The Cuba Journals

UVM students share their insights into the communist island nation

arly this summer, a group of 16 UVM students and professors headed to Cuba for two weeks, the culmination of a semester's study on how communities reflect cultural values and assumptions about human interaction and development.

The trip was headed by Dr. Lynne Bond, a psychology professor who has been at UVM for nearly 30 years who explains her course this way: "The idea is to understand the way in which cultures structure communities to promote values, priorities and human development. And how do community organizations and institutions reflect those values?"

The course is conventional in that it has readings, lectures, discussion and audio-visual presentations; it emphasizes international sources of information because few students have seen perspectives of Cuban culture that go beyond those of the U.S.

Her course focuses on Cuba because that nation shares both striking similarities to and differences from ours and because "more than most other nations in the world it is very articulate about its values and is clear as to how it has incorporated those values into its culture."

Examples, she says, are that Cuba states that it values the mind and ideas over material goods, the group over the individual, human values over human consumption. It values solidarity and equality. The revolution of 1959, she said, was about trying to restructure Cuban society and its political, economic, educational and health care institutions to support these values.

The unconventional part of this course is the trip to Cuba; two weeks of lectures, discussions and tours of Cuban institutions. By studying Cuban culture first hand, Bond says, students can see more clearly how cultural values are evidenced in U.S. communities and their institutions.

Bond says the course -- and the trip -- was successful. But the trip also may be the last, for a while.

This summer the U.S. Treasury Department notified UVM and a number of other U.S. colleges and universities, that their licenses are no longer valid for courses less than 10 weeks in duration. The reasoning? Bond explained that a Cuban-American interest group convinced the Bush Administration to change the rules on the theory that two week courses were little more than tourism and thus were helping the regime of Fidel Castro.

So, in keeping with a 40-year U.S. policy of isolating Cuba by limiting trade and travel to that nation, the decision was made to end courses such as UVM's which was in its fourth year.

"It is very sad," said Bond, "that our government is further limiting our ability to visit, to explore and to arrive at our own understanding of the world and, therefore, of ourselves."

What follows is a condensed version of some of the students' journals. The project was edited by Burlington Free Press Managing Editor Geoffrey Gevalt.

DAY 1 Rachel Bertsch UVM senior; born and raised in Vermont; lives in South Hero

I leave today for Cuba. A million different emotions run through my head. I slept little last night, excited to go but worried, too. My family is from Cuba. My mom was born there and left with her family just before the revolution in 1959. My grandfather didn't like living under Batista and thought there could be more opportunity for his family in the States. So he packed all the family belongings and came here with my grandmother, mother and uncle. My grandfather's brother, sister and mother followed.

My grandmother's family wanted to stay in Cuba. My grandmother said good bye to her family and never saw them again. Once she came here, she couldn't go back, not even for her mother's funeral.

Over the years, more of my family has trickled into the States. When I meet a relative that has come over, they treat me as if they have known me for years. Most of the time I don't know exactly how they are related and don't understand as they speak to me rapidly in Spanish and hug and kiss me.

I am a little afraid of this trip. I have an image of Cuba, a sense about it and everything I associate with it is good -- family and love and food and laughter. My biggest fear is that I will find something about Cuba that I hate.

Several years ago, my brother went to Cuba. When my grandmother looked at pictures he had taken on the trip she started to cry, saying she couldn't believe all the beautiful buildings she had once known had fallen apart.

So I will be the second of my big family to go back to Cuba for a visit. When I return, many will be interested to know what I see and feel and think.

Eylin Palamaro A parent returning to school; held jobs around U.S. as an administrative assistant and computer programmer; psychology major.

Jackie Bringuez (another UVM student) and I are seated in the back of the plane; the rest of the group is scattered around the middle. We are mid-flight on Cubana airlines from Montreal. I have been trying -- unsuccessfully -- to sleep. A male flight attendant, mustached and in his mid 40s, winks at me every time he passes. Early on, I made the mistake of returning his smile, a gesture that had meant only: "Although I am Estados Unidencias, I mean you no harm." Instead, I seem to have conveyed something like: "I like your mustache."

Now every time the flight attendant strides by I attempt to look elsewhere. Eboni Booth UVM senior, native of New York City.

The Jose Marti International Airport in Havana smells a bit like a bar that doesn't serve alcohol. The smell of smoke is dense, and I am immediately reminded that I am in a country where people can smoke as they retrieve their luggage, ask for directions and double check for their passports. Almost every sign is yellow and is lettered and trimmed with a brown the color of soil. The walls are painted a deep red, and I believe if Paul Thomas Anderson had needed an airport location for his film "Boogie Nights," which takes place in the 1970s, he could have used this airport.

The workers seem to be without that urgent sense of purpose that often typifies airports -- there is no one jogging to Gate 17 to alert them of a time change, no gaggle of stewardesses rushing with rolling suitcases to catch their next flight,and no overhead announcements alerting Michael that if he doesn't meet his party in five minutes, he's apt to miss his flight. Instead, there are small clusters of workers meandering from one task to another -- direct this person to customs, pick up this file or simply glance at the final baseball game of the season that is playing on every television.

When I reach Customs, the official seems to echo this same laid-back sentiment. He cavalierly reaches for my passport, glances at the group that I am with and asks if I am American. I nod shyly, embarrassed that we wear our nation like a badge, and he smiles and says that he can tell by the loud volume of our group. I nod once more, and he hands me my passport. "I hope you enjoy Cuba."

Janet Green Born in Burlington, lived 17 years in Spain, UVM Spanish lecturer.

Ashley Orenberg's and my bags have red marks which mean we have to have them examined. The man ahead of us in line is livid.

"Always the same $%&@! Every time I come in they hassle me. Last time I had to pay $200!" Then he added, "My wife is outside with a 5-month-old baby." At this point I gave him a second look -- he was clearly close to 70. "She's with our grandchild," he clarifies.

He continues to complain, pacing back and forth. I figure the chances are slim we'll get through the line quickly. When our turn finally comes, it goes quickly. They ask about our vitamins and some medicine but send us through.

In the next line, the man rants as officials pull a toaster, a coffee pot and other electrical devices from his luggage.

Lynne Bond UVM professor, resident of Charlotte. After our four-hour flight, a surprisingly simple pass through immigrations and an interminable wait for baggage, we finally pass through the opaque doors of the airport to the outside waiting room. It is a thrill. Our host faculty greets us with warm smiles, kisses for each of our cheeks and deep embraces for me.

Professor Elena Diaz Gonzalez is coordinating our course visit, so we will see her regularly throughout our two weeks here. She is the first professor I spoke with in Havana some five years ago when a handful of UVM faculty and staff initially went to explore the possibility of a UVM educational program in Cuba.

Elena is a sociologist in her early 60s who specializes in women's studies. Until her term recently expired, she was also director of FLACSO-Cuba (the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences) at the University of Havana -- an interdisciplinary research and graduate education group.

She has traveled every two to three years to North America to spend periods of several weeks to months as a visiting scholar at universities and colleges in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Three years ago she spent two-weeks at UVM and spoke to some 15 classes, to public audiences in Burlington and Montpelier and to Burlington High School. It was during her stay in Burlington that her English improved from "passable" to relatively "fluent." She was delighted.

Professor Reynaldo Jimenez, interim director of FLACSO-Cuba, also greets us. He specializes in agricultural systems and sustainable communities, speaks fluent French and Russian and has a college-aged daughter who has regularly accompanied the students I have brought from UVM, offering my students an instant Cuban friend.

I have come to know both Elena and Reynaldo well over the past four years that I've been bringing UVM students to the University of Havana. Elena and I e-mail intermittently throughout the year (in both English and Spanish) as we plan the upcoming courses. The obstacles that have been placed between us -- and the sea of tension between our countries -- simultaneously buoy and strain our relationship. The fact we have developed and maintained a relationship amid these challenges adds an odd kind of energy to our collaboration.

The air is thick and hot. It is well past midnight. Yet we are in no hurry and talk of family and life and then, surprisingly, to our concerns about the future of our partnership under the newly proposed U.S. policies announced just two weeks ago by President Bush. These very well may mean an end of UVM's educational partnership.

We dance about the topic a bit; afraid of going too deep. Elena says the U.S. war in Iraq has created strong fear among many Cubans that their island will soon be a target of U.S. bombs and warfare.

And so begins our educational exchange.

Jorge Jorge Anon appears (yes, his first and middle name are the same). He is the Havanatur guide who will lead our group on several of our educational field trips to a primary school, an agricultural cooperative and a world ecological biosphere west of Havana.

Soon we are in his air-conditioned minibus passing along fairly deserted roads dotted with immense billboards of Che, Camillo and other revolutionaries. Their images are accompanied by inspirational slogans: "Our most important arms are our ideas." "The power of the people rises from the neighborhoods."

Jorge uses a crackling microphone to provide an orientation to the buildings -- a mix of ornate Spanish colonial structures and contrasting Soviet-style cement block structures with bland facades.

"The Cuban people welcome you," he says. "They understand that the policies of the U.S. government do not necessarily reflect the will of the U.S. people. The Cuban people appreciate that you have come here to meet us and make your own impressions."

DAY 2 Janet Green

It is 8 a.m. I walk down five flights of stairs covered with cigarette burns and a few butts. The elevator hasn't worked for two days. As I get to the lobby, I see pink -- pink walls, pink sofas, pink chairs. A variety of Afro-Cubans are talking in an animated fashion on one side of the room. On another sofa are three Americans. One of the women says in halting Spanish that she can't wait to "ver la cama" (see her bed), probably after just arriving at the hotel.

Outside the streets are busy. A tour bus idles nearby. An old man on the sidewalk organizes a series of burlap bags and puts them into a large carton. A boy in red pants, white shirt and red bandanna -- the national school uniform -- walks along, arranging things in a small pencil case; his mother walks a few steps behind him. An older woman comes up to them and kisses the boy on the cheek. A parking lot, across the street, has a hut for the attendant; it is empty. On the hut reads a sign: "Se ofrecen servicios de cerrajero, barbero, zapatero." ("We offer services of a locksmith, barber and shoemaker.")

Kate May UVM student from East Nassau, N.Y.

We pile into tiny cabs, embarking on our first journey in Cuba. We begin in Old Havana; the architecture is breathtaking, adding character to the streets. The people walking about are beautiful. The sky is crisp blue.

During our day we are approached often; they know us to be American. They ask us for something, anything, a bottle of shampoo, soap, even a dollar bill.

My heart goes out to them when they ask. I know my dollar bill could buy them four or five meals. How can I refuse to give a dollar to someone who has worn the same clothes for two weeks? Rachel Bertsch

Old Havana is beautiful. It is unsettling, too; you come across a building fully restored to its former splendor and right next to it is a building that is falling apart. Lynne's friends Thelma and Emilio Escobar are providing us the tour; they tell us that Cubans are trying to restore more of the buildings but supplies are hard to come by.

Emilio is a professor of architecture. I ask him if he knew my grandmother's brother because he, too, was a professor of architecture. Emilio said he did know him and they actually went to school with each other. During lunch, he tells me all the stories he can think of about my grandmother's brother.

By the end of the day I feel like Emilio and I have been friends for years. He is so warm and open, something you don't find often at home. In the States people are often on the defensive, rarely open to new people they meet. With Emilio and Thelma there was no awkwardness; they were open and warm from the very beginning which made it easier to adjust being in a new country.

Eboni Booth

Tonight we go to the Cuban National Ballet. Despite the strain on Cuba's economy, the country has always placed the utmost importance on its art. The audience at Havana's Gran Teatro is diverse, people of all ages and races -- groups of students occupy entire wings, couples, parents with their children, people alone, and even groups of men who seemed to have just wandered in.

The performance is engaging, and the audience cheers and hollers with each complicated and successful segment. The dancers spend most of the performance smiling and grinning, as if the verbal support from the audience is all they need to make themselves move.

At times I can see the stage hands, in street clothes and slightly bored expressions, waiting for their next cue. I also see the dancers, between numbers, softly giggling and chiding each other. I am comforted by the performance -- in the middle of a country so foreign, I am able to find a way to connect that doesn't involve stumbling over language, confused stares and bewildered shrugs.

DAY 3 Lynne Bond

The University of Havana is situated on a hill in a bustling section called Vedado. Extending southeast from the campus is a mix of residential and commercial activity. The area reminds me of Italian neighborhoods in Montreal or Boston: Sidewalks are narrow, forcing us to step into the street when we pass an oncoming pedestrian. The automobiles are vintage 1950s, many of them small boxy Russian Ladas and line the road, leading us to weave from sidewalk to street center and back. In many of the buildings -- three-to-five stories tall -- doors on the ground floor are propped open to provide relief from the heat. Some of the entries are open for private enterprises that have been permitted since 1994 when the collapse of the Soviet Union brought economic crisis to Cuba. These shops sell everything imaginable, from old books or fruit to ice cream.

We weave our way down the narrow side road and in front of us is a gathering of 15 people. They look like they are waiting for a bus. But they are not; they are looking up and they are yelling. They are doing business with Pizza from Heaven.

I look up to the top of this five-story building and see two men leaning over the wall from the rooftop patio (sheltered from a scorching sun by a green corrugated plastic roof.) They are lowering a small white mesh shopping bag to the ground -- quickly, mind you -- and a young mother scoops two 12-inch pizzas wrapped in white paper. As soon as she empties the bag, it flies skyward for the next order. The crowd, impatient, shouts more with each exchange. That, it turns out, is how you place your order.

We find a small piece of paper on the wall listing the 10 varieties of pizza -- chorizo (sausage), pineapple, onion, peppers, tomatoes, ham, and deluxe. Each is 35 to 50 cents. We shout our orders and in five, maybe 10, minutes the mesh bag laden with 16 pizzas descends from heaven to our waiting hands.

Rachel Bertsch

Today is our first day of school at the University of Havana. The lecture is on U.S.-Cuban relations. Our professor is amazing. He reminds us that the United States and Cuba have not spoken to each other in over 40 years. How do we expect our relationship to change, he asks, if we refuse to speak to one other?

Elizabeth Guenard UVM student from Lunenburg, Mass.

I feel the impressive weight of Cuba's history. We are visiting the Museo de la Revolucion, and I wander quietly, alone, through the Salon de Espejos, the former palace, with its vast ceilings and walls striped with mirrors and see the bullet holes along the marble staircase. I visit the presidential office and see the tapestry and the secret door through which Batista escaped and see bloodstained guerrilla uniforms and pages of "History Will Absolve Me" painstakingly etched in lemon juice.

DAY 4 Elizabeth Guenard

I'm on the patio of the Hotel Nacional, the most luxurious tourist venue in all Havana; a place where Rita Hayward and Fred Astaire might have danced and sipped cocktails at the gala evening parties of the 1940s. It's not a place to which I expected to come, but I can't seem to find many places in this part of Vedado that permit me to sit peacefully and un-hassled for an afternoon.

In these first moments of reflection the only things that strikingly come to mind are the images: the crammed housing, people in the streets, the whirlwind of activity and encounters. Eboni described the architecture, the view down each side street, as a movie set. It does appear much like a facade, uninhabitable yet neo-romantic. The expansive, ornate archways, the colorful lines of laundry, none of it express the stress of the housing shortage. Divorce rates are alarmingly high in Cuba, I'm told, in part because of the tensions surrounding housing and living arrangements.

"They are simply Cuban," is the line I hear more than once expressing the solidarity in facing society's problems, or as an excuse for the way things are. But what does it mean to be "simply Cuban", and why "simply?" An individual -- make-up removed, stripped of pretense -- reflects his or her nation. There is no place where this rings more truly or is more greatly enforced. I see it in the rhetoric of billboards, the busts of Jose Marti in each gated garden, the stadium overwhelmed by the towering, black-outlined contours of Che Guevara.

I visit Leslie Sinclair's apartment just west of the Avenida de Los Presidentes. Leslie is a young Cuban professional photographer who has worked with Lynne and UVM during previous trips to Havana. Leslie dresses remarkably sharply, pays 25 cents a minute to own a cell phone and strolls through the streets and jazz clubs of Havana easily, with a self-assured and ready grin.

He lives with his mother and stepfather, though his private domain extends to a number of hive- like, open-door apartments lining the stone walkway outside his home. When we visit, we stand on a platform a step down from the kitchen. His mother is watching a Brazilian soap opera, something cooking on the stove. She acknowledges us with a smile but remains quiet, perhaps assuming we know no Spanish. The room is sparse, the paint on the walls chipped and faded. It is a tiny room, with two doorways marked by loosely hung curtains.

Leaving the apartment, the sky darkening, I feel so much the outsider, in a part of Vedado where tourists have no reason to pass. Neighbors peer out at us. Leslie pays his respects, as we walk, flattering a woman cooking dinner at the first door by tasting her roasting vegetables and cracking a few jokes with the men playing dominoes at the corner.

He points out the exact oil can and brush, belonging to these men, which had been the subject of one of his photographs. I look out over the multi-floored apartment buildings, each floor with its own avenue, many with children on bicycles pedaling by. This is the inspiration for his photography, for his art.

Art, in Cuba, seems to warrant a greater amount of individual freedom -- physically and emotionally. Leslie describes his photography as something larger than itself, something that he processes and shrinks to a creative instant in time. This is how he remains smiling and light- hearted; he avoids discussions of politics with us in favor of those of jam sessions and art exhibits. He captures Cuban life in his work, when pressed but loses himself in the drama of the creation. We also visit a distant relative of Alissa Matthews (another UVM student).

There we give a box of new crayons to the granddaughter; she is ecstatic. So is the family. It must be rare that a Cuban child comes across a new box of Crayolas.

Benjamin Eckstein UVM psychology major from Northampton, Mass.

This country has such friendly and welcoming people. In other countries, mention of American citizenship brings bitterness and aggravation. In Cuba it is the beginning of wonderful conversation and first-class treatment. It is genuine, this enthusiasm for America, though some are clearly trying to sell you something. But it is incredible that so many Cubans can be so accepting and even welcoming of the people who come from a country that is hurting them.

Rachel Bertsch

Our class today focuses on the politics and social conditions of Cuba. Professor Elena Diaz Gonzalez explains to us how tourism has corrupted and ruined Cuban society. Economically, Cuba depends on tourism. Culturally, tourism destroys all the values Cuba has worked so hard to create.

An example: A professor makes 26 dollars a month, but the chamber maid in our hotel makes 26 dollars a day from our class members' tips alone. Access to dollars determines so much in Cuba.

Another: Cubans cannot go into hotels in Havana. Castro feels it is in the best interests of Cubans to keep them separate from tourists, so a Cuban guard at a hotel has to throw a Cuban out of a hotel if he tries to go in to it.

Shouldn't we tourists be the ones with restrictions of where we can or can't go?

After class Jackie and I decide to walk around. We haven't walked for two minutes before we are bombarded by a Cuban man who wants to talk and to show us around. Five minutes into our conversation he asks if we have anything to donate to his family, if we can take him out to dinner.

So are they interested in getting to know me or do they see me as a walking dollar sign?

Over dinner, Jackie and I talk and realize we are having a hard time dealing with the people in Cuba. I am starting to think I might not like this country after all.

Eboni Booth

A group of us goes to eat dinner before a musical performance.

Our waitress doesn't speak English and smiles as I stumble through a Spanish explanation of what we would like to eat. She responds, I nod, and then turn to my friends and warn them I have no idea of what we're getting or how much it will cost.

But the food is fine, and I almost clear my plate. Almost. As we're leaving, the waitress notices that I have left an entire breast of fried chicken behind. She urges me to take it with me. I try to explain that I just don't like fried chicken, but then I catch myself and remember that it isn't so easy for everyone to pick and choose what they will or won't eat.

So I accept the chicken that she has crammed into a tiny plastic bag, I place it in my purse, and I keep it there for the entire musical performance. I am convinced that everyone in the theater can smell my foul bag with its greasy chicken, and they will all know that I am a greedy American who is a food waster.

Eylin Palamaro

We are one of five tables -- all full -- at a family restaurant, a restaurant in someone's house. The other customers are Americans as well. They are from a college in Virginia we find out from the chatty blonde at the next table. There are many of them and they are a talking very loudly. Our own conversation has become increasingly louder to compensate.

Suddenly there is a "shhhhhh." We are silenced. Music begins. At first it sounds like a recording, but then we see the woman, off in the corner strumming a guitar. She is dressed in a baggy house dress. Her voice is clear. One of the American men, a professor probably, begins to sing with her. He has a decent voice, the kind you might find in the church choir. He takes the harmony and let's her voice shine. They finish the tune this way, this unlikely duet.

She approaches our table, asks us how we like our food ("Very good!" and how we liked her singing ("We are awestruck.") She leans down and whispers something to Eboni. As she moves away, Eboni tells us she told her she is 85 years old. We stare after the woman in disbelief. She turns her face to us briefly, coyly and smiles.

James Lovinsky

In Havana, animals are everywhere. Birds are in the trees, the houses and cages on balconies and in restaurants and at hotels. There are dogs and cats in the streets and alleys and sidewalks; most look hungry.

At dinner at a small restaurant near our hotel the smell of our pork attracts half a dozen cats. They sit, watching as we eat. When our host, the owner, is not looking I throw a few pieces of pork into the garden.

The cats leap off the ground to catch the pork, not fighting, sharing. When they are done, they lick their paws and wander off.

DAY 5 Eylin Palamaro

We spend the afternoon touring a community center. We are told this is a place for children to learn and also teach adults. All 16 of us are led from room to room; each room is small, has a theme and is immaculately set up. There is a chess room, an art room, a dolphin room and perhaps most impressively a story time room with glow in the dark paint and colorful decorations. It is difficult to imagine actual children playing, drawing or writing here. The place seems more like a museum.

We see no children, just the uniformed women who I suppose work there. I ask our translator Maria Julia if the children are still at school. She seems confused by this question and shrugs.

At the end of the tour we are led to a roomful of children. They are sitting neatly in a utilitarian room; all are dressed in red pants, white shirts with red bandannas worn Boy Scout style around their necks. Through our interpreter we ask them their grade, what they want to be when they grow up and the like. At first, the children seem hesitant but gradually they become more enthusiastic.

Lynne tells them she has a message from the children of the United States. She tells them the children of the United States look forward to someday playing with them any time they want. I am teary eyed.

Later, back at the hotel, I realize why the moment strikes me. It is a beautiful sentiment. But I realize that the children of the United States are probably not looking forward to the day when they can play with children of Cuba. Most American children probably can't identify Cuba on a map. Many will grow up to support politicians and policies that will negatively affect Cuba. The situation is so complicated and can not be unwound by Lynne's well meaning and sweet statement.

Lynne Bond

It is 5 p.m. and we are collapsed at the side of our hotel's little pool. It is hot, and it has been a long day.

The pool is a luxury, an indulgence. Colin suddenly disappears and reappears a short time later with a watermelon, purchased from a stand nearby. Watermelons are in season. They appear each morning in our modest breakfast buffet, in doorways along the street where "private" fruit vendors are in action and even blended into watermelon juice being sold for a peso (five cents) in front yard stands.

But we need a knife.

I suggest to Colin that he ask a hotel employee for one. He looks skeptical, but I remind him this is Cuba. In Cuba people share.

His request is met with little reaction from the employee -- just a nod. You need a knife? I have access to a knife. Therefore, you have access to my knife.

I see this scenario replayed in the streets again and again, perhaps four or five times a day. Someone's hands have become wet with the runny juice of a mango; she looks up at a passerby. Tissues are scarce (bathrooms have no toilet paper and napkins are often difficult to come by) but the first person along is happy to share a kerchief or rag.

Transportation is in dire straits, but at every traffic light males and females of all ages don't think twice before approaching each stopped vehicle -- car, truck, van, motorcycle, whatever -- to determine if the vehicle is going their way.

The clutch of a 1949 Studebaker surrenders to age and instantly passersby emerge with wires, rags and pieces of metal to contribute to a solution. For that matter, when people are begging on the street, other Cubans, despite their own limited access to funds, place contributions in the beggar's hand.

Benjamin Eckstein

In our group session today we heard that Eboni was asked for identification when entering the hotel because she was mistaken for a Cuban. I feel bad for Eboni. But this is the kind of thing that many Cubans go through everyday. They are treated like second-class citizens in their own country, while we live it up in fancy hotels. Although I would love to see the living conditions improve in Cuba, I wish there was another way, besides tourism, to do it. Tourism feels like an ugly and exploitive way of improving the economy.

We also learned from Jackie and Rachel that they have impressions of Cuba that conflict with what they have been told all their lives by their Cuban families.

I am saddened by the poverty in Cuba, but I see many positive things, too. When I see people begging on the street, I realize why people leave Cuba. But there are no guarantees in the U.S. either. New York City isn't exactly void of beggars and the homeless.

DAY 6 Lynne Bond

Professor Roberto Almaguer led our University of Havana class today. He is a fit, trim 40- something-year-old who could easily be sitting in the UVM library, hunched over a computer doing research, dressed in his light checked sports shirt and slacks. He exudes a rare combination of intense energy and focus with a laid-back warmth and openness.

He used to be a professor of Russian language, but following the collapse of the Soviet Union he retrained in political sciences. Baseball is his most passionate love (he is a Yankee fan).

We are in a "prize classroom" -- the only one with air conditioning. That said, it stops functioning each day approximately 90 minutes into the three-hour lecture session. While informal and approachable, Roberto is articulate, precise and organized. He continually -- and subtlely -- checks on us to see whether we are engaged, tired, confused or excited and responds in kind by speeding up, or slowing down, or embellishing with examples and stories.

Roberto, like the other professors, begins the class with the daily ritual of transporting two markers and the eraser from the secretary's office to the classroom; he must return them to their secure storage spot at the end of class because these items are valuable and scarce.

Roberto, looking intently into our eyes, urges us to ask "any questions at all; no question is forbidden or a problem." This is a plea we are hearing from each of our Cuban professors. They know that we come to their program with many questions but also with considerable apprehension about what is and is not acceptable to discuss. Roberto tries to assure us that this is not an issue.

I am taken aback when Roberto makes comments such as, "I would like to see the Cuban political system change so that the people have more direct control in electing this slate of candidates for the National Assembly."

Did he really say that out loud?

By and large, Roberto seems satisfied with the political process but explains that like every other country, Cuba can improve. He shares his own personal views of how to strengthen Cuban democracy casually and confidently.

Eboni Booth

Roberto is talking to us about the political structure of Cuba, outlining some of the major features of political systems in Cuba. He is quick to highlight the systems' virtues -- lack of financial investment used in campaigning, the ways in which communities select their delegates and the value placed on the merit on someone's political thought. But he is also quick to respond to difficult questions. When asked for some faults in the system, he points to the lack of popular say in who is nominated to high government positions.

When a student asks why Cuba is so resistant to capitalism, he answers that while Cuba now has to contend with a scarcity of goods, capitalism in Cuba would not be pretty or perfect and would probably mirror the capitalism seen in Haiti. In other words, capitalism would introduce the country to lots of social unrest, as well as political and economic corruption.

What strikes me most about this lecture is how he entertains both sides of the argument. In the U.S. we so often hear about Cuba's dogmatic approach to education and their eagerness to socialize everyone to adhere to the Communist Party line. But here is someone interested in helping us form our own ideas and opinions. More than anything he is interesting in free intellectual thought. DAY 7 Lynne Bond

Today we make it outside of center city Havana to an agricultural cooperative in Alamar east of Havana. Our bus drops us off in front of a small fruit and produce stand where a dozen or so men and women are patiently waiting their turn to order. The produce is bursting with color --bright reds, pinks, oranges, yellows, deep greens. We are led around the stand to discover acres and acres of beautifully groomed fields of vegetables, herbs, and root crops with intermittent bushes of berries, stands of fruit trees, and even rows of brightly colored ornamental plants--the kind of leafy growth that you only see inside in Vermont.

Cuba is the quintessential example of how necessity breeds creativity.

Agriculture's Green Revolution is alive and well here, and largely because it has to be. Synthetic pesticides and fertilizers became unavailable to Cuba with the collapse of the Soviet Union. So agricultural cooperatives are raising worms for vermiculture to fertilize the soil and are breeding "good" insects to prey on the "bad" insects that damage crops.

Organic vegetables and fruits are cheaper than those raised with the aid of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Imagine going to the "organic" counter in a U.S. grocery to get a better deal. The Cuban government has decided to prioritize organic farming by restructuring agricultural cooperatives so that their workers have more management control, more comfortable housing and higher incomes than those who work in many other enterprises. The workers also can eat whatever produce they need, in this country where produce is in limited supply. So the cooperatives have attracted workers from other vocations, both inside and outside the city.

The cooperative's kitchen is a small free-standing, green, concrete building with pots and pans hanging on three walls and a large cook stove on the fourth. A wooden table is in the middle. Two women with aprons are chatting with each other as they cook the midday meal for the workers: Piles of green peppers and onions sauteed with aromatic spices; bowls of cut pineapple, mango and papaya; fried tostones (thick slices of platanos, a cousin of bananas). The smells and colors are unfamiliar, but the kitchen feels oddly like home. I tell them that.

"Ah yes," they nod, "kitchens grow a strength and power in women that never leaves."

Rachel Bertsch

An old man sits beneath a tree at the co-op. I ask him what his job is and he says supervisor. He says he had been working on this farm since it was created and now has this job. How cool that the people of the farm respected this old man's knowledge to let him be a part of the working team. In the United States we are so quick to overlook the older generation, as if the older you get the less useful you become. Cubans seem to respect the knowledge and wisdom of the older generation.

Elizabeth Guenard I talk with a field hand, a young man in his early 20s. He is already divorced but has a little girl with him whom he adores talking about. He laments working in the fields. He graduated from a technical school in computer science and technology but with materials and opportunities lacking he can't find employment. He works begrudgingly, he says, because the work is too easy.

In the city, I observe this about Cuban employment: Many workers are assigned to the same job, so there is loitering, misplacement -- like a computer science student watering vegetables. The state's effort to create jobs for people leaves some more gratified than others.

Benjamin Eckstein

Tonight I meet up with a Cuban named Giovanni whom we met yesterday. I meet him in the lobby and then run upstairs to get Rachel and Jackie, but when we come back he is outside, where he had been told by the hotel staff to wait.

We go to the other lobby to have some beer and two sips into it, and Giovanni is asked to leave.

We go to a cafe away from the hotel and Giovanni tells us of his frustration with Cuba. He says that the older generation hopes his generation will uphold the same ideals and values in Cuba, but he says his generation merely hopes for change. Giovanni says he wants to travel and experience the world. He says that when he was younger he was content with Cuba. Now that he is 24 years old, he knows better and he sees what the rest of the world has to offer.

I ask him what he thinks of the tourists.

"I am jealous," he says, adding: "It's not your fault."

DAY 8 Lynne Bond

I am struck by the number of languages I hear in Cuba. The presence of tourism and international business from around the world is pronounced. There is, of course, the Spanish of Cubans but also of those from Spain and Latin America, particularly Mexico and Venezuela. There are also a surprising number of Canadians as well as Dutch, French, and Germans who travel easily to and from Cuba.

This morning I share a breakfast table with a British couple in their 60s who have been vacationing annually in Havana for the past eight years.

"How odd that you Americans are not permitted to travel (to Cuba) as you wish," the woman says. "How ironic that your fierce individual freedoms do not extend to the ability to explore this neighbor of yours. Why do people in the US put up with the nonsense?"

Rachel Bertsch Today is beach day! We spend it relaxing and decompressing. This has been a hard experience for me. Several times, I have caught myself counting the days until I go home. Being in Cuba is different and it's difficult; the easiest way to cope with change, I guess, is to go back to what you were doing before -- home.

Our group is getting along really well. I have spent a lot of time trying to get to know each and everyone of them and every one is so amazing in their own way.

Today James spent some time playing with some of the Cuban kids. The boy's mother came to Lynne Bond with a phone number for James. I am sure the women thinks James is rich because he is from the United States, she probably also loves the fact that James likes kids. The divorce rate in Cuba is very high and there are a lot of single moms. This woman was probably ecstatic that James was playing with her son.

DAY 9 Eboni Booth

Tonight, we are walking through the neighborhood a few blocks from our hotel. The areas around the hotels in Vedado tend to be crowded and chaotic -- often crammed with people approaching you and asking for something or trying to get you to come to their restaurant.

But here on these streets, maybe seven blocks away, we are presented with a calmer, mellower section of the city. People sit in front of their homes or on top of their cars, smoking, sipping beer and talking. The kids play in the streets, despite their parents' shouts to stop.

We walk through block after block. The buildings are low to the ground and adorned with chipping pastel paints -- mint greens and pale pinks. The cars are large Cadillacs and Buicks trimmed with chrome, taking up entire city blocks and exuding plumes of smoke.

As we make our way home, I am struck by a large building located at the bottom of a dead-end hill. From where we are standing, we can only see the back of the building, and because it is on a hill, it seems to disappear into the ground. There are rows and rows of windows, lit up from behind with yellow light, filled with miles of laundry drying on lines.

As I peer at the building, I can practically see beyond the crumbling facade into each window. There are children singing, couples watching television, dogs eating scraps, women sitting on couches, men staring at walls.

Benjamin Eckstein

We are at a jazz club. The band is playing a Bob Marley tune, "No Woman No Cry." The band repeats "everything's gonna be all right, everything's gonna be all right." I remember hearing that at home, when I was thinking of exams or summer vacation or a problem with a friend. I look around at the Cubans, moving, listening, tuning in, smiling. What do those words mean to them? In this world, with the poverty and restrictions and difficulties. Everything's gonna be all right. Everything's gonna be all right.

DAY 10 Rachel Bertsch

I am interviewing Professor Elena Diaz Gonzalez about family life.

When I first start asking my questions I begin to realize how much Elena believes in the revolution and the system. It is hard to ask my questions because I don't want to say anything that would attack her beliefs. I have grown up with my family hating the policies created by the revolution in Cuba so to talk with someone who is a firm believer in them is difficult.

Yet it is fascinating to hear this other side. It is easy for my relatives to be against the policies in Cuba because they don't have to live under them. Elena is forced to live this lifestyle so she knows things that my relatives don't. Elena also understands the past -- she was active in fighting for the revolution.

Elena tells me there are flaws in the system -- like the dependency on tourism and the scarcity of many things -- but the system promotes good values among the Cuban people.

She says that everyone in her community comes together and helps one another because everyone is at the same level. If one person is having problems with the system, so is everyone else; so they help each other out.

Today Emilio and Thelma have everyone over to their house for lunch. Thelma makes a delicious meal and, relaxed, we talk all afternoon. Thelma and Emilio have a strong relationship. They are lovers and best friends. They have a genuine respect for one another that you don't see in too many relationships.

"You have a beautiful home," someone says to Emilio.

"No I have a beautiful wife," he replies.

Cuban couples are not shy about expressing their affection in public. When they are in love, they show it; they make out in the streets, almost as if they are defiantly living in the moment.

Yet, the Cuban divorce rate is really high. Partly this is because of the economic situation -- the lack of money and good jobs. Part, too, is the tight housing -- many newly weds have to continue living with their parents. This places a big strain on Cuban marriages. Men also let a pretty girl know they think she is pretty. Although it has been hard for me getting all the cat-calls I realize that it is part of their culture. The men just want to let you know that they think you are a pretty girl.

Elena and Maria Julia were telling me that they like the cat-calls because it reminds them that they still are pretty girls. I wish people in the United States felt they could express themselves the way Cubans do. Americans are more reserved, more secretive about their emotions.

Elizabeth Guenard

Looking out the tinted windows of our Havanatur bus, we can see into the crowded yellow school buses used by Cubans. We have air-conditioning and ample leg room. Theirs are hot and jam-packed and scarce. People wait endlessly along the side of the road to hail a means to get where they're going. It can't possibly seem logical.

Fidel's desire to create a separation between capitalism, in order to maintain a socialist state, constructs a monumental gap between tourist and native that defines a class hierarchy. Kicking Cubans out of our hotel lobby seems purely outrageous; what is it a Cuban could find out that they can't already see?

Along the highway I notice a billboard: "Lo nuestro es nuestro." ("That which is ours is ours.") The difficulty of a united, struggling nation bestowing privileges to tourists but not to Cubans is that it must serve as an endless source of frustration and awkwardness.

Today we tour a school. Alison and I are paired up with a first-grade class. Before I know it, the teacher asks me if I know Spanish; "A little", I reply. She throws me in front of the class and tells me to start asking the students questions. I freeze. All those little eyes staring at me and I can't think of anything to say in Spanish.

The kids then ask me questions, but that is worse. Soon the teacher lets me retreat to the back of the room, but I am so angry at myself.

Not knowing Spanish has been the hardest thing for me to deal with on this trip. I want to get the most out of this experience, knowing the language would make this experience so much more powerful. I have no excuse. I grew up with Spanish all around me yet I never took the time to learn it. All those times my relatives spoke Spanish around me, I never bothered to listen in or try to catch what they were saying. Why didn't my Mom teach me? It is so hard for me not to be able to communicate with the Cubans.

Alissa Matthews UVM student from Colchester, Vt.

A few of us are sitting outside in the far corner of the hotel cafe on a hot, humid night. The same somber waitress is leaning against the bar looking bored as usual. I look up at the couple at a nearby table. The man is straddling his date. He has a thick dark mustache. On his left, big, strong arm there is a tattoo of Che. The man is also wearing sleek glasses, a black beret and headphones. His date studies the CD case and sips a beer.

Another couple is attentively watching the TV at the bar as the station switches from baseball to U.S. pro basketball. A commercial comes on and the woman looks down at her manicured nails. The couple is dressed stylishly, in bright colors, wearing nice jewelry and fancy shoes. A visitor at the hotel from the Galapagos Islands walks in. All of us have previously met this animated, nice, yet annoying scuba diver. We've heard his sad story about losing his $500 watch and camera and we all try to avoid eye contact so we don't have to smile and nod through another barely understandable story.

A barking dog draws my attention back to the street along the cafe. The city streets are dim. Silhouettes of men are chatting on the corners. Time seems of no concern. A father and his daughter return home at the apartment complex across the street. They enter through a tall fence and the father locks it behind them.

A cool breeze blows through the cafe.

Lynne Bond

Four of us pile into a "dollar taxi." These taxis are metered and reserved for tourists; Cubans must rely on peso taxis, bulbous 1950s U.S. autos that accommodate as many people as can be squeezed into them. Our vehicle is a large, new, 5-passenger Peugot sedan with power windows, air conditioning and CD player.

Our driver is a nice looking man, perhaps in his late 30s. His facial features suggest a mixed heritage of Spanish, African, and a hint of Chinese -- not an uncommon blend in Havana.

As the students in the cab begin to share impressions of thrills and challenges of Cuba (in English), I note a spark of interest in the eye of our cabby. As the students begin to discuss some of their concerns about their experiences so far, I notice our cabby's eyes focus. I turn to him and, in slow, careful English, explain how fascinating I have found Cuba over the years. He looks over, smiles, and responds in perfect English that he is delighted I have come to Cuba not once but a number of times. It is important to have visitors from the U.S., he says, and "for both Cubans and for Americans to share their cultures and learn the truth about each other."

The cab driver has a law degree but was hit by the collapse of the economy with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He completed his national service commitment by being a lawyer in one of the government ministries. Then he decided to drive a tourist cab. As a lawyer he earned approximately $15 to $20 U.S. per month. Driving a tourist cab, he could earn $5 to $20 a day in tips.

Did he miss the legal work?

He said he missed using his mind. But he had no doubt that he had done the right thing to switch jobs until the economy recovers.

"We Cubans know how to cope to make things work. Maybe some day when the U.S. situation changes I will work the law again."

DAY 13 Lynne Bond

Today we are visiting the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA, the Cuban college of arts). This is the premier arts institute that draws the most talented young performing artists (music, dance, visual arts) from all over Cuba to study for free. The elegant campus was a country club before the revolution, used primarily by U.S. citizens.

The training at ISA is intense, eclectic, and rigorous. These young people -- musicians, dancers, painters, printmakers, sculptors --master styles and forms of their art that range from classical to contemporary and emerge from countries around the world. The energy on this campus is electrifying. Throughout the day, the sounds of horns, percussion, string and wind instruments fill the air; as students sit, stand, and walk, their bodies often pulse to varied beats (some of which we hear, others that we can only imagine); young people speckled with paint and clay walk by with their works in tow.

The diversity of the art forms on this campus is rivaled by the cultural and ethnic variation. The peoples of Cuba are so extraordinarily multi-racial/multi-ethnic, and this fact is striking on this campus. All colors, shapes, and sizes are present. But the most fair of the UVM crowd do not particularly stand out with their pasty white skin; skin tone among the ISA students varies from the blackest of black to beautiful reddish hues, golden browns, and even pale ivory; and we see hair straight, wavy, and curly ranging from blonde, dirty-blonde, and red to brown and black.

DAY 14 Eboni Booth

Alison Duffy (another UVM student) and I are shopping, looking for silly trinkets to take home and say "Hey, I was there, in Cuba, and I have this baseball bat key chain to show for it!" A woman approaches me with her 2-year-old son and tells me that she desperately needs money for milk.

I try to follow the advice that people have given me in the past about how to deal with folks asking for things: "Just ignore them. And don't give them money." But she follows me for 25 minutes -- everywhere I turn, there she is, reminding me of her ailments, getting her son to pat my leg, telling me that I am beautiful.

I give up. I hand her two dollars, and she pauses, touches my arm, and has her son kiss my cheek. She tells me I was sent from heaven, and I feel a pang of guilt, because I know my two dollars won't solve any Cuban problems, and maybe she is just taking me for a ride, but here is a woman willing to follow someone around for half and hour just to get what I would easily spend on a bottle of Budweiser at home. .... Tonight, Ashley Orenberg (another UVM student) and I are dancing with two guys we have met the day before at the University of Arts. Odlanier is a dance instructor, and Joycee is a student. They have agreed to take us dancing. The venue is small, and not many people are dancing. Instead, everyone is drinking and laughing and glancing at the few brave souls that have ventured to the dance floor.

Joycee and Odlanier tease us and tell us we're being silly for being too nervous. We dance alongside the dance floor and try to keep up with their instructions. They are patient and persuasive, and laugh with us as we confuse the salsa three-step with the two-step of the mambo. Ashley and I take a break.

Odlanier and Joycee begin to dance with two Cuban women and they practically rip across the dance floor. Their movements seem to be from another world. The salsa that I had so desperately tried to work out in my head, is now a step that incorporates eight moves into one beat. They move effortlessly, seamlessly through the song, staying in pairs, switching occasionally. Smiling and winking, as they make American dancing -- with its overemphasized gyrations and pelvic thrusts -- look so clumsy.

I feel embarrassed. But when they return, they chide us for our insecurities, and tell us that dancing is about confidence. So I keep this in my head, as I "one-two-three" through the salsa once more.

Benjamin Eckstein

Tonight Colin Caufield (another UVM student) and I converse with Vanessa. It is all about contrasts. Vanessa is surprised to learn that interracial couples are somewhat outside the norm in America. She was also surprised to learn of some of the other divisions in the United States: north vs. south, liberals vs. conservatives. She was also surprised to hear that gay marriage was becoming legal in several states; never in Cuba, she said.

We were surprised that Vanessa regularly sees films from all over the world -- instead of what we see: nothing but Hollywood blockbusters. We have been surprised, too, to learn that Cubans know a great deal about us, about our government, our history, our culture. And we know so little about them.

Eylin Palamaro

Although amazing, in many ways the trip has been difficult. I have missed my son and feel overwhelmed by all I have experienced. I walk the three blocks and up the long driveway, enjoy the air-conditioned lobby as I enter. I take the elevator to the top floor and find the right stairwell -- there are many. I climb up higher, the stairwell getting darker and dirtier. I reach a narrow winding iron staircase. I use caution -- the guardroom is at the foot: The door is always closed but sometimes a TV can be heard. I step softly and continue up to a wooden door. It is unlocked. I push it open and watch my step. I am outside, but not there yet. I turn left and left again, climb through an opening in the wall, all the way to the back, where I climb a ladder, hoist myself up to the roof. An empty rum bottle is proof that I am not the first with this idea.

I am high above Havana. The city and water stretch below. The sky envelops me. The lights flicker and the ocean has an oily sheen in the moonlight. The distant muffled sounds of the city barely make it to me. The ocean breeze whips around me lightly, coming in from all directions. I am mesmerized. I am where I am not supposed to be. Up here the big questions do not matter -- the politics, the poverty, the responsibility, money, guilt, shame, confusion, anger. I can breathe.

Rachel Bertsch

Today is our last full day in Cuba. Some of us decide to make one last trip to the beach.

We have learned so much. Everyone on this trip has changed a little. I know I have. I am going to go back with ideas of how to improve myself, how to be more giving and sharing, and more expressive and loving to my friends and family. I want to get to know all my neighbors and help them out in a time of need. I want to take some of the values the Cuban people have and share them.

Colin was talking with Vanessa today and she told him that she thinks that students from the United States and students from Cuba are the most similar. I have really enjoyed how open and accepting Vanessa and all the Cuban people have been towards us. The way Vanessa and Maria Julia treat us is wonderful and I hope someday they can come to the States so that I can show them as much hospitality that they have shown us.

I interview a student from the University of Havana today. She is so against the system and wants to get out as soon as possible. She wants to come live in the U.S., but I don't think she realizes how hard it is to leave. She thinks that the United States is full of positive opportunities. I think it would be really hard for her to leave her family. She will never know when she will have the opportunity to return, if ever.

She says the main reason she wants to leave Cuba is so that her son can travel to see his dad. The whole time I am thinking that he may be able to see his dad but he would miss the opportunity to see his aunts, uncles and grandparents. It is a hard situation to be in and I feel terrible that she feels she needs to make such a drastic decision.

Lynne Bond

As I try to plan and prepare ahead, I've also come to realize that the "sparks" that really ignite a class like this are somewhat out of my control -- the moments when the students interview the Cuban faculty and hear their tales of life before and after the Revolution -- tromping through the mountains as young students to spread literacy to the rural farmers, the desperate attempts to make life better for their families, the commitment to ideals that overpower their frustration with the scarcity of material goods, their children's struggles to make sense of why food, medicine and transportation are in such short supply.

These conversations are what give real life to this whole educational process. Their intimacy is powerful and unforgettable. Maria Julia and Vanessa, our University of Havana student translators, hang out during the late afternoons or evenings with our students and then, the next day, our class feels an entirely new sense of connection and understanding of what's happening around us. New answers, new questions, new confusions -- it gets the students grappling with issues in a way that I could never accomplish.

It is those conversations and our group's new found friendships with Thelma and Emilio--versed in arts, architecture, and sculpture -- and Leslie -- an aspiring young photographer -- and Edennis -- our young bus driver -- as well as the waitresses and taxi cab drivers and storekeepers and more who give each of us an opportunity to create our own understanding of life and human development in Cuba.

Do our contacts represent Cubans in general? Do they represent well a nation of over 11 million people? There is no typical Cuban, of course, and the point of this course is not to identify the quintessential Cuban experience or life. Our goal is to give students a context for thinking about how we structure our communities and the institutions in our communities -- our schools, hospitals, businesses, spiritual groups, neighborhood organizations, governments -- in ways that reflect our cultural values and our assumptions about the nature, priorities and goals of human development.

It's so difficult for us to see these relationships in our own communities because we've become so accustomed to our own practices. To go to Cuba, these relationships seem so much clearer, as clear, even, as the roadside billboards: "Our ideas are our most powerful tools," "Millions of children live in Cuba, and not a one of them lives on the street," "Health for all." "Hasta Victoria Siempre" (Forever toward victory).

So here we are -- all 16 of us on our last night together in Cuba -- with incomplete histories and understandings of what's going on, but we at least have started to learn and are trying to talk. And maybe if we keep talking we will find more common ground than we had imagined, and maybe we'll agree to disagree at other times.

And isn't this what education is all about?

DAY 1 Benjamin Eckstein

We are back. Colin and I went to my new apartment. "How was Cuba?" my roommates asked. "Amazing." "Tell us about it." We don't know where to start.

Day 3 Rachel Bertsch

My mom called me as soon as I got in and wanted to know everything about it. She was asking me a million questions and was so happy I enjoyed myself. She also kept saying, "Now I want to go!" I am so excited to show her all the pictures because I feel like she is going to appreciate my experience the most.

Today I have the craziest realization. I am working for a medical software company and I do research on hospitals with which we do business. I flipped! These hospitals have the latest technology -- powerful computers and plasma screens in the operating rooms; databases that contain patient information including recent CAT scans and full medical histories.

In Cuba, we visited a doctor's office where patient information was kept on old cigar labels -- they didn't even have file cabinets. When Lynne asked the doctor what they needed from the states she had told her she was in need of blood sugar monitors used for people with diabetes. Here we have 50" plasma screens on computers in operating rooms and Cuban doctors need something that allows diabetes patients to monitor their blood sugars.

DAY 5 Janet Green

As I look back I know this: I felt good while I was in Cuba. I enjoyed the heat. Hearing a Spanish accent to which I was not accustomed was fun and occasionally challenging. The racial diversity was interesting and the apparent racial harmony was sometimes deceptive. I wasn't approached or hassled as much as the students, and when I was, if I said, "No, gracias," and waggled my index finger "no" as they do in Spain, I was generally left alone.

I find that a lot of the things that impressed me could be considered negative -- the hotel elevator that usually didn't work, the beautiful buildings that can't be repaired for lack of money, the obvious sex tourism.

I prefer to think of these aspects as just a normal part of their life. If someone from Cuba spent two weeks in Vermont, they would probably find several things that weren't quite as they would wish.

I've seen many sides of life in Havana, and that is important. We didn't hang out in a luxury hotel on the beach but rather in the heart of "El Vedado," formerly a middle class neighborhood and now a mixture of fancy and not-so-fancy hotels and some well-kept and many run-down apartment buildings. We walked through "Centro Havana," considered the toughest sector of the city; we rode through "Miramar", full of beautiful mansions in various stages of repair; we toured "Havana Vieja" which is being restored bit by bit thanks to foreign investments. I still want to see more of Havana and of the rest of the island, and I have a strong feeling that I will go back. For now, I'll try to remember the relaxed pace of life, the acceptance of difficult economic circumstances, and the respect for the different cultures that are evident in the Cuban people I saw and met.

DAY 6 Lynne Bond

Wandering around Burlington on this perfect summer evening, the Jazz Festival is in full swing. It reminds me, oddly, of Havana. Church Street is overflowing with people chatting in small groups and sitting at tables in cafes and restaurants; music is pouring out many of the windows and doorways. It is so like Havana.

Yet it is not. Burlington looks so shiny, neat, and well cared for -- cars, buses and bicycles; clothes; outdoor chairs and tables; light fixtures; street signs; awnings; the roads themselves -- nothing seems to have dents, scratches, holes or tears. Everything in Burlington seems to glisten, so much so it seems unreal.

I am overwhelmed by the "stuff" around. Nothing in Burlington seems Spartan or simple; the store windows are brimming over with "must-buys," porches and yards are overflowing with furniture and playthings, the cerea l choices at the grocery are overwhelming. The waterfront is filled with elegant sailboats, shiny kayaks, sailboards, and canoes. My house and office feel chocked full of things.

Yet as the sun sets and I wander around this festival, the chatter and laughter and music stands out; we really do have a lot in common with Havana.

Elizabeth Guenard

The night back, the UVM campus was inexpressibly beautiful, so green and healthy. The air, fresh and earthy, breezed through the open car window. I hadn't noticed how stifling the Cuban air had been. The pollution had been alarming, bustling city traffic composed of poor exhausts and diesel fuels greatly from Soviet cars and pre-1959 American classics.

But in Vermont, we passed bikers with school bags, carefree along the network of paths and the lush lawn, an abundance of flowers and meticulous landscaping.

It is several days later, I sit at my computer in my new apartment. There's nothing on my walls but a small framed photograph, a mattress on the floor, a desk and chair, fan, an old steamer trunk fixed up to service as a bureau. I can't stand to think of adding clutter.

I'm overwhelmed by a desire to be frugal and Spartan. As I confront the differences, the issues between the United States and Cuba, understanding the structure and elements fueling the economic inequities we have seen, I feel distaste for our excesses, for the things we flaunt so. We are ungrateful for -- yet overwhelmed by -- the dollar. Our social values and morals can never conquer our love of the dollar and all it buys. I think it unlikely that our nation could ever experience a social revolution like the one that occurred in Cuba.