I’m alive, pero… ¿seguro?

Here I am rapidly approaching the one month mark of being here in the lovely city of La Habana. A lot has happened, but at the same time very little. My schedule is now perfect and very well situated, so I will explain my daily pattern as such.

From Friday to Monday, I have no school. However, this time may be filled with trips and adventures both mandatory from class and for personal experimentation. When Tuesday comes, basically the week begins. Normally I wake up at around 9ish, depends on when my biological clock wakes me (I’ve rarely had to use an alarm, it’s really strange). From there I usually just go straight down to breakfast for a diverse choice of egg styles: scrambled, with or without ham, or fried, also with or without ham. Accompanying the lovely eggs are bread, some fruit (oranges, grapefruit, pineapple, watermelon—varies, not all of this at once), some juice, and some coffee. It’s delicious, but literally the same everyday basically, but it really doesn’t bother me too much. I just have visions of coming back to the states and a doctor tells me I have the cholesterol of a 50 year old man… the incredible, edible egg so they say.
After this I come back upstairs and just get ready, you know, get my hair done, put on some cherry red lipstick and pick out my favorite stilettos for the day. But in reality, throwing on something that looks like an outfit from the strange array of clothes I decided to bring. Looking at my clothing option here I just wonder what I was thinking when I was packing. So much of it just doesn’t make sense, but either does waiting until the last minute to pack… there must be some correlating graph somewhere that represents this phenomenon.
I have one Spanish class on Tuesday that lasts from about 11:30 am to about 1 pm and this is the same as on Thursday. The professor is an awesome woman who prefers her nickname ‘Yare’, plus I can’t actually remember her real name. She is an older woman, but absolutely young at heart. We talk about the most random things and basically just practice Spanish, but it is by far the best Spanish class I’ve ever had. Everything is explained so clearly and by example, and my nose is never buried in a book memorizing patterns and arbitrary vocabulary. For example, in one class, we listened to a song and had to match up the verses and write down the verbs, but later we had to take turns doing certain activities with the song. We had to explain what was happening in the story in the present tense, the events of the story in the past, suggestions for the singer, what we liked in the pluscamperfecto-whatever-it-is tense. Just so different from listen to this song, write down what you hear, then we’ll talk about what it means. So different. She also asked me if I was part latino because I’m so tan (oh yeah, I’m getting real tan).
After class basically everyday I wander around and try to spend the least amount of money as possible. This is incredibly easy. There are so many ‘cafeterias’ around campus that sell most of their meals for less than one $1USD. I’m especially fond of a rather filling pizza that costs $0.50USD for just cheese, or you can add peppers and onions for another quarter. There are also plates of rice, vegetables, and some form of meat for less than a dollar, definitely easy to get decent quality food for less than a dollar a day. I get 2 meals provided through the program at the hotel.
On Wednesday, I have my anthropology class with Lyndsay (Lou) Kramer with Dr. Antonio Martinez. One word: AMAZING. We’ve literally only had like 2 classes, but this man is amazing. He is taking basically 2 hours out of his day to teach just Lou and me about Physical Anthropology in Cuba. Neither of us has taken the class at Pitt, as it is a requirement for the Anthro major, so we’re hopeful that this will maybe cover the requirement, but if not, meh, still 3 credits in Anthro. In the last class we discussed the importance of understanding how the human body develops and the issues facing the growing population of the elderly (deemed 60+ years of age, but don’t worry, you’re still young at heart you elderly readers). We went through a PowerPoint showing the different stages of human growth after birth and later a PowerPoint showing how much of the population in the future will be deemed elderly and what this will do for… well, everyone. It was so interesting and so relaxed and patient. I took absolutely zero notes, but because he explained it so well and it was more of a conversation, I took a legitimate interest in the subject. I think the University system (not just the US, but everywhere) needs a revolution of sorts. I’m not saying that Cuba has a perfect university system, because I am not taking a real Cuban class, but this style and the attitude this teacher takes towards us is by far what learning is and should be.
Also on Wednesdays, we have our class at the famous ICAIC. This is a government funded film institute that is responsible for the majority of Cuban movies. IT is based out of an old house that is huge and they have built a medium sized theater next to it also. I think their most famous movie (although I have not seen it) is Fresa y Chocolate or Strawberry and Chocolate. It is about two homosexual communist companeros and their life after the revolution. I really don’t know much about it, but I know it was nominated for an Oscar in the 90s sometime. At the ICAIC we discuss basically the history of Cuba as seen through cinema. Our professor is an amazing woman who is an art history director of sorts, I’m not exactly sure what she does, but she is very intelligent and very aware of Cuban cinema. The movies we’ve seen so far have been a little strange, they are all over 40 years old, but it’s interesting to see them and discuss how they relate to Cuban history. One movie we watched was “Memories of Underdevelopment” and it portrays an upper-class man and his struggles with life essentially, but also his concern with post-revolutionary Cuba and what it means for him and the bourgeoisie class. Another film we saw is titled “Lucia” and it portrays three different women in three different eras of Cuban history. The film is supposed to show the struggles of women in each of these periods, and I suppose it does, but we all couldn’t help but just feel as though it just perpetuated the weak female role in society instead of helping demonstrate the female struggle. I don’t know. It was a very long and strange movie. But the class is awesome! And 5 hours long basically….
We have yet to start our fourth class as our professor is in Italy doing some crazy academic thing. But it is titled Cuban Society, so I think it will be pretty interesting. Some people on the streets and friends we’ve met at the university joked that we’ve already started that class by talking with them. But it’s so true! The conversations on the street after only 3 weeks have already cracked my metaphorical blockade of basically zero knowledge on Cuba (not to blame the US education system, but I vaguely remember learning about hardly anything Cuba related that wasn’t terribly demonizing). While I am not too well educated in politics, I do have opinions, and it’s always interesting to discuss with anyone here on what we all believe. A lot of people believe in how powerful capitalism is, as seen in the US by working and earning x amount for how much you work etc, etc. Here, however, you have to fulfill a certain amount of hours per month and you still only receive an average of $10 - $30USD per month. Another apparent atrocity is that a doctor here earns less money than a janitor in a fancy hotel. What? Pretty crazy, right? But here everyone gets their allocation of rations (if available), free healthcare (they’ve recently enacted free sex-change operations, if one qualifies), seeing glasses that cost $1.25USD (although made of plastic, but still functional), and well, I just don’t know what else. It’s hard for me to argue that capitalism has its demons, being that I am a white, middle class, well-off person, but it’s hard to hear about people working overtime at McDonald’s and still barely getting by or the extreme amount of debt people have from student loans/everything, how the minimum wage is barely a livable wage. Both systems have their faults and advantages, but really all we’re doing is living and surviving. We all have our own struggles, so there’s no use comparing.
Again, a disclaimer: wrote this basically all in one go, so question my gaps, research your own, but I hate revising and my flow of consciousness is more accurate of me anyway!

John