary school teacher, an editor at an educational news station, a high school Spanish/literature teacher, and a farmer – seem to overall have very positive views of Cuba. And, to be honest, I am impressed by Fidel, Che, et al. Where else in the world has there been a Robin-Hood-style operation done on such a grand scale (in Cuba’s case, to the tune of 11 million people)? Where else in the world guarantees that the poorest of the poor, including the beggar on the street, will receive a free education all the way through the doctoral level along with free healthcare?
I spoke to Miriam, the high-school Spanish teacher, about Fidel and the economy and her response was remarkably like those I’ve heard earlier. She said that the economy is so-so, but that she has everything that she needs. She showed me her one room shack, with concrete block walls, tin roofing, two beds, and a toilet. There were square holes in the concrete that when covered by fabric made for windows, and the door mat consisted of half of a pair of red denim jeans. She offered me “mangitos” – one to eat and three to take home – a bucket of water to wash my hands in, and a rag to wipe the runny juices off of my arms. I felt poor in that I had nothing to offer her in return. And then she spoke of how in the United States we are blinded by the media, our eyes covered from the truth, and that there is none of that blindness in Cuba.
I also spoke to Juan, a farmer descended from generations of farmers. While he was hopeful that travel restrictions would be relaxed with a new president in the U.S., he was certain that he wanted to stay living in Cuba even though he complained that the government took a lot of his profit (note that farmers are the amongst the wealthiest people here). I wonder how much validity there is in each side’s version of the truth, and I also wonder about the validity of each sides’ judgment of the others’ government. My fellow citizens of the United States from Global Exchange and friends back home believe to varying degrees that it is unnecessary for Cubans to live in such impoverished conditions and many believe the government is purposely oppressing the people. The Cubans I’ve met believe it is unnecessary for U.S. citizens to live without values, community, solidarity, and that the revolution will one day come to our shores too – i.e. that the people will not always be blinded. But, really, who is either one of us to impose such judgment? Perhaps we should revel in the fact that we are exactly where we want to be or else find a country which suites us. After all, where does all of this judgment really get us?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Vinales 7/7
7/7/09
Vinales
In the morning, there was packing to be done.
And I was sick. Again.
So I packed, dozed, packed, dozed.
2pm. We boarded on to a 3 hour, air-conditioned bus ride.
Miquila and I chatted then fell asleep, uncomfortably being rocked to and fro by the windy roads.
I felt my life entrusted to the driver.
I opened my eyes to flat terrain dotted with mounds of fresh green.
We drove through a casa-filled town – Doña Castillo, Casa de Juan, and on and on.
Then hopped off into the heat.
We looked around for the woman with the white flowers as Sra Oralia had told us to do.
Immediately, there were advertisers of Casas pushing and pleading their cases.
Come here! This one has rooms! Stay here! Do you need a place for the night?
Still, wandering, looking, searching…there she is! Señora Oradys.
So we walked. And Walked. In the wet heat.
On the sidewalk.
Along the street.
Through a fence.
Up a paved driveway.
Along a dirt path.
And then – ta dah!
Green yard, rocking chairs on a porch, wooden-slatted windows, low ceilings, flowers abounding.
As La Senora welcomed us into her home, Vinales welcomed us into her countryside with a flash of lightning followed by the sound of the sky being ripped apart and birthing cascading rain.
And I grin from ear to ear.
- Aileen
Vinales
In the morning, there was packing to be done.
And I was sick. Again.
So I packed, dozed, packed, dozed.
2pm. We boarded on to a 3 hour, air-conditioned bus ride.
Miquila and I chatted then fell asleep, uncomfortably being rocked to and fro by the windy roads.
I felt my life entrusted to the driver.
I opened my eyes to flat terrain dotted with mounds of fresh green.
We drove through a casa-filled town – Doña Castillo, Casa de Juan, and on and on.
Then hopped off into the heat.
We looked around for the woman with the white flowers as Sra Oralia had told us to do.
Immediately, there were advertisers of Casas pushing and pleading their cases.
Come here! This one has rooms! Stay here! Do you need a place for the night?
Still, wandering, looking, searching…there she is! Señora Oradys.
So we walked. And Walked. In the wet heat.
On the sidewalk.
Along the street.
Through a fence.
Up a paved driveway.
Along a dirt path.
And then – ta dah!
Green yard, rocking chairs on a porch, wooden-slatted windows, low ceilings, flowers abounding.
As La Senora welcomed us into her home, Vinales welcomed us into her countryside with a flash of lightning followed by the sound of the sky being ripped apart and birthing cascading rain.
And I grin from ear to ear.
- Aileen
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
backlogged
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
Today was a productive day, despite the fact that we didn’t get up until 1:30! J
The truth comes out! The dream of the utopian society has been shattered! Martha Elena, the teacher who so eagerly invited us to observe her classroom, further extended the invitation to her house, located on the second floor of a dilapidated building in Old Havana. She greeted us eagerly with the warmth found in almost every Cuban we’ve met, and then we began questioning away...
We learned so much! The first myth she shattered for us was that teachers earn one of the lowest salaries - less than $20 per month. This is in contrast with what Global Exchange said: that teachers and doctors are two of the most well-paid professions. Marta Elena informed us that cleaning a street could earn over double the pay of a teacher. To worsen the situation, teachers also must go through five years of post-high school training at a university. When we asked her why in God’s name anyone would want to be a teacher, she said this: “I wouldn’t change my job because I like it. I always knew that I would be a teacher, since I was a child. The job is easy if you really like it. We need to teach students values and the best is to teach the values that you have.” She also stressed to us the importance of creating a family within the classroom. She explained how she instilled a Robin Hood-like culture in which those who had snack shared with those who didn’t.
The same generosity that she expects of her students, she also expects of her student’s parents. She said that when she noticed a kid did not have a backpack or some other necessity, she would let a wealthier parent know and ask if they had an old one they could donate, or if they could buy the student one. She said that the parents eagerly agree. She said that in the beginning of the year, she explains to the parents the values that she hopes to instill in their children—things like generosity, patriotism, and love for your fellow human being-- and lets them know that she will not be able to do it without their full support. In her 18 years of teaching, she is yet to have a bad relationship with parents of the children.
However, even in the cocooning warmth of her family/classroom, there have been kids with conduct issues.
Also, interestingly, principals (they are called directors here) get paid the same amount as teachers, and, unlike our system, principals are chosen by the Ministery of Education based on model performance within a school. When teachers are sick, the principal along with the vice principal or what we understand to be the equivalent to the department coach, or a department head that does not have her own classroom, are the substitutes. However, in some cases, the teachers will also cover for each other. It isn’t clear to me how they do this, when, as primary school teachers, they do not have a prep. They eat lunch with the kids, and their “prep” happens after school from 4:30-5:05. Martha says she usually uses that time to reteach a kid who fell behind, clean her classroom, or prepare the materials she will need for the next day. She said teachers work around 10 hours a day, often more, and that they do their preparation and grading at home. They also have to work two Saturdays a month! They ask way too much of them, and pay way too little, if you ask me.
Although Martha should not be considered poor, because she has a job and a place to live, and her kids are in school, one of whom is even a doctor, she is. That’s the tragedy of this system. A teacher in a panel discussion in the beginning of this trip said, “we’re poor, but we’re all poor.” It sounded nice, almost, at the time. But seeing the conditions in which they live, it’s really not very romantic at all. She lives in a slum. Really. We have projects in
So then we asked her about the math curriculum, giving her a few sample problems, and we discovered that our 8th graders are doing Cuban 4th grade work (ouch!). We also asked her about curriculum, books, videos, etc., which she said she didn’t have but would mail to us when school started again in September. She was so hospitable. She said she didn’t have much but made us French fries and put out a plate of sliced ham. Especially considering that it was just ham-- which tasted like Vienna Sausages! Though clearly wasn’t-- it felt like such a sincere and sweet gesture. We just couldn’t leave without reciprocating such generosity, so we asked for a list of items she wanted from the
Ahh….what a day of inspiration.
Aileen and Miquila
Monday, July 6, 2009
HUGE backlog of posts
July 1, 2009
First, let’s talk about sex. We found out on the Global Exchange Tour that the average age to start having sex in Cuba is 13 (compared to 17 or so in the United States). This was a shocker to many of us as it seems like family values are very strong here in Cuba. Apparently, some parents would rather have their children have sex in their houses than somewhere else. Although Cuba is still a homophobic society, there is a government-supported program that campaigns against homophobia by coming into schools and having gay/lesbian speakers, putting up posters encouraging equal treatment, and encouraging dialogue between parents and children. By the way, censorship means that there is no pornography available.
I suppose it doesn’t surprise me much that kids have sex at such a young age. The other evening, I was jogging along the Malecon (sp?), a long water-front walkway and sea wall in Havana. The place was jam-packed with affectionate couples sitting, strolling, laying down, and passing around bottles of rum and cervezas. At the same time, you don’t see people walking around with a line of children behind them. In fact, the average number of children per family is 1.7.
Anyway – enough about sex. Let’s talk about independence. We are free of Global Exchange and our tour guide, air-conditioned bus, planned meals, hotel room, English translation, and dictated itinerary. It’s ironic because while we had not seen a single classroom in Cuba, the first day that we left our hotel, we were asked to come in to observe a primary school within just a few blocks of the hotel. Inside, second graders were already successfully doing problems involving order of operations and multiplying decimals, some of which is not learned until 5th or 6th grade in the U.S.! I am so impressed with their level of math! And the children are just adorable! They were all smiling and very polite in their red and white uniforms. We’ll be back tomorrow to collect their pearls of wisdom and hopefully figure out how to replicate their successes in our classrooms.
Omari also arrived a few days ago. He passes as Cuban, just as long as he doesn’t open his mouth and have his accent identify him as a foreigner. It’s been A LOT of fun having our motley crew from America strolling around Havana. Miquila and I are often identified as Chinese (“eh, China! Que linda!”). We are all staying at Casa Oralia, a hostel-like place owned by a very nice (and also very strange) Senora Oralia. She rambles on and on in her deep voice, clearly tinged by years of smoking, and sometimes in just her bra and panties. At night, we can hear slapping noises through the walls coming from her room. Still, she has been very nice and good resource. For example, she showed us where there was a market, and for the first time since I arrived here I was able to buy fresh fruit. Unfortunately, the fresh fruit hit my digestive system too late. After days of eating fried food, meat, and possibly accidentally consuming dairy-containing foots, my stomach, accustomed to a vegetarian lactose-free diet, rebelled and has been hurting on and off for days now. Nonetheless, the moments of eating mango and papaya and letting the juices run down my arms underneath the hot Cuban sun will probably be one of the most memorable experiences.
Math
The way that Cubans teach math is very, very interesting, and their outcomes are equally impressive. 4th grade students in Cuba are doing what many 8th grade students cannot yet do in the U.S. I met a 6th grader who was able to successfully solve the equation 3x + 2x = 10. To figure out the Cuban secret to math success, Miquila and I went on a little expedition to the Habana University library.
A lot of Cuban math is taught very exploratively. For example, students are asked to do a set of problems built on previous knowledge and then to notice patterns amongst those problems, which then leads to discussion and introduction of new material. Many algebraic concepts are taught at early ages in conjunction with relevant material. For example, place value in 4th grade is taught with base 10 exponents (102 is the hundredths place). Variables are used at early ages in conjunction with introducing multi-digit operations – e.g. if x = 323 and y = 435, what is x times y? In this manner, the students are learning arithmetic while they are learning algebra, whereas in the U.S. when students are introduced to variables, they practically freak out at having letters be next to numbers. Further, students begin to develop an intuition about whether answers are right or wrong by being taught to check their answers and also by estimating answers through rounding. Also, unlike in the U.S., each lesson is very scripted, with time for student work, teacher led discussion, and further discussion by students. There is time dedicated to students simply exchanging with each other what they are planning to do to answer a question. Further, it seems like students don’t take notes the same way that we do in our middle school – i.e. students copy down what the teacher writes on the board. Rather their notebook consists of problems that they do in class. Hmm…interesting ideas to infuse into our classrooms.
- Aileen
Old, Fat Italian Man on 7/2
A few days ago, Miquila, Omari, and I were at a hotel restaurant adjacent to the University of Havana. At the tables appeared to be a lot of tourists and wealthy older men with polo shirts, cigars in their mouths, and large watches wrapped around their wrists as well as young women practically wrapped around their fingers. As we sat around after having finished our overpriced lunches, our conversation wandering from topic to topic, I thought aloud and asked how many of the patrons were native Cubans versus foreigners. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic to ask anyone about their origins, but then Omari got the attention of one of the men sitting across from us, and so I asked him where he was from. Almost immediately, I knew that I had made a mistake.
The man looked to be in his late 50s – 60s. He was balding, fat, with heavy bags under thickly lidded eyes. In combination with his large nose, he looked liked a man-witch.
He leaned across our table, way too close for comfort and said, “Soy Italiano. Y tu? Quires conocerme?” (I’m Italian. And you? Do you want to get to know me?) He smiled, crinkling his eyes and slightly wrinkling his nose, further adding to his witch-like image. I attempted a polite chuckle and responded with a no. “Are you sure?” he asked, broadening his smile. Then he got up, all 250+ pounds of him, walked toward our table and pushed a business card toward me. I waited until the verge of social awkwardness to take the card and then promptly put in on the table as if it were diseased. After a few moments of additional encouragement from him to give him a call, he sat down. Miquila asked me what I was going to do with his card and I answered through a demonstration: I ripped the card in half. Unfortunately, this Italian fellow sat directly across from me and so as we waited for our bill to arrive I had to avoid his greedy stare. The effect in me was so visceral that I simply could not empathize with either his plight or those of the young women who attached themselves to similar men.
And, finally, to top it all off, Miquila now refers to him as my “Italian lover,” which, of course, never fails to produce a visible cringe in me.
7/4
Happy U.S. Independence Day!
First, let’s talk about sex. We found out on the Global Exchange Tour that the average age to start having sex in Cuba is 13 (compared to 17 or so in the United States). This was a shocker to many of us as it seems like family values are very strong here in Cuba. Apparently, some parents would rather have their children have sex in their houses than somewhere else. Although Cuba is still a homophobic society, there is a government-supported program that campaigns against homophobia by coming into schools and having gay/lesbian speakers, putting up posters encouraging equal treatment, and encouraging dialogue between parents and children. By the way, censorship means that there is no pornography available.
I suppose it doesn’t surprise me much that kids have sex at such a young age. The other evening, I was jogging along the Malecon (sp?), a long water-front walkway and sea wall in Havana. The place was jam-packed with affectionate couples sitting, strolling, laying down, and passing around bottles of rum and cervezas. At the same time, you don’t see people walking around with a line of children behind them. In fact, the average number of children per family is 1.7.
Anyway – enough about sex. Let’s talk about independence. We are free of Global Exchange and our tour guide, air-conditioned bus, planned meals, hotel room, English translation, and dictated itinerary. It’s ironic because while we had not seen a single classroom in Cuba, the first day that we left our hotel, we were asked to come in to observe a primary school within just a few blocks of the hotel. Inside, second graders were already successfully doing problems involving order of operations and multiplying decimals, some of which is not learned until 5th or 6th grade in the U.S.! I am so impressed with their level of math! And the children are just adorable! They were all smiling and very polite in their red and white uniforms. We’ll be back tomorrow to collect their pearls of wisdom and hopefully figure out how to replicate their successes in our classrooms.
Omari also arrived a few days ago. He passes as Cuban, just as long as he doesn’t open his mouth and have his accent identify him as a foreigner. It’s been A LOT of fun having our motley crew from America strolling around Havana. Miquila and I are often identified as Chinese (“eh, China! Que linda!”). We are all staying at Casa Oralia, a hostel-like place owned by a very nice (and also very strange) Senora Oralia. She rambles on and on in her deep voice, clearly tinged by years of smoking, and sometimes in just her bra and panties. At night, we can hear slapping noises through the walls coming from her room. Still, she has been very nice and good resource. For example, she showed us where there was a market, and for the first time since I arrived here I was able to buy fresh fruit. Unfortunately, the fresh fruit hit my digestive system too late. After days of eating fried food, meat, and possibly accidentally consuming dairy-containing foots, my stomach, accustomed to a vegetarian lactose-free diet, rebelled and has been hurting on and off for days now. Nonetheless, the moments of eating mango and papaya and letting the juices run down my arms underneath the hot Cuban sun will probably be one of the most memorable experiences.
Math
The way that Cubans teach math is very, very interesting, and their outcomes are equally impressive. 4th grade students in Cuba are doing what many 8th grade students cannot yet do in the U.S. I met a 6th grader who was able to successfully solve the equation 3x + 2x = 10. To figure out the Cuban secret to math success, Miquila and I went on a little expedition to the Habana University library.
A lot of Cuban math is taught very exploratively. For example, students are asked to do a set of problems built on previous knowledge and then to notice patterns amongst those problems, which then leads to discussion and introduction of new material. Many algebraic concepts are taught at early ages in conjunction with relevant material. For example, place value in 4th grade is taught with base 10 exponents (102 is the hundredths place). Variables are used at early ages in conjunction with introducing multi-digit operations – e.g. if x = 323 and y = 435, what is x times y? In this manner, the students are learning arithmetic while they are learning algebra, whereas in the U.S. when students are introduced to variables, they practically freak out at having letters be next to numbers. Further, students begin to develop an intuition about whether answers are right or wrong by being taught to check their answers and also by estimating answers through rounding. Also, unlike in the U.S., each lesson is very scripted, with time for student work, teacher led discussion, and further discussion by students. There is time dedicated to students simply exchanging with each other what they are planning to do to answer a question. Further, it seems like students don’t take notes the same way that we do in our middle school – i.e. students copy down what the teacher writes on the board. Rather their notebook consists of problems that they do in class. Hmm…interesting ideas to infuse into our classrooms.
- Aileen
Old, Fat Italian Man on 7/2
A few days ago, Miquila, Omari, and I were at a hotel restaurant adjacent to the University of Havana. At the tables appeared to be a lot of tourists and wealthy older men with polo shirts, cigars in their mouths, and large watches wrapped around their wrists as well as young women practically wrapped around their fingers. As we sat around after having finished our overpriced lunches, our conversation wandering from topic to topic, I thought aloud and asked how many of the patrons were native Cubans versus foreigners. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic to ask anyone about their origins, but then Omari got the attention of one of the men sitting across from us, and so I asked him where he was from. Almost immediately, I knew that I had made a mistake.
The man looked to be in his late 50s – 60s. He was balding, fat, with heavy bags under thickly lidded eyes. In combination with his large nose, he looked liked a man-witch.
He leaned across our table, way too close for comfort and said, “Soy Italiano. Y tu? Quires conocerme?” (I’m Italian. And you? Do you want to get to know me?) He smiled, crinkling his eyes and slightly wrinkling his nose, further adding to his witch-like image. I attempted a polite chuckle and responded with a no. “Are you sure?” he asked, broadening his smile. Then he got up, all 250+ pounds of him, walked toward our table and pushed a business card toward me. I waited until the verge of social awkwardness to take the card and then promptly put in on the table as if it were diseased. After a few moments of additional encouragement from him to give him a call, he sat down. Miquila asked me what I was going to do with his card and I answered through a demonstration: I ripped the card in half. Unfortunately, this Italian fellow sat directly across from me and so as we waited for our bill to arrive I had to avoid his greedy stare. The effect in me was so visceral that I simply could not empathize with either his plight or those of the young women who attached themselves to similar men.
And, finally, to top it all off, Miquila now refers to him as my “Italian lover,” which, of course, never fails to produce a visible cringe in me.
7/4
Happy U.S. Independence Day!
What I Wrote While I Watied at the Library
What It Took To Not Get The Books We Needed From the National Library of Cuba
1. A sweaty walk to the library
2. A sweaty walk back to our casa particolare and back to the library with our passports
3. CUC $3 at the window downstairs
4. Passports and teh receipt at the window upstiars
5. Tedious forms
6. Checked bags
7. Tedious forms to check out three books each, none of which we were particularly excited about
8. A 30 minute wait for them to bring the books to us
1. A sweaty walk to the library
2. A sweaty walk back to our casa particolare and back to the library with our passports
3. CUC $3 at the window downstairs
4. Passports and teh receipt at the window upstiars
5. Tedious forms
6. Checked bags
7. Tedious forms to check out three books each, none of which we were particularly excited about
8. A 30 minute wait for them to bring the books to us
Smack Dab In the Middle of the Trip
Our lives are looking up! We found Tabasco sauce today. Tomorrow, the casa particolare we'll be in will probably have bikes available for us to get around in. We'll be in the forests of Pinar Del Rio, which all the locals have said are beautiful... AND we're leaving HAVANA!!!!!!!!!!
The National Library
Miquila and I woke up around 11 am this morning, excited about going to the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) and finding math textbooks used in Cubaś classrooms. We had breakfast, said goodbye to Senora, and arrived at the Biblioteca, housed in a massive building of concrete and marble with a pleasant breeze flowing through the open doors on both ends of a long hallway. We looked through their library catalogue (of old school cards in a drawer) and, lo and behold!, we found math textbooks from the first through sixth grade. We brought the cards up to the front desk and then, darn it, we realized we had forgotten our passports and identification at home so we couldnt check anything out. Sigh - so we spent an hour to go back to the Casa and retrieve our passports. When we got back and asked the lady at the front desk for the books, she said that all the books in the section that we were looking through were being inventoried and that they would not be available for the next month (!). Another sigh...so we decided to use the internet only to discover that the connection here is slower than any we have experienced and that they do not allow you to access a flash drive, where I had typed all of the Blogs I wanted to post (I now have a 4 day backlog). In exasperation, I looked around and guess what I noticed in the National Library of Cuba? All of the bookshelves were completely empty of books!
Alas, I do miss the United States. The poorest their are so very rich in comparison even to the middle class here....
Alas, I do miss the United States. The poorest their are so very rich in comparison even to the middle class here....
Thursday, July 2, 2009
My Day 9 : Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
My Day 9 :
Today marks our first day without a tour guide.
We left our fancy (and when I say fancy, I mean in grandiose appearance and price… because we had no air conditioning most the time, trouble with the toilet, and at one point, no phone) hotel today and headed for our “hostel,” Casa Oralia. It’s technically called a casa particolare, which makes more sense, because it is really just a house with extra rooms, in this case, two. It has a big balcony that faces the street, our own bathroom, our own large fridge, and she said we could use the kitchen sometimes. I think she makes breakfast too. We’ll see tomorrow… hopefully it doesn’t mean we have to wake up early all the time.
Personally, I prefer a big hostel, for the opportunity to meet people. But it’s a comfortable place to call home for the next few weeks.
Tomorrow we’re going to go to the
The week after classes end, we’re going to travel somewhere else in
So, anyway, today we went to a market and saw people selling fruit for the first time since we’ve been here. We were very excited, to say the least. I ended up spending 124 MNs. Oh, so we were able to use the Cuban pesos, which are called MNs, for moneda nationale. It’s so much cheaper!!!!!! That ends up being a little less than 5 CUCs, which is about $5... Well the exchange rate is actually $1 = .89 CUC. And here’s what I bought: 1lb rice, way too much salt, some oregano, 6 limes, a package of spaghetti, a huge mango, a couple huge avocados, an onion, radishes, mint, a juice box of rum! (
And the reason we have been paying so much? Probably because we are Americans. Today while we were waiting for one of the shops to open, a Cuban came and asked us where we were from. We said the
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
My Day 8
I wasn’t excited to go to the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina, because I’m not interested in doctors and hospitals or med school. But it ended up being really fascinating.
One of the coolest things about Cuba is that they pay for school, boarding, clothes, anything a student needs—EVEN FOR FOREIGNERS! This school is no different. To get in, you have to show academic aptitude, be from a community with no medical assistance, 18-25 years old, have graduated high school, have no negative record in your community, have no disease or disabilities that will keep you from serving your community well, and have to pass tests from the Cuban Embassy. If you get in, you get EVERYTHING free of charge, including 100 pesos/month as pocket money.
For the first sixth months, all students take premed courses to account for the differences in education they might have received in their home countires. They also teach you Spanish. You cannot move on from premed until you have learned Spanish.
In Cuba, they think you should work while you are in school, when you are old enough. So in all colleges, you are expected to work. Actually, even in high school (which is 10th- 12th grade). All the high schools here are in the countryside, so that the kids can divide their time between attending classes and working the fields! High schoolers live in dorms near their school, and come home on Sundays. They offer a similar system for middle schoolers, though it is not required.
Anyway, back to the med school. By the sixth year, you should have graduated and moved back to your country to work. However, some countries do not readily accept theses graduates back for fear that they will steal their current doctor’s clients. The speaker was clear to emphasize that these countries called them “clients” and not “patients.”
Which brings us to another really cool thing about Cuba: they infuse their education with strong moral values. This school insists that it’s graduates show altruism, humanism and solidarity. They teach them to view medicine as a way to help people, not as a way to make money. I love that.
Doctors in Cuba aren’t really paid much. For instance, yesterday we went to the most beautiful town I have ever seen—Las Terrazas—and one of the two doctors in this town told us he makes about 20 Cuban Convertibles (which is about equivalent to 20 US dollars) a month. Here, this is not poor, but very average and by no means rich. They really insist that their doctors go into it because of a love for helping people, not for the money. If you’re curious, farmers make the most money here. They can make more than 100 Convertibles a month.
Oh, and Cubans don’t pay in Convertibles. This is one of the only countries in the world that has two currencies—one for natives and one for foreigners. One Convertible is equal to 24 Cuban pesos. Check out the price difference: if I want to go into the museum, it is 2 Convertibles, but if a Cuban wants to go into the museum, it is 2 PESOS! So. They mostly don’t let you get or use pesos if you are a foreigner, but Aileen’s friend managed to get some and so she has 50 pesos. We’re excited to see if we can use them somewhere. So far, they’ve only been rejected.
Ok, I’m tired of writing now.
--Miquila
One of the coolest things about Cuba is that they pay for school, boarding, clothes, anything a student needs—EVEN FOR FOREIGNERS! This school is no different. To get in, you have to show academic aptitude, be from a community with no medical assistance, 18-25 years old, have graduated high school, have no negative record in your community, have no disease or disabilities that will keep you from serving your community well, and have to pass tests from the Cuban Embassy. If you get in, you get EVERYTHING free of charge, including 100 pesos/month as pocket money.
For the first sixth months, all students take premed courses to account for the differences in education they might have received in their home countires. They also teach you Spanish. You cannot move on from premed until you have learned Spanish.
In Cuba, they think you should work while you are in school, when you are old enough. So in all colleges, you are expected to work. Actually, even in high school (which is 10th- 12th grade). All the high schools here are in the countryside, so that the kids can divide their time between attending classes and working the fields! High schoolers live in dorms near their school, and come home on Sundays. They offer a similar system for middle schoolers, though it is not required.
Anyway, back to the med school. By the sixth year, you should have graduated and moved back to your country to work. However, some countries do not readily accept theses graduates back for fear that they will steal their current doctor’s clients. The speaker was clear to emphasize that these countries called them “clients” and not “patients.”
Which brings us to another really cool thing about Cuba: they infuse their education with strong moral values. This school insists that it’s graduates show altruism, humanism and solidarity. They teach them to view medicine as a way to help people, not as a way to make money. I love that.
Doctors in Cuba aren’t really paid much. For instance, yesterday we went to the most beautiful town I have ever seen—Las Terrazas—and one of the two doctors in this town told us he makes about 20 Cuban Convertibles (which is about equivalent to 20 US dollars) a month. Here, this is not poor, but very average and by no means rich. They really insist that their doctors go into it because of a love for helping people, not for the money. If you’re curious, farmers make the most money here. They can make more than 100 Convertibles a month.
Oh, and Cubans don’t pay in Convertibles. This is one of the only countries in the world that has two currencies—one for natives and one for foreigners. One Convertible is equal to 24 Cuban pesos. Check out the price difference: if I want to go into the museum, it is 2 Convertibles, but if a Cuban wants to go into the museum, it is 2 PESOS! So. They mostly don’t let you get or use pesos if you are a foreigner, but Aileen’s friend managed to get some and so she has 50 pesos. We’re excited to see if we can use them somewhere. So far, they’ve only been rejected.
Ok, I’m tired of writing now.
--Miquila
Miquila's first post :)
My Day 4
The walls were bare. The rooms were hot and tiny. Too many parts reeked of formaldehyde. “Hoy vivo en un palacio. Tenemos de todo.” I disagree, Senor Presidente. It’s not my place to say, and I didn’t. I just wanted to get out of there. A retirement home with the goal of rehabilitation (what does that even mean?) but, “Muchos estan aqui por siempre.” Frankly, I don’t know how they could be so excited to show us this place. And I don’t know why we toured it.
Except maybe because it was right next to the Paquito Rosales Special Education School. If I understand correctly, kids who need to receive Special Education in Cuba are sent to a different school than the rest of the kids, like this one. Here they have almost a 1:1 ratio of students and staff. They did not have us tour the building, which was probably smart. But the patients (they called them patients because some of the students were adults) gave us a heartwarming, beautiful presentation. I videotaped parts. They sung Guantanamera and did a dance performace where they dressed as major saints/gods/characters of Santeria and then invited us to join in. Adorable.
Like the retirement home, actually, the goal of this school is to enable the kids to become contributing members of society. The director said graduates could go into jobs like laundry service, gardening, and different sorts of manual labor. Then she said only 3 or 4% of students graduate. I don’t know if the U.S. is doing any better in this area, but that made me sad.
So it was a pretty depressing tour today. But THEN we went to the bookstore where they handcrafted books. I bought one called Fast Track. It’s Cuban poetry. Pretty friggin cool stuff.
The walls were bare. The rooms were hot and tiny. Too many parts reeked of formaldehyde. “Hoy vivo en un palacio. Tenemos de todo.” I disagree, Senor Presidente. It’s not my place to say, and I didn’t. I just wanted to get out of there. A retirement home with the goal of rehabilitation (what does that even mean?) but, “Muchos estan aqui por siempre.” Frankly, I don’t know how they could be so excited to show us this place. And I don’t know why we toured it.
Except maybe because it was right next to the Paquito Rosales Special Education School. If I understand correctly, kids who need to receive Special Education in Cuba are sent to a different school than the rest of the kids, like this one. Here they have almost a 1:1 ratio of students and staff. They did not have us tour the building, which was probably smart. But the patients (they called them patients because some of the students were adults) gave us a heartwarming, beautiful presentation. I videotaped parts. They sung Guantanamera and did a dance performace where they dressed as major saints/gods/characters of Santeria and then invited us to join in. Adorable.
Like the retirement home, actually, the goal of this school is to enable the kids to become contributing members of society. The director said graduates could go into jobs like laundry service, gardening, and different sorts of manual labor. Then she said only 3 or 4% of students graduate. I don’t know if the U.S. is doing any better in this area, but that made me sad.
So it was a pretty depressing tour today. But THEN we went to the bookstore where they handcrafted books. I bought one called Fast Track. It’s Cuban poetry. Pretty friggin cool stuff.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Day ? (I’ve lost track of the days!)
6/24
For the next two nights, we are staying in the Arenas Blancas in Varadero, a resort city outside of the larger city of Matanzas. The pools are beautiful and huge. We can have as many drinks and snacks as we want, every meal is included, there are Spanish, dance, and bartending lessons, sports activities, their own club, and, surprisingly, other American (granted they are loud and rambunctious).
The schedules have been jam-packed with information and it feels like our brains are being overloaded. Today, we went to an art school for 3rd through 9th graders. We saw the students performing, and we were all very impressed. The 6th graders who were in their second year of classical ballet training looked like pros already. Classes start for them at 7:10am and end at 5:30pm. In normal schools, classes end at 4:30pm. Some students at this art school live on campus because their houses are too far away. Unlike at Claremont Middle School, the students only have math, social studies, and language arts every day. The other classes occur with less frequency (e.g. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays). This ensures that all students have access to a holistic education. Further, students are graded beyond just academics. The final mark includes character traits, such as punctuality, attendance, work ethics, etc. In the U.S., students may receive a citizenship grade but it has no effect on GPA and in fact in Oakland Unified as long as you pass the CST (California Standardized Test) you can move on to the next grade/class. Note that passing this test in math is equivalent to getting 60% of the questions right. In comparison, the standardized tests here are included as part of the final mark in addition to the other factors mentioned above.
There have been interesting conversations regarding censorship. A lot of our group members ask questions such as “How do you teach critical thinking when the government discourages dissent?” “Is there another reason for why there is no internet access amongst the populace?” “What do you think of the limited TV/media availability?” which are always answered as if there is no realization that America thinks of the Cuban government as a repressive dictatorship. My question is this: what is the purpose of asking a question? Is it curiosity? To learn from the culture? To share our American opinions?
In the evening, we went to see a music show at the Teatro Mello in Habana. It was AWESOME! It reminds me that in the Bay Area, I really should go see more live shows. I was absolutely amazed at the talent on-stage. The keyboardist and frontman for the group was incredibly talented and his stage presence seemed to carry forth a full-body immersion of the music into his every fiber. The drummers – traditional and African drums – were continually smiling at each other as if there were invisible messages flowing back and forth on the stage in a language only familiar to them but whose sound effects could be heard by the audience. It left me feeling so energized and elated.
For the next two nights, we are staying in the Arenas Blancas in Varadero, a resort city outside of the larger city of Matanzas. The pools are beautiful and huge. We can have as many drinks and snacks as we want, every meal is included, there are Spanish, dance, and bartending lessons, sports activities, their own club, and, surprisingly, other American (granted they are loud and rambunctious).
The schedules have been jam-packed with information and it feels like our brains are being overloaded. Today, we went to an art school for 3rd through 9th graders. We saw the students performing, and we were all very impressed. The 6th graders who were in their second year of classical ballet training looked like pros already. Classes start for them at 7:10am and end at 5:30pm. In normal schools, classes end at 4:30pm. Some students at this art school live on campus because their houses are too far away. Unlike at Claremont Middle School, the students only have math, social studies, and language arts every day. The other classes occur with less frequency (e.g. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays). This ensures that all students have access to a holistic education. Further, students are graded beyond just academics. The final mark includes character traits, such as punctuality, attendance, work ethics, etc. In the U.S., students may receive a citizenship grade but it has no effect on GPA and in fact in Oakland Unified as long as you pass the CST (California Standardized Test) you can move on to the next grade/class. Note that passing this test in math is equivalent to getting 60% of the questions right. In comparison, the standardized tests here are included as part of the final mark in addition to the other factors mentioned above.
There have been interesting conversations regarding censorship. A lot of our group members ask questions such as “How do you teach critical thinking when the government discourages dissent?” “Is there another reason for why there is no internet access amongst the populace?” “What do you think of the limited TV/media availability?” which are always answered as if there is no realization that America thinks of the Cuban government as a repressive dictatorship. My question is this: what is the purpose of asking a question? Is it curiosity? To learn from the culture? To share our American opinions?
In the evening, we went to see a music show at the Teatro Mello in Habana. It was AWESOME! It reminds me that in the Bay Area, I really should go see more live shows. I was absolutely amazed at the talent on-stage. The keyboardist and frontman for the group was incredibly talented and his stage presence seemed to carry forth a full-body immersion of the music into his every fiber. The drummers – traditional and African drums – were continually smiling at each other as if there were invisible messages flowing back and forth on the stage in a language only familiar to them but whose sound effects could be heard by the audience. It left me feeling so energized and elated.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
I can't stop smiling :)
Cuba is just amazing! Last night, Global Exchange, including Miquila, and I, went to what they call a CDR monthly meeting/block party that consisted of about 50 residents from the block. CDR stands for the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. They were originally created by Fidel to withstand the resistance from Baptista. Today, they are like a neighborhood watch group; they also run local elections.
When we got there, the whole neighborhood welcomed us with plays and songs from the children, a poem read by a teenage boy, food, lots of drinks, loud music, and dancing. The children, between 5 and 12 years old, are SO cute! They were very inquisitive. Almost the entire hour or so I was talking and playing with them, doing math problems, having them show me their school, they inquired about and then taught me how to say tattoo in Spanish (tatuaje), they asked about my school, my teaching, the United States, my nationaly, they showed me how to say math symbols in Spanish, they handed me cake and drinks.... They seemed so motivated to gain my approval and compliments, constantly surrounding me in a cushion of bright eyed anticipation. They were very competitive (vying for who would write the next math problem or answer my questions about Spanish), yet they were so amicable toward each other, not once bickering, arguing, or teasing. At the end of the evening, they wanted my address so that they could write letters to me, so we exchanged "direcciones." It's the next day, and recounting the events from yesterday evening still puts a big goofy smile on my face (that perhaps makes me look a little strange to the posh patrons of this hotel).
I am constantly surprised by how warm everyone is, always checking in on each other and doling out hugs and kisses. I also am impressed by the very strong sense of community in all the barrios we've visited. I compare this to the fact that all that I know of my next door neighbor in Oakland, CA is his name, while here there are monthly parties/gatherings of all the neighbors on the block where laughter, smiles, conversations, and music is what is heard. The only person who I see regularly in my neighborhood is across the lake from me (his name is Drew and he claims he's going to take my motorcycle, which I left in his garage, out for a spin on the race track. If anyone sees him, you have my permission to )
I wonder how the childrens' opinions of this experience will differ if at all when they tell their parents of it...
When we got there, the whole neighborhood welcomed us with plays and songs from the children, a poem read by a teenage boy, food, lots of drinks, loud music, and dancing. The children, between 5 and 12 years old, are SO cute! They were very inquisitive. Almost the entire hour or so I was talking and playing with them, doing math problems, having them show me their school, they inquired about and then taught me how to say tattoo in Spanish (tatuaje), they asked about my school, my teaching, the United States, my nationaly, they showed me how to say math symbols in Spanish, they handed me cake and drinks.... They seemed so motivated to gain my approval and compliments, constantly surrounding me in a cushion of bright eyed anticipation. They were very competitive (vying for who would write the next math problem or answer my questions about Spanish), yet they were so amicable toward each other, not once bickering, arguing, or teasing. At the end of the evening, they wanted my address so that they could write letters to me, so we exchanged "direcciones." It's the next day, and recounting the events from yesterday evening still puts a big goofy smile on my face (that perhaps makes me look a little strange to the posh patrons of this hotel).
I am constantly surprised by how warm everyone is, always checking in on each other and doling out hugs and kisses. I also am impressed by the very strong sense of community in all the barrios we've visited. I compare this to the fact that all that I know of my next door neighbor in Oakland, CA is his name, while here there are monthly parties/gatherings of all the neighbors on the block where laughter, smiles, conversations, and music is what is heard. The only person who I see regularly in my neighborhood is across the lake from me (his name is Drew and he claims he's going to take my motorcycle, which I left in his garage, out for a spin on the race track. If anyone sees him, you have my permission to )
I wonder how the childrens' opinions of this experience will differ if at all when they tell their parents of it...
Monday, June 22, 2009
Day 2
Estamos en Cuba!!
Wow. I can't believe I'm in Cuba.
Internet access is not readily available. According to the Global Exchange tour guide, the fiber optics infrastructure has not yet been set up for the populace to have it readily available. There are, though, amongst our American crowd of tourists, conspiracy theorists who believe the government is trying to prevent its citizens from gaining too much outside knowledge. I take both sides with grains of salt.
This morning, we had a conference with a cultural "ambassador" to North America in a huge mansion built by a sugar company owner for his wife, who died many years later. When this man died, he was buried, as requested, standing next to his wife. A true Cuban love story it was, as well as a wonderful way to start the day. Today, we mostly learned about the "Yo si puedo" program which was implemented in 1961 for 11 months and effectively eliminated illiteracy. The literacy rate is currently 98%. They specifically targeted women and the poor in the countryside and had an army of youngsters, the youngest being 8, to go out into the countryside to volunteer in helping with this program. Our tour bus driver was a volunteer at age 16 for the "Yo si puedo" program. The pictures we saw in the Literacy Museum of a 106-year old woman finally learning to read and write, of the young teaching the old, and of hundreds of teens excitedly boarding trains to go into the countryside was so touching. There is such a sense of community and responsibility to each other in this country. In the evening, we heard from a 3-person panel of teachers about the educational system. The conversation made me change my opinon (rare for a stubborn person such as myself) about performance-based pay, which I formerly supported and which the Obama administration is pushing for. In the United States, we have this top-down approach to education - i.e. set the standard, and then expect people to figure out a way to get there - but in Cuba there is so much support for the teachers. The max class size is 20 in primary school. In secondary, the teacher-student ratio is 1:15. Teachers and doctors are the two most highly respected professions. Each teacher has a mentor teacher. There is only public education. Students can attend universities for free. There is time given for teachers to plan and it is encouraged that they attend more classes to further their own education.
I think the view of Cuban education can be summed up in this interaction:
One of the members of the tour group asked what the US should change about its educational system. The reply was that the mentality of the people and the government needs to change. In Cuba, there is a mentality of soildarity. She didn't understand how anyone could think that there was someone who didn't deserve an education.
I know it's only day two, but I feel like I could live here for a while. Everywhere I go, the people are so friendly, and so inviting of conversation that I often have to rush to board our bus because I'm still blabbering away. Even going to use the bathroom, I end up talking with people!
Tomorrow, we learn about their sex ed program. Can't wait! :) - Aileen
Wow. I can't believe I'm in Cuba.
Internet access is not readily available. According to the Global Exchange tour guide, the fiber optics infrastructure has not yet been set up for the populace to have it readily available. There are, though, amongst our American crowd of tourists, conspiracy theorists who believe the government is trying to prevent its citizens from gaining too much outside knowledge. I take both sides with grains of salt.
This morning, we had a conference with a cultural "ambassador" to North America in a huge mansion built by a sugar company owner for his wife, who died many years later. When this man died, he was buried, as requested, standing next to his wife. A true Cuban love story it was, as well as a wonderful way to start the day. Today, we mostly learned about the "Yo si puedo" program which was implemented in 1961 for 11 months and effectively eliminated illiteracy. The literacy rate is currently 98%. They specifically targeted women and the poor in the countryside and had an army of youngsters, the youngest being 8, to go out into the countryside to volunteer in helping with this program. Our tour bus driver was a volunteer at age 16 for the "Yo si puedo" program. The pictures we saw in the Literacy Museum of a 106-year old woman finally learning to read and write, of the young teaching the old, and of hundreds of teens excitedly boarding trains to go into the countryside was so touching. There is such a sense of community and responsibility to each other in this country. In the evening, we heard from a 3-person panel of teachers about the educational system. The conversation made me change my opinon (rare for a stubborn person such as myself) about performance-based pay, which I formerly supported and which the Obama administration is pushing for. In the United States, we have this top-down approach to education - i.e. set the standard, and then expect people to figure out a way to get there - but in Cuba there is so much support for the teachers. The max class size is 20 in primary school. In secondary, the teacher-student ratio is 1:15. Teachers and doctors are the two most highly respected professions. Each teacher has a mentor teacher. There is only public education. Students can attend universities for free. There is time given for teachers to plan and it is encouraged that they attend more classes to further their own education.
I think the view of Cuban education can be summed up in this interaction:
One of the members of the tour group asked what the US should change about its educational system. The reply was that the mentality of the people and the government needs to change. In Cuba, there is a mentality of soildarity. She didn't understand how anyone could think that there was someone who didn't deserve an education.
I know it's only day two, but I feel like I could live here for a while. Everywhere I go, the people are so friendly, and so inviting of conversation that I often have to rush to board our bus because I'm still blabbering away. Even going to use the bathroom, I end up talking with people!
Tomorrow, we learn about their sex ed program. Can't wait! :) - Aileen
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Day 0.5
I'm not sure how easy it will be to find internet access in Cuba, so I'm starting this blog off with an entry from the airport in Nassau, Bahamas, where the weather is a slighlty humid 88 degrees F, everyone speaks English, there are more resort booths than concession stores, and the passengers on the plane look ready to strip for the beaches. The line for the Cubano airport hasn't opened yet. There is luggage strewn across the line, their trusting owners not be found. I feel like a distrustful American keeping all my belongings close by.
It still has not quite sunk in that I will be in Cuba in just a few hours, a country despised by American policy yet supposedly essential to fight our war on terror through housing and interrogating our supposedly most dangerous prisoners (hopefully not for long!). It is also a country which spends very little per pupil and whose students greatly outperform those of other Latin American countries and those of the United States. So what's up with that? Well, I'm putting on my detective hat, er, sombrero, Miquila will be joining me tomorrow, and we shall see what we find....
- Aileen
It still has not quite sunk in that I will be in Cuba in just a few hours, a country despised by American policy yet supposedly essential to fight our war on terror through housing and interrogating our supposedly most dangerous prisoners (hopefully not for long!). It is also a country which spends very little per pupil and whose students greatly outperform those of other Latin American countries and those of the United States. So what's up with that? Well, I'm putting on my detective hat, er, sombrero, Miquila will be joining me tomorrow, and we shall see what we find....
- Aileen
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