Waukon native Cassandra Berger shares her learning experience from University of Dubuque trip to Cuba

by Brianne Eilers

Waukon native and University of Dubuque student Cassandra Berger traveled to the Republic of Cuba for a J-Term class through the university in January of this year. The class was a way for students to learn about Cuban culture, as well as practice their Spanish speaking.
Berger also noted that another aspect of the trip was to perform some service work. "We packed our bags half-full of clothes and things we needed for the trip, then filled the rest of our bags with medicine and other items that are not easily accessible for most of the people in Cuba," she said. The service work was an important aspect of this J-Term class. The group spent three days in Mexico and just over a week in Cuba. While in Cuba, they traveled from the western edge of Cuba east, visiting several places, including the cities of Havana and Trinidad.
The students traveled to Cuba via a flight from Mexico, as there have not been any direct commercial flights to Cuba from the U.S. for decades. Their visit also coincided with the relaxing of some of the travel and economic restrictions that have been imposed on Americans wishing to visit Cuba, as well as the relaxing of some of the economic restrictions between the two countries.
Berger explained that the news of those eased restrictions was something that was being celebrated by the people of Cuba about the same time her student group made its trip. "They were super pumped about it," she said.
Berger said that she didn't really know what to expect traveling to Cuba. For most Americans, Cuba is shrouded in a bit of mystery. When thinking of Cuba, generally the first things that may come to mind might be communism, cigars, and old cars. Berger said she was a little bit nervous at first, and that once they were in Cuba, they didn't have much contact with their families and the rest of the outside world.
"It was kind of like a cleanse in that way," she noted, adding that it was nerve-wracking at times for her parents, Rusty and Cynthia Berger of Waukon, to not be able to communicate with her. Berger says that she felt very safe in Cuba; in fact, she noted that she felt less safe in Mexico than she did in Cuba. "The people in Cuba were very warm and friendly," Berger said, noting that she felt they were treated like royalty. She felt that the people of Cuba were just as curious about how people live in the U.S. as the students were about life in Cuba.
The group spent some time with their professor’s in-laws who live in Cuba, which helped put things in perspective for the Americans. In Cuba, families receive ration cards every month to purchase items like food. If they have any extra income left, they buy things from farmer’s markets as well, but money can be pretty tight. The average monthly wages earned by workers is $10.
Berger said she expected to find that the people of Cuba also worked long, exhausting hours and was surprised to find out they basically have a 40-hour work week. Her group met a lot of Cubans who work as artists and tour guides.
When they visited the Manaca-Iznaga tower located in the Valle de los Ingenios near Trinidad, Cuba, there were lots of tents set up near the tower, where locals sold their wares to the tourists. The 147-foot high tower was built in 1816, and once housed a bell that rang to signal the beginning and the end of the work day on the sugar plantations located in the Valle de los Igenios.
Seeing families living on a tight budget showed the college students that a person can live without some things that most people have come to accept as items they need in today's U.S. society, like multiple cars and televisions. However, other things that should be pretty basic necessities, like medicine, medical supplies and clothes and shoes have become luxury items to the people of Cuba.
“I made the comment to one (Cuban) guy I talked to that everyone seemed to be so fit, and his response was that they don’t have a lot of food. I felt bad,” Berger said. Cubans also have learned not to be wasteful. If they get a hole in their shoes, they take them to the shoe repair shop. They can’t just go out and buy a new pair of shoes or new clothes; they have to save up for those things for months.
Healthcare isn’t the same as it is in the U.S., either. Doctors don’t make large salaries in Cuba like they do in other countries, and Cubans who need medical treatment might find themselves waiting for a long time to see a doctor, even for serious illnesses or injuries. “If I had gotten hurt or sick on this trip, I would have been immediately given the best accommodations and been taken care of,” Berger said. “That just didn’t seem fair.”
While on their trip, the students were able to sample Cuban home cooking, which Berger said was often some variation of chicken and rice. She noted that for dessert, it was often fresh fruit, like papaya or pineapple. “It was good food, but not a lot of spices,” she said.
Agriculture is a part of the Cuban economy, but the farms aren’t like what Berger was used to in northeast Iowa; they are smaller. While traveling the countryside in Cuba, Berger noticed there were a lot of organic farms, tobacco farms and sugarcane plantations in the areas they visited.
For entertainment, Cubans don’t generally go shopping or to the movies or out to eat. They spent a lot of time outdoors, visiting with family, friends and neighbors. “The houses were very close together,” Berger said of the neighborhoods they visited. “They didn’t have a lot of glass windows or doors, and you could hear everything.”
Not every household had its own car, but there really were a lot of cars from the 1950s, and newer cars were not as common, Berger noted. The buildings were also older, some going back to a style and time when Cuba was a Spanish colony.
As part of the trip, the students visited a college where they teach how to maintain and restore the historic buildings of the island nation. The students also toured a tobacco plantation and a rum distillery.
Another tourist destination that the University of Dubuque students visited was the Mural de la Prehistoria, located in the Valle de Vinales. The mural was painted in 1961 on the side of a mountain known as the Mogote Dos Hermanas. The mural was made to look like prehistoric cave painting.
Another unique experience for the group was touring a crocodile reserve in Guama. The students were also able to ride in Soviet trucks through the Escambray Mountain range, which runs through central Cuba. “It was such a beautiful place,” Berger said.
She said that she was glad to experience the Republic of Cuba when she did, and would like to be able to make another visit. She also said that for any return trips in the future she would like to be able to get more into the service work aspect.