Cuba’s strength is in its cohesive families and people

Cuba's strength is in its cohesive families and people
BY LEWIS DIUGUID
ldiuguid@kcstar.com

Each night after long days exploring Cuba last month, other members of
our group mostly retreated to their rooms at the Hotel Paseo Habana.

But my partner Bette and I nearly every night set out after 10:30 on a
mile-long walk to the seaside Hotel Habana Riviera in the Vedado area so
we could connect to its Wi-Fi service. Our hotel had one computer that
the 19 members in our group with the National Association for
Multicultural Education could use for about $3 an hour.

For the same price and an investment in shoe leather we could both
connect to the Internet and get work done after learning during the day
about Cuba as it and the U.S. work to normalize relations after more
than 50 years of Cold War tension.

The walk took us past a hospital, and then down Paseo Avenue with a
median parkway and old mansions. Most had deteriorated because of the
U.S. economic blockade and the collapse of Cuba's Soviet and Eastern
Bloc trading partners. It looked war-torn and resource-starved like the
black community in Kansas City and elsewhere in the U.S. Tourism cash
feeds Cuba's reconstruction. Carnival cruise ships may start docking in
Havana in May 2016. U.S. black communities aren't so fortunate.

Paseo Avenue in Cuba was like the Paseo in Kansas City from Independence
Avenue to 18th Street. Only it's not dangerous at night as it could be
in our town.

In Cuba we never saw police on Paseo or armed guards. In the 20-minute
walk to the Riviera and the return to our hotel after midnight, we
encountered teens, moms with kids, young couples on park benches and men
and women our age sitting outside, where it was a lot cooler than being
indoors with no air conditioning.

"This is a country where people still meet face to face," said Rodrigo
Gonzalez, who helped show us his homeland. He also said tourism was up
dramatically.

Rita M. Pereina, who also showed us Cuba, said visitors needed to take
some precautions, but Cuba is a country where guns aren't sold, "and
usually here it's safer."

We learned that people in Cuba value families. Bette and I took joy in
learning of our hosts' children and parents and sharing our own pictures
and stories of our immediate and extended families.

Cuba's strength and its family bonds may be tied to women playing a
greater role in governing than in the U.S. Maritzel Gonzalez, with the
Federation of Cuban Women, told us that 48 percent of Cuba's Parliament
members are women. If only our Congress were that way.

She said 10 of the 15 Cuban provinces are chaired by women — the
equivalent of governors in the U.S., and women head 35 percent of the
municipalities. More than 65 percent of university students are women,
and about half the natural science and math graduates are women. The
population is highly educated, the birthrate is low and Cubans work to
combat bias.

The Riviera didn't provide us relief from the heat. The lobby wasn't
air-conditioned. Most nights we had a hot time on the Web.

But one evening when we had walked to the Riviera with Jazmine Craddock,
the youngest member of our group, we found an air-conditioned,
1970s-style discotheque off the lobby of the hotel. It had mirrors on
the walls, red carpet, a dance floor and a mirrored disco ball spinning
from the ceiling. The Bee Gees' 1977 hit, "Staying Alive," filled the
bar with a music video playing on a big-screen TV as we entered.

This country is changing, and everyone we saw thought Cuba would
modernize and catch up with the rest of the world but maintain its
political and social integrity. Pereina pointed out that instead of ads
for products, billboards in Havana advertise values. One said, "Do good
and don't focus on who you are doing good to." Others prompt Cubans to
save water and electricity and insist on gender equity.

History professor and Literacy Campaign Museum Director Luisa Campos
Gallardo told me at a farewell party for our group that long after the
U.S. flag goes up on Friday at the American embassy in Havana, she had
faith that young people in Cuba would passionately maintain the
solidarity of the nation. I hope she's right.

Reach Lewis W. Diuguid at 816-234-4723, Ldiuguid@kcstar.com or
@DiuguidLewis.

Source: Cuba's strength is in its cohesive families and people | The
Kansas City Star -
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/lewis-diuguid/article30734637.html