I made sure to get a good night’s sleep last Sunday night in anticipation of meeting President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela at the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), where she is the director. We had all read an article by scholar Abel Sierra to prepare, in which he acknowledges some meritorious achievements of the […]
Brow Sweat to begin with
About a week ago the sun was mercilessly beating its rays across all of Havana. The sky was cloudless as the sun touched everything in sight – tops of heads, necks, the backs of legs and faces. Heat steamed from the earth and from sidewalks, mixing with exhaust and too-hot bodies moving around each other, […]
Old Clothes, Sleepy Beans and More (menu translations)
Food in Cuba can sometimes be quite the experience. There are two types of food here: “typical” creole food and non-typical, non-creole food. Typical food is usually arroz con gris which is when black beans and rice are prepared in the same pot at the same time, so the result is a moist grey rice […]
Troyes
For five days, Troyes had sun and even a little heat. Then, yesterday, it started to rain, and it’s been off and on ever since. In 48 hours, I will be in the middle of my trans-Atlantic flight back to the US. Sometimes in Morocco, to pass the time, Ryan and I talked about what […]
“It’s been 200 years – you should get over it”
This past weekend, the group took a vacation to Trinidad, a small city in Central Cuba. The coastal town, ornate with colonial architecture and cobblestone streets has historical roots in the sugar industry. With colonial sugar plantations came centuries of slavery, and all the atrocities the introduction of slavery brings to a people and nation. […]