tiene mi cuba un son…
So, I have been in Habana for a week.
What a week!!!
Only one night in Bogota after a month in New York, strange feeling, like trying desperately to hurry up to get as much of colombianness I as I could in the short time I had, eat Colombian food, say hello to my friends, have breakfast with my family, contemplate those magnificent mountains, breath the poluted air of Bogotá, laugh with my father`s jokes, make fun of life with my family, to leave to the airport in a rush but still make it… to be in Colombia… even if it was only for one night.
The adventure started right in the flight to Cuba, on the plane a guy suddenly got his gitar out of the cabin compartment and started playing, and another guy singing… it all turned into some surreal flying party! Really great! I got myself a picture with him… you never know, what if he was someone famous.
On my way to Cuba I looked at my passport and realized that I still had that white cardboard thingy that the stappled on my passport when I got into the US, and I thought that maybe it wasn`t such a good idea to have it on my passport when I was going to cuba… so I took it off, and then I read it and realized that I should have given it back when I left the US to some immigration authorities, or it will otherwise make it very difficult for me to come back… well, I didn`t see any immigration control on my way out of the country, and as it is the first time I go to the states I didn`t really know, so now I hope it is not a big deal and that it won`t be too big a problem when I come back in december, we will see.
Talking about immigration the cuban immigration authorities were actually toughter than I expected, I got asked a lot of questions and they all looked very skeptical, but in the end they let me go in and I went out find a place to sit and wait for Paul who was comming from Paris… thankfully, he got there about an hour later, I wouln`t necessarily have known what to do or where to go if he hadn`t come.
Cuba is a fantastic yet very strange place… maybe it is my ignorance, but I didn`t for example know that they have two types of currency here, one for foreigners (turists) and one for cubans, the one foreigners is equivalent to the US dollar, and the moneda nacional is about 25 pesos to a dollar. Here as a foreigner you can take a taxi which will cost you around 4 to 8 CUC (the foreigners currency) a monthly salary for a professional cuban is about 10 CUC, 250 in moneda nacional… so if a cuban was to take a taxi it will basically cost him or her almost a months salary… so basically cubans never take taxis, or never go to hotels, or only buy in places where they can pay in moneda nacional.
It is a strange kind of apartheid, where some people have strange privileges, but yet being a turist here is also absurdly expensive, if you eat out for example it is certainly not cheap (in south american standards) you can pay something like 10 CUC for a meal, but if you buy food as a cuban, well, the food is not extremely good, but you can get lunch for 1 CUC… and it is not that you can then buy things in moneda nacional, some things you can, but not everything, a card to make phonecalls is very expensive if you buy it as a turist, and very cheap if a cuban buys it, well, things like electricity, phone, water here have more like a symbolic price, people don`t really pay for those things, but obviously it is only cubans who benefit from that, which is good I think, but it is just very strange, it just puts people in a situation where they are separated by the privileges or lack of them that characterize them.
We live in the house of a very nice woman and her doughter who are totally spoiling us, they make us great food, they are extremely friendly and they tell us fantastic stories, it feels like home, it is really nice to be here and it is also very close to the place where we are working, so that couldn`t possibly be better.
I haven`t experienced anything negative so far… there doesn`t seem to be poverty as you would see in some areas in colombia for example, there doesn`t seem to be insecurity and crime… I don`t know if it is really like that, but that is at least my perception, I have heard opinions of cubans in relation to what it means to be here and I understand how difficult it most be for them to be kind of taken hostage in their own country, there are A LOT of restrictions if you as a cuban want to travel abroad, not only because it is obviously very expensive, but also because then they have to pay money to the cuban government and have to return before 11 months if they want to keep their nationality… that seems extremely absurd, many things seem an extrem attempt to keep things the way they are… I wouldn`t use “revolution†as a way of discribing the state of things here, but having said that, the people I have met are very well educated, and while not being rich they are certainly not starving… I don`t know, I just think about the situation in other places in Latin America, the challenges are different, but the situation for the people is not necessarily better, not that I am in favour of the system here, but that doesn`t mean that I think what happens in Colombia for example is any better. It is bad in different ways, but it is not better.
Working here has been fantastic, it has been very challenging, and sometimes it feels I have learnt more here than in a whole KP semester, it is the longest process I have been part of, and having to readjust things everyday according to the perceived or expressed needs of the participants it is on the one hand very tiring, but there has been so much learning for me in it I don`t mind it in any way.
It is very inspiring to be working from the perspective of transformative/creative leadership. The idea of leadership not as a tool for creating followers, but of creating more leaders, of working with people to unearth their potentials, having a proactive way of looking at project design and management, to come here to learn together and not to “helpâ€, to co-create and not tell others how to do things, to try to be humble and avoid taking a patronizing role when working in a different place, different culture, different reality, this is very meaningful for me, and even though it is hard work I am extremely grateful and feel extremely fortunate for this experience.
The people we are working with are fantastic, a group of 15 to 20 people (attendance here is not the most predictable thing) with a lot of energy, amazing projects, and great ideas around “proyectos culturales de transformacion socialâ€- cultural projects for social transformation - I feel that together we have created a meaningful learning environment, where people can leave their individuality and egos and contribute to help the entire group in their learning process, a lot of things have happened, but now after the first week I have a very good feeling about this course, and think that we are creating something of great value for them and for us.
Working with Paul has also been great, this has been a fantastic way of complementing my internship experience, he has a lot of experience, and I am learning very much from working with him. it is also very interesting how I start believing much more in myself, and being much more proactive and giving much more of me when there is people who acknowledge my work and tell me I am very good at what I do, and that it is good to work with me. The power of trusting people while guiding them.
It has also been very strange to work in Spanish, I have this feeling some times that I become a different person depending on the language I speak, maybe it is not so much that, but I think that certainly some aspects of my personality become more prominent depending on the language, and the way I relate to people here is very different, I suppose more natural, I have to think less about cultural missunderstandings, and can focus more on the work I am doing.
The fact that we share 3 languages with Paul doesn`t mean that it makes things clearer of easier for us, it only means we have conversations 3 times as long as they could otherwise be and we get 3 times as confused.
How would I (we) take this further? If this is to be a pilot project, what is the next step? How can the learnings from this experience be used, understood, developed? How can I use this for my final project? How can I use this for my life? Can this be replicated in other places in LatinAmerica? Is there a need other than my own need? Who should participate? What do I want to be when I grow up?
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