We’re leaving today… but not yet.

First there is packing and reflecting before a long goodbye.

Packing is easy.  We have much less to take home than we brought.  All the gifts and Sunday school materials and the sweets and toothbrushes have been replaced by Havana Club, cigars and Che Guevara t-shirts.

We’re joined by the moderator of the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba’s youth organisation.  I’m sorry, but I can’t for the life of me remember his name!

We talked a little about their youth work activities and presented him with a celtic cross, hand-made by a member of Angela’s church in Nairn.  Our young people also collected their remaining spending money, more then 100cuc, and gifted it to be used to help in youth activities.

For the rest of the time we have a lazy morning.  Some people went outside, topping up their tan, or in my case still trying desperately to get one.  Others are inside playing cards or chatting quietly.

Lunch is a surprise, well not really… it’s rice and beans.

After lunch we are joined again by the moderator of the Synod and for the first time by the minister of Luyano Church for an evaluation.

There are few complaints but a few suggestions, mostly about planning.  The response… this is Cuba.  And they are right I suppose.

The things that frustrate about Cuba are the things that define it.

There seems never to be a plan… but that means that the people are relaxed and spontaneous.

It’s hot and humid… but that means that life is slow and never rushed.

The poverty is obvious… but that means that people concentrate on each other rather than their possessions.

The political situation is oppressive… but that makes Cuba the peculiarity that it is.

The group (left to right) Eilidh, Jen, Anaitza (our host), Matthew, Alison, Erik, the Moderator, Shona, Katie, Rob, Avril, Me and Dyana (our translator).  Angela took the photo.

Going Home

Luis and our Cuban friends took us to the airport, one final ride in the bus along the potholed roads of Havana.

Check in took ages and wasn’t helped by the only impatient person we met on our whole trip, our check in person.  And then it was time to say goodbye but I think we were glad to be heading home.  The flight was the usual East-bound transatlantic overnight flight.  The flight was full so there was no chance to spread out and get some sleep.  Just a doze after watching Angels & Demons.  Breakfast was the strangest breakfast ever… chicken, honey and mustard wrap.  Seriously Virgin, a croissant and a coffee would be a whole lot better.  Even the staff were embarrassed.

There is much about Cuba I like.  I love the architecture, the sun, the vibrant colours and the people.  But for me the highlight was something we brought with us.  The group of seven young people we had the pleasure of travelling with were warm, open, friendly and funny, a credit to their church and to their country.

An early rise and and a cold shower were a welcome start to our first full day in Cuba.

Stepping out of the air-conditioned room into a sauna like church gave us some idea of the day and week ahead but a breakfast of crepes, honey and tropical fruit put the heat to the back of our minds, for now.

Meeting the Locals

‘Getting to know you’ was the theme of our first session with our Cuban hosts Anaitza, Dyana and Meylin.  Sitting outside in the shade we tried to explain ourselves using ‘shields’ and symbols then tried to interpret someone’s.  This was really helpful for everyone because obviously we didn’t know our Cuban hosts but the group from Scotland didn’t know each other well either.

Following the introductions we tried to explain Scotland.

You’ll notice from the photo that Rob had brought his kilt.  Explaining our national ‘man skirt’ caused great hilarity, especially when the sporran was thrown into the mix.

Lunch was rice, beans, avocado, green beans and beef.

The group decided to go for a wander around the neighbourhood.

They discovered pretty quickly why the street was pretty quiet.  It’s way too hot to walk around.  They managed to get pretty far, discovering a shop and a hospital, before returning with the reddest faces I think I’ve ever seen!

There was an air of anticipation as we climbed aboard Luis’ Bus to head out on our first venture into Havana.  Luyano, where we were staying, is a poor neighbourhood with factories surrounding so we were all keen to see what the rest of the city was like.

Plaza de la Revolucion

The world famous Plaza de la Revolucion (Revolution Square) was our first stop.  Fidel addresses the masses from in front of the giant memorial to Jose Marti, educationalist and Cuban National Hero, but it is the iconic image of Che Guevara which dominates the square.  The image on the front of the Ministry of the Interior, based on the photograph taken by Alberto Korda, is made of bronze wire.  It is simply stunning.

Under Che’s image are the words ‘Hasta la victoria siempre’, the last words written by Che to Fidel.  Keep striving until the victory is won.

The National Hotel

Havana was once glorious.  You can see it all around.  The buildings are beautiful, but crumbling.  There are theatres, hotels and galleries.  Music is always in the air.  In the afternoon we found evidence that the opulent Havana still exists in the National Hotel.

Imagine an old style grand hotel with lots of marble, wood and brass, ballrooms, cigars and cocktails and you get somewhere close to the National.  We sat in the courtyard and drank what the waiter promised were the best mojitos in the world… and he wasn’t lying.

But this is Cuba.  The cocktails and the hall of fame showing all the famous people who have stayed in the hotel couldn’t be the whole story.  And they’re not.

The hotel garden is no ordinary garden.  It houses a pool, a bar and bunkers and trenches dug to defend against the potential invasion of America during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

The Canon

In the evening we travelled over to the other side of the bay to the Castillo del Morro, a fortress begun in 1589.  Cuba was an important staging post on the route between Spain and the New World so the fortress has been host to many treasures on their way to Spain.

These days the Castillo del Morro is a tourist attraction with bars, restraunts and museums.  Each night at 9pm a detachment of soldiers dressed in period uniform march out and fire a canon.

We didn’t stay long after the gun was fired, which seemed a shame.  The canon firing seems to be a real social occasion with the Cubans all dressed up and the bars busy.  It would have been nice to just spend some time looking around but instead we headed back to base.

Our group took some time to reflect on our first impressions.  Like me, most commented on the dilapidation of the houses and the very obvious poverty which sits side by side with the grandeur of the National Hotel and the Castillo del Morro.  It’s a strange mix and it’s hard to tell if life is getting better or worse for the Cuban people.

More photos on Flickr

We arrived in Havana, Cuba, after a short, uneventful journey.

How I wish that were true!

The Journey

A group of 7 half-asleep young people and 2 very asleep ‘guardians’ from around the United Reformed Church Synod of Scotland gathered in the middle of the night to set off on a week-long trip to Cuba to visit our partners in the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Cuba.  The journey is long.  An hour and 10 minutes with BA to London then a 9.5 hour Virgin Atlantic flight from Gatwick to Havana.  But before that we need to check in.

It should be simple, but then life never is!  Use the self-service check in.  It makes life easier.  Two of the group get checked in.  Seven don’t.  Simple.

We head for the desk to discover that changing Erik’s name to the correct spelling last week has caused some kind of problem in the system.  ‘Computer says ‘duh”.  It takes a while but the check-in lady fixes us up and checks our bags through to Havana.  I wonder if we will ever see them again!

In the departure lounge we decide the play it cool, waiting for the line to go down before boarding.  It turns out to be both a good and bad plan.  Whatever the check-in lady did has messed up our bag references so they all need to be re-entered.  It’s good we waited because we aren’t holding anyone up at the gate but bad… we’re holding up an entire plane full of people instead.  We board, eventually, and arrive in London Gatwick without further incident.

Negotiating ‘Flight Transfers’ is always fun, especially when you have to change terminal but we seem to end up in the right place, a Virgin desk where a lady re-enters all our details as a massive queue forms behind us.  Visas?  Em… not exactly.  We’re travelling on religious visas which were only issued a couple of days ago so we only have colour copies.  The visas are waiting for us in Havana.  Hmm…  A phone call later and we’re on our way, meeting Angela and Shona who flew from Inverness last night.

Our out bound flight is delayed by an hour or so (more about why that might have been later) but it’s a Jumbo with only 140 people on board so we have loads of room for the outbound flight.

Arriving in Havana

Anyone who has travelled somewhere hot will know the feeling of stepping off an air-conditioned plane through a wall of heat.

Welcome to Havana!

It’s 35C and a thunderstorm is crashing off towards the coast.  It’s unbelievably humid.  So much so that my glasses and camera lens steamed up when we stepped out of the airport.

There were familiar friendly faces to meet us and the usual problems with Scottish money (they don’t take it).

Outside our bus soon pulled up… with Luis, our driver, at the wheel.  And what a bus it was.  An old skool Toyota mini-bus with leather seats, sliding windows, fold-down centre seats, no air conditioning but a whole lot of character.

You could tell this week was going to be ‘different’ when the cases were loaded through the side window at the back and we climbed aboard for the trip to our home for the week, Luyano Presbyterian Reformed Church in Havana.

Cuba is like stepping back in time.  There are old cars, horses and carts, the roads are terrible.  But the thing that we all noticed first was the complete absence of adverts.  There are no billboards advertising Coke, McDonalds or whatever.  Instead the advertising hoardings proclaim the 50th Anniversary of the Revolution.  There are slogans everywhere.  Pictures of Che Guevara, Fidel and the other heroes of the Revolution.  The heat is overpowering.  The smell of petrol fumes wafts in the wide open windows.  Cars swerve to avoid the potholes and horns honk to encourage people to move over just a little bit more, people cling to the back of trucks and crowd onto buses.

As we start to drive past houses the scale of the delapidation becomes obvious.  The houses are falling apart.  Crumbling through time, weather and poverty on a scale that is hard to imagine.  The excited chatter on the bus dies away as we come face to face with real life in Cuba.

This is our street, our home for a week.  This is the view from our window.  It’s not hard to imagine the former glory of these once beautiful buildings.  The columns and cornices are crumbling reminders of what once was.

It would be easy to complain about our rooms.  The beds were boards with a thin mattress, the shower was a choice between cold and electrocution, the air-conditioning was noisier than a jet engine.  But looking out the window makes those kind of complaints seem petty and selfish.

Dinner was another reminder of how lucky we are.  Rice, beans, avocado and some kind of meat.  For the next week we had rice, beans, avocado and a little meat for lunch and dinner.  Every day.  The beans varied, the meat changed, but it was basically the same meal.  And this was a feast.

Our evening ended with a meeting to talk about our programme for the week.  But more about that as we go on…

Then it was off to bed for the most uncomfortable and noisy night’s sleep I’ve had in ages.  But then, this is Cuba.