Stan and Kim in Cuba

  We experienced quite a "climate change" yesterday, as we arrived back to some cold and damp North Carolina mountains, after 3 weeks of Caribbean t-shirt and shorts weather. It didn't take long for me to get the fire roaring in the wood stove! We are grateful for this opportunity to spend three weeks in Cuba's eastern provinces of Las Tunas, Holguín, and Bayamo, where we visited seven of the Fraternity churches. We were blessed to be able to hang out with groups from First Baptist Asheville and First Baptist Sylva who were there to strengthen ties with their respective partner churches.  There is definitely a different kind of "climate change" evident in Cuba these days. The skies are not "fair", to borrow another meteorological term. A growing number of people, especially young people, leaving the island for the greener pastures of south Florida or Texas is taking its toll. Every church is affected by the exodus of leaders and active members. The...

Last Monday night I was with some friends, and they asked me what it is that I love about Cuba. What is it that keeps drawing me back? I'm sure my answer was inadequate, and afterwards I thought about what I could have said. I could have talked about the three trips I've taken in recent months, the generous meals and conversations I enjoyed in forty-seven different homes across four different provinces, how I was blown away in each encounter by the resilience, the heart, the determination and inspiration of people enduring daily trauma. Or, better yet, I could have honed in on one of those homes and described in detail one of those families; I could have told stories about one of those friends. I could have told them about Pancho.   Our dear friend Pancho died just a few hours after my friends asked me the question and I fumbled for my response. Had I known the news I would awaken to, I could have—and would have—regaled them with many stories. Pancho is the best answer I can t...

(blog by Stan) Moving back and forth between superpower U.S. and struggling Cuba is sometimes jarring in terms of the differences, but other times it feels like we're traveling through a wormhole into a parallel universe, with striking similarities. On both sides of the divide there is anxious commentary about the impending collapse of the societal foundation, with U.S. authorities and security apparatus focused on January 6 with the intent of prosecuting anyone who had a hand (or a voice) in promoting insurrection, and Cuban authorities and security apparatus focused on  July 11, with the intent of prosecuting anyone who had a hand (or voice) in promoting insurrection.  This week I received a link from a Cuban friend who wanted me to know about a pastor recently arrested and detained for a few hours, presumably for suspicion of seditious behavior. He was released and put under house arrest. Many friends are complaining about the encroachment on human rights, the lack of ...

 (blog by Kim) When Stan and I left Cuba about a week ago, we thought we were headed for Fairview, North Carolina, via Toronto.   However, I think something happened in transit, and powers from a galaxy far, far away transported us to the Ice World of Hoth.   At least that’s what it felt like after having been in temperatures in the 80’s in Cuba. I have felt the cold in my bones as well as a bit isolated with this most recent winter storm. There were moments when I didn’t even want to open the door, even to get things from our porch (which was serving as our refrigerator), and I remembered what Han Solo said, “There isn’t enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser.”   With several layers of clothes we have managed to brave the outdoors and enjoy the beauty of the snow and find (mostly from tracks and bird songs) that there are several life forms here:   rabbits, deer, turkeys, raccoons, hawks, woodpeckers and other birds, neighbors and their dogs and ...

(blog by Stan) (Marisela, Arturo, and Comprendo, photo by Julio Cesar Valdés) In this season of celebrating Thanksgiving and another trip around the sun, I have been thinking a lot about my friend Arturo. I learned a lot about being grateful from Arturo, a "third age member" (senior citizen) in Matanzas who passed away a couple of weeks ago. He was well up in years, and had been in poor health for as long as I had known him. He and his wife, Marisela, lived in a small solar, one of the humblest of dwellings I have visited in Matanzas, just a few blocks from the church. Neither could hear very well, and Arturo could barely speak; his shouts would still be in the whisper range. But he loved to talk, to tell stories, especially of how he had gotten involved in music as a youth and had played percussion in the Matanzas big band. While Marisela spent her days walking all over the city (it was uncanny, whichever direction I headed toward on any given day, I would invariably run int...

(blog by Stan)  The spoken word in Cuba is not easy to understand. Sentences spill out at high velocity, with the ends of many words missing, and conversations are filled with idiomatic expressions that make no literal sense. On this last month-long trip, though, there were some words and phrases that left no room for misunderstanding. Over and over again, I heard a couple of phrases in particular, always spoken slowly and articulated with precision and emphasis: NO HAY NA-DA. i.e., There is nothing . And LA COSA ESTÁ MA-LA. i.e., Things are bad . Navigating the day-to-day economy is devastating. In the stores where most Cubans have access (where they can pay with the Cuban peso), there is next to nothing on most of the shelves. But there are other stores, the MLC stores, where the shelves are stocked, but most Cubans don't have access to them. MLC stands for moneda libremente convertible. i.e., currency that is accepted around the world. To shop in these stores, you need a debit...

(blog by Kim) There are a wide variety of thoughts about Cuba these days, what the future should look like and who should decide it. There are stark differences between Cubans, whether they live on the island or live abroad. However, there are a few things that unify all Cubans. One is José Martí, a hero for everyone, wherever they are. His wisdom and inspiration in his essays, poetry, children’s stories and plays seem to connect to all Cuban people and inspire a deep sense of family, solidarity and compassion. From children to adults, we have often asked Cubans for a favorite work of Martí, and we are blessed to hear a beautiful, word-perfect recitation with great emotion and joy. Martí is someone that the all the Cuban people share. Another thing that I believe unites them is an experience of grief.   The grief is varied, multi-layered and complicated, but it runs deep and shapes their lives. It may be a grief of families who were killed in the revolution on either side of th...

Sunday, August 15, 2021         In recent weeks I have read opinion pieces on Cuba in the AC-T from three nationally syndicated columnists, representing a range of ideological perspectives. While they each had a different angle and reason for writing, I found it curious that they shared a basic opinion on the Cuban government: the progressive Leonard Pitts wrote about its "reign of communist repression," a "deadly dictatorship" that "stomps upon the rights and even the humanity of its people" (7/18).     The liberal Eugene Robinson wrote that "there is nothing remotely progressive about the thuggish, oppressive, Neo-Stalinist government of Cuba" (7/17). And the conservative Cal Thomas derides the famed literacy rate of Cuba, claiming that "all they're allowed to read is communist propaganda" (7/25). What strikes me about all three of these derisions is that they are not remotely close to the actual reality in Cuba as I have lived an...

  Last week, I heard something on the radio that chilled me to the bone. Before describing the story, let me say what it brought to mind. It was a trip to Perico, a small city in the Matanzas province, where I saw a sculpture I had been wanting to see for a long time, "Cristo Obrero" (Worker Christ), by the Matanzas artist Agustín Drake (beside me in the photo). The work had been commissioned by the people of Perico as a means of giving thanks to God for miraculously saving their lives. The miracle happened on February 18, 1960, when a U.S. Civil Air Patrol bomber, piloted by Robert Ellis Frost and Robert Kelly, mysteriously exploded in mid-air and crashed just outside the city of Perico before reaching its site for dropping the bombs, a sugar mill called Central España. The only victims of this bombing raid were the two pilots who died in the crash. This was the 30th such air raid US planes had made that year, all aimed at destroying the new revolutionary government's su...

  As some of my Cuban friends began to regain some access to the internet yesterday, the recurring theme I heard from several was how greatly troubled/appalled they are by seeing Youtube video footage of security forces beating protesters with sticks. These perpetrators had responded to a televised call from President Diaz-Canel for revolutionaries to take to the streets and confront the demonstrators (a page from the playbook of former President Trump, who would encourage his followers to beat protestors at his campaign rallies). The horrific scenes on Youtube are reminiscent of the 1963 confrontations between Bull Connor's security forces in Alabama and the unarmed followers of Martin Luther King's Civil Rights movement.   There are important differences as well—King was unwavering in his determination to prove that his movement was aimed at reforming the system from within; he was not calling for a coup d'etat or overthrow of the government. He was calling for the nation...

(blog by Kim) It seems that we have a lot more socks that need darning than those that don’t.   Darn the luck!! Anyway, one thing I learned from a friend in Matanzas was that in Cuba it is more common to have a day when socks need darning than when they don’t. He wasn't talking about socks so much as about when things don’t work. Whether it's something in the house or at church, or some form that needs to be turned in to get a permit or permission, or finding transportation to get somewhere, or waiting in line for cooking oil or chicken or laundry soap, the expectation is that things will not work out as you might hope. The norm is to experience frustration or disappointment.   Recently I sprained my ankle. I was able to go the doctor and was quickly seen with no problem. I also got crutches and a wonderful stability boot so that I could walk around. It all happened in one day. Plus, I had some ibuprofen I could take. I was really tired and discouraged that I had hurt myself, ...

(blog by Stan) I've never seen a Fast and Furious movie, and don't plan on seeing the 9th one of the franchise, which was released this week. But the catchy title came to mind as I read the story in Mark's gospel of Jesus coming down the mountain and casting out a destructive spirit from a boy. The boy was prone to convulsions and gnashing of teeth, leaving him completely rigid. The disciples' inability to make any headway with the evil spirit made Jesus furious ("You unbelieving generation! How long do I have to put up with you?"). When questioned about the healing, Jesus told them there are some things that can only be confronted with prayer and fasting. So, if we're to imitate Jesus in confronting the evil and destructive spirits of our generation, we'll need to fast, and remember that it's not un-Christlike to be furious in the process of praying.   We are well into the second "unbelieving generation" when it comes to US-Cuba relation...

 (blog by Stan) Just when you thought bipartisanship was dead and buried, President Biden has single-handedly revived it by throwing his support behind Donald Trump's inhumane and ineffective Cuba policy. It seems we can now call it the Trump-Biden agenda. The former President's obsession with punishing Cuba manifested itself in no less than 240 executive measures aimed at tightening the US stranglehold on the island's economy, causing senseless suffering and unleashing a humanitarian crisis for our neighbors ninety miles away. Among his almost weekly actions against Cuba were limitations on travel, blocking a humanitarian shipment of masks and ventilators early in the pandemic, shutting down embassy services, prohibiting remittances, and placing Cuba on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror. The last official action he took as President was to place the International Finance Bank of Cuba on the list of sanctioned institutions. Since this is the bank t...

  A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to go to the local CVS pharmacy to make some purchases, my first time entering such a store in over a year. Kim had sprained her ankle, and was in need of some anti-inflammatory pain reliever. I went into CVS and made my way to the pain reliever aisle, and quickly realized that I am not over the re-entry culture shock of coming back to the US after an extended time in Cuba. Back in Matanzas, if a pharmacy by chance had a pain reliever in stock (which it usually did not), there would only be one variety. Here, we have dozens of varieties, and I stood there somewhat paralyzed in front of so many options. I was reminded of a line from a Wendell Berry poem— "In plenitude too free." I finally did the sensible thing and called Kim to see whether she needed ibuprofen or naproxen sodium or acetaminophen or aspirin or  magnesium salicylate tetrahydrate or some combination of these, and whether she wanted tablets or capsules or cream or powder. On...