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Students call rare trip
to Cuba humbling experience
Participants spend 10
weeks in country off-limits to most Americans
By Keli Senkevich / Aggie
News Writer. California
Aggie, April 13, 2005.
They did not see Fidel Castro during their
10-week stay in Cuba.
But despite missing a glimpse of the famed
socialist leader, 10 UC Davis students who
studied there returned to the United States
humbled after immersing themselves in a
culture quite foreign to their own.
"I wasn't sure what to expect at
all," said junior Linda Pirie, a pre-vet
student who said she had no specific reason
to study in Cuba, especially since none
of the classes pertained to her. "It's
changed me in a lot of ways, but I'm not
sure how many."
The group returned Mar. 14 from a 10-week
abroad experience that few universities
are able to offer. Due to federal law, such
programs must last a minimum of 10 weeks,
creating cost difficulties for participants.
The UCD students each paid about $11,000
for the trip, and the program barely managed
to draw in the minimum 10 students required.
Once in Cuba, the group settled into a
large home about 10 minutes outside of Havana,
the country's capital, with six bedrooms
and five bathrooms. This dwelling served
not only as their housing, but classroom
as well, where they took courses in Spanish,
comparative literature and music.
They also befriended local citizens, whom
they described as warm and hospitable, even
though billboards labeling the U.S. as fascist
indicated hostility toward the American
government.
Professor Pablo Ortiz, one of the program's
instructors, said the students attracted
attention from the Cubans.
"They really liked our students,"
he said. "Cubans are used to having
Europeans and Canadians, so they are almost
moved when someone from this country goes
there."
Senior Alicia Henry said she had to exercise
more flexibility in Cuba, for each day was
a new experience. On an outing to Santiago
for some dance lessons and to watch a play,
the electricity went out, disrupting their
plans. Things like that happened often,
she said. One time she said she waited two
hours for a bus to arrive.
With a similar story, Pirie remembers
an evening in which the group, accompanied
by Ortiz, ran into Australian tourists and
ventured with them in search of a club.
They encountered a drunken passerby and
allowed him to direct them to their intended
destination.
"We were wandering these streets
not knowing what we were doing or how safe
it was," Pirie said. This experience
best captures the essence of the trip, she
said.
Along with adjusting to the spontaneity
of life in Cuba, the students also experienced
life under a socialist government, one of
the more enlightening aspects of the trip.
Now back at Davis, senior Jade Turner
finds the course material in her macroeconomics
class hard to swallow after witnessing a
thriving socialist economy. While the Cuban
standard of living may not compare to America's,
the socialist system provides citizens with
housing, education and health care.
Turner said there is an emphasis on the
capitalist economy as the only economic
model an individual will experience, a point
of view that conflicts with what she learned.
She said she now questions her reasons for
wanting to buy something, and asks herself
if she really needs new clothes for spring
or that extra snack. As a society, Americans
do not realize how they are being indoctrinated,
she said.
"I developed a deeper respect for
the ideologies of socialism," Turner
said. "In practice there are some problems,
but I think the ideology of it is fantastic
and a lot of us came away with that same
idea."
As they adjust to their lives post-Cuba,
with fast food and credit cards, the students
boast that they had the time of their lives.
"I still feel like I just grazed
the surface of what Cuba is," Henry
said.
"This is a program that needs to
stay as controversial as it is for all of
the reasons it is controversial and then
some," Pirie said.
A presentation of the trip will be held
Apr. 26 in the Silo Cabernet room, where
the status of future short-term programs
to Cuba will be available. For more information,
visit eac.ucdavis.edu.
KELI SENKEVICH can be
reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.
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- 2005 by The California Aggie. All rights
reserved.
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