Telluride Mountain School's High School traveled to Cuba this spring as a part of the school's experiential learning program, spending a week in Havana and another week traveling to several smaller towns, including the UNESCO world-heritage town of Trinidad. The trip was an immersion in all senses of the word. With the assistance of language classes and patient homestay families, students began to learn the subtleties of Cuban Spanish, where 's's and 'f's are dropped and vowels are rounded. As very little English is spoken throughout Cuba, students had to either dare to speak or risk being left behind.
The trip was also an immersion in Cuba's culture and history, as students visited various museums, memorials, and churches, examining Cuba's rich but complicated history. Central to our discussions was examining the impact of both Spain's and the U.S.'s history in Cuba, the legacy of slavery, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the continued impact of the U.S.'s trade embargo with Cuba. As we wandered Cuba's hot streets (the combined heat index was often well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit!), we met with locals ranging from business owners to musicians and artists to school kids, learning their personal stories as we tried to understand the larger picture of daily life in Cuba.
In the evenings, we'd gather together to journal and reflect on our larger experiences, often considering the larger nature of happiness: How do Cubans remain so grateful and upbeat, especially given their struggle for daily resources? Throughout their reflections, students shared a resounding appreciation for the lives they lead in Telluride, everything from access to basic necessities such as food, water, and power to the larger advantages of education and travel they've had throughout their lives. It was truly a socio-political-economic-cultural and linguistic immersion.
Below are samples of their writing:
Trinidad, William Mueffelmann
Trinidad, a small town nestled on the central southern coast of Cuba, is stuck in time. The trash-filled cobbled streets connect the Spanish colonial buildings from hill to hill, painted in a bright coat of pink, yellow, and blue. Kids play soccer with a flat, torn-up ball or tag in the streets, shoeless among the piles of trash at each corner. Our Casas Particulars were in the middle of a living UNESCO World Heritage site, but that meant nothing to the Cuban people living in their small, broken-down houses with constant rolling blackouts. Every 4 hours, one block would light up, the air conditioning would start humming, and another block would shut down, leaving their house to be a dark sauna. We would complain and be jealous of the houses with generators, but we only had to put up with this for 3 days. These are constant problems in Cuban's lives. Despite their hardships, they endure these challenges with patience unknown to Americans. While in Trinidad, we visited Playa de Ancon, a beach west of Trinidad 2 of the 3 days there. The beach had an eerie feeling to it, palm-leafed cabanas covered the beach but we were the only ones to fill them. There was a massive Staleness hotel that looked like it had been abandoned since it was built in the 1960s. The concrete rooms are empty but the air conditioning is running. The restaurant was fully staffed but no food was cooking, until we arrived. It was like an old car starting up. They fired up the grill slowly. After we were served, the grill was shut off and the staff returned to waiting. But what were they waiting for? Nobody else was going to come. That was a common theme throughout the trip. We would wait hours for food, we would wait to do an activity, we would wait for a plan. But that is just how Cuba is: an island of waiting. They're waiting for change.
Bay of Pigs, Piper Allen
As I submerge my head in the cool blue waters of Caleta Buena, I feel calm. My first thought is of the perfect temperature. I am finally not hot (This has never been the case in Cuba with temperatures with the combined humidity soaring well over 100 degrees. Then my mind switches and a sudden thought crosses my mind. I think of how odd it is that I am currently swimming at the Bay of Pigs, also known as Caleta Buena, also known as Bahia de Cochinos. This is where the U.S. tried to invade Cuba in 1961, where people were killed and captured, where the U.S. had one of its biggest military failures. And now I am here. Swimming, smiling, laughing, having the time of my life. Just before swimming here, we went to the Bay of Pigs museum. Seeing this historic event through the eyes of the Cuban government changed everything. For us, we see this event as a tragedy that shouldn't have happened, a sad day where we lost horrendously…But for Cuba, this was an event that just proved how strong their government and people were, how great of a leader Fidel Castro was.
I dip my head back under the surface and reach my arms toward the soft white sand. The same sand that was here about sixty years ago when the U.S.-backed rebels stormed this beach. Although I resisted opening my eyes to the salty sea water, this place is opening my eyes to a new perspective.
High School, Quincy Shoff
I stand in front of the high school about to walk into a class full of kids. The school is rundown, with broken windows, graffiti, and parts of the building crumbling into the street. When we go to the bathrooms, the toilets don't flush, have no TP or any toilet seats. The bathrooms are also not in a building, just wood stalls outside the school. We enter the hot classroom. I am in shock that here they have schools in 95° weather with no windows, no AC, and no fans. It feels like a sauna, yet it's a classroom. As we enter, all of the kids stand up greeting us, which is what they do to welcome anyone coming in. They know very little about America, but the stuff that they do know, they talk about all the time. I am very nervous to go in and try to speak Spanish, but I don't want to stand here any longer, making a fool of myself. So I ask them if they like sports. “ Les gustan desportes?” All at once they explode, talking over each other about all of their favorite sports teams. Some of the teams they liked are the Warriors, the Nuggets, and the Yankees. They take any chance they get to try and speak with you in English. The kids in the school are very nice and so welcoming and have phones, nice jewelry and nice haircuts. How can this be? The paradoxes in this country confound me. They even invite us to play a soccer game with them later that week. The soccer game is so much fun. We all show up and most of us play. They take a group of their students to make the best team that they could. They even let one of the players be on our team. The field that we are playing on is very small and part of it goes onto the dirt of the baseball field. Also don't really have any nets. How can a school that seems so dysfunctional actually be quite functional in terms of happiness? Here, I experienced equal if not more amounts of joy compared to what I feel in Telluride every day. Perhaps, there are lessons here I need to learn, carry back with me, the way I carry back the souvenirs and postcards I've purchased.