School works on bridge between Akron, Cuba
By Katie Byard. Beacon Journal staff writer. Published Thursday, June 1, 2000, in the Akron Beacon Journal.
Cuba -- land of beautiful, white sand beaches and black-market cigars -- is off limits to most Americans.
But some area folks are headed to the native country of now-famous castaway Elian Gonzalez -- and there's still time to join the entourage.
The eight-day trip will be the University of Akron's first study expedition to the last communist country in the Western hemisphere. Organizers hope the trip leads to more educational links between Cuba and UA.
The July 12-19 foray will be one of the relatively few but growing number of such trips to Cuba, an island nation that is a strange juxtaposition of poverty, architectural and natural beauty, and lavish tourist attractions.
Cuba ``has been cut off from the U.S. for 41 years (since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power). So that in itself is fascinating. . . . It's a fascinating world,'' said Michael Hauber, an area educator hired by UA to help lead the trip.
Such academic tours are one of the few ways Americans can legally travel to the country, which for nearly four decades has been under a U.S. trade and tourism embargo.
Cuba's stunning colonial architecture, its culture and its history -- not its cigars, rum or Elian rallies -- are the primary draw for trip planners. However, Hauber admitted enjoying a Cuban cigar or two on a recent exploratory trip to the country.
Hauber, foreign language specialist for the Akron public schools, is far from alone in his interest in the island that is only 90 miles from Florida's Key West. The number of Americans visiting Cuba has grown every year since at least 1994, according to John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba
Trade and Economic Council in New York. About 150,000 U.S. residents traveled to Cuba in 1999.
``People gravitate toward the unknown,'' Kavulich said. He compared the attraction to that of the former Soviet Union, where ``people generally wanted to see the country before it underwent too many changes. The same is true for Cuba.''
On a recent afternoon, Hauber flipped through photographs from a previous trip. They show a country that at once seems locked in time and changing to cash in on a promising tourism industry.
The pictures show faded architectural treasures and cars from the 1950s. In one photo, a home's pastel-tiled kitchen looks like something out of an old Good Housekeeping magazine.
Hauber also has shots of five-star resorts operated by Europeans and legal and illegal in-home restaurants (called paladeres) designed to appeal to foreigners. The legal eateries have been permitted since 1995. Other photos feature old palm-tree-shaded streets and clean beaches that once made
Cuba a top destination for U.S. tourists.
The ongoing controversy over Elian, the 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor, may help pique interest in the trip, trip planners say. However, they stress the trip's focus isn't on relations with the United States.
``We would rather go at this from a nonpolitical approach and academic approach,'' said UA's Fred Carr, director of the Center for Economic Education who will lead the trip with Hauber.
Despite the ``ugly political struggle'' between the United States and Castro-led Cuba, Hauber said people from the two countries can learn from each other.
His initial image of Cuba was shaped by the Cold War. He recalls anxiously listening to reports of the Cuban missile crisis as a young boy in 1962, wondering, like many Americans, if the nation was about to enter World War III.
Cuba was then part of ``the (Red) menace.'' His memories made him somewhat uneasy before he visited Cuba.
``I was pleasantly surprised,'' he said. ``Like all of Latin America, they like our standard of living and are friendly toward Americans.''
Carr and Hauber, who taught in Colombia for two years and married a Colombian, hope the trip will appeal to educators and anyone interested in Cuba, a country ``discovered'' by Christopher Columbus. The cost of the UA trip is $1,825.
They also hope the trip leads to more formal ties between the Akron area and Cuba, in particular the University of Havana.
Lecturers from the Cuban university will give five talks (covering art, history, culture, economics and architecture) to the UA group. The Havana school is developing links with a number of American educational institutions, including the University of Cincinnati.
A major part of the UA trip will be tours of historic sites and buildings, including the Museum of the Revolution.
The trip will not be all lectures and academic sightseeing, though. It will include a stop at a cigar factory, two nights at Varadero Beach and an optional visit to the famed Tropicana nightclub, a reminder of the pre-revolution days of glitzy showgirls and mobsters out on the town.
For more information about the trip to Cuba, call Andy Walker at the UA's continuing education department, 330-972-7577. A $600 nonrefundable deposit is due June 9. UA hopes that at least 20 people sign up.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com |