Educators hear: In Cuba, everything is complicated

When Ileana Smith visited Cuba last October, more than 50 years had passed since her family left their home and all their belongings behind in the wake of the Castro revolution.

She stopped in front of the home where she had lived as a little girl. Where one family had lived, now there were several. Talking with some of the people living in the house, Ileana felt her emotions rise. “I stood there and wept,” she said. “It was all I could do.”

Leaving the country was easier then ­- in the physical, but not the emotional sense ­- than in the decades that followed. “Now,” said Smith, “everything in Cuba is complicado.”

Take the case of Tatiana Duran and Cesar Cabanas. In the 1990s, the married couple wanted to join a flood of people leaving the island nation. “In the early days of the revolution, people wanted to leave for political reasons,” said Cabanas. “But in the ‘90s, when the U.S. embargo was on and the Russian support had ended due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban economy fell apart. People wanted to flee then for economic reasons. It’s known as the special period, and it has marked all the Cuban people very deeply. There were no resources. I remember Tatiana taking the rind of a grapefruit, grinding it to a pulp and flavoring it with spices before she would grill and serve it. That was our steak.” His face said uggh!

Losing too many of its people, the Cuban government clamped down on the exodus. “They set up a lottery for visas to leave the country, so we applied,” said Cabanas. “In 1994 we weren’t chosen, but in 1998 we won. Yes. We were told we would be able to leave in 2007. But when 2007 came, the government cancelled the program and we were put on hold. We were one of 35 families left hanging. We had already started selling whatever we could to afford the trip to the U.S. Then, finally, in September of 2015, we were able to leave, 18 years later. Everything is complicado.”

Duran and Cabanas and a young son moved to the Washington, D.C. area and are now in the process of moving to Sussex County, in the Rehoboth area. He plans to attend Del Tech. “I’m ready to get going, but the language barrier has put the brakes on.” The two met with a group of Del Tech educators this week who will be leaving May 22 for a professional development trip to Cuba.

Smith will be among the group, and she asked Cabanas and Duran to have lunch with them to share insights about Cuba in advance of the trip.

Home ties are strong

Duran spoke first, but very shortly. “First of all, I am proud to be Cuban,” she said. Tears halted further progress. Leaving family and friends and your native country is difficult.

Cabanas picked up while Duran regained her composure. They spoke through Smith, who translated for them.

“Cubans’ homes and their families are their refuge,” he said.

“Cuba has free access to education at all levels, right up through doctorate degrees. They have free access to healthcare. The problem is there are no resources to work with. Cubans are highly educated, but they can’t make any money with their degrees because they have no resources. In a hotel there, your door may be opened by an engineer. The woman cleaning your room may be an architect. There is no money in their chosen fields, again because there is nothing to work with. Medications are very hard to come by for doctors. That’s why they work very closely with families on educating them about their health and wellness. The tourism industry is the only place there is money. The American embargo was intended to bring the Cuban government down. But it didn’t do that. Instead, it taught the Cubans to be survivors while giving the government an excuse for the nation’s problems. It will be interesting to see what the government uses for excuses when the embargo is eventually lifted. But the Cuban people have tremendous resolve. You will see many American cars from the 1950s still running in Cuban. They are very good at figuring out problems, overcoming them.”

Tatiana said she and her son were scared in Washington, D.C. They heard about violence, they saw metal detectors everywhere.

“We looked at each other and wondered what will happen next?” she said.

“In Cuba,” said Cabanas, “you can breathe easy. There are no weapons. Not in the streets, not in the hospitals, not in the schools. We want change in Cuba, but we worry. Cubans are peaceful people; they don’t want violence. They are happy people, jovial people and you will feel welcome there,” Cabanas told the group.

“Still,” said Duran, “it’s the access to resources that we have found in this country that we are most excited about. Opportunity for us and for our children.”

Cabanas concluded with a statement about his faith in the Cuban people, the people on the street, who still have hope. “The future of Cuba depends on the ones on foot ­- them having the opportunity to use all that education and all that they know to put it to use for the benefit of their country.”