More on our trip to Cuba. Yes, I don’t share much in Catbird that isn’t quilting related, but I’m making an exception here. Hope you enjoy!
by Jim and Melanie
So much imagery we experience of Cuba stems from immigrants washing up on the shores of Florida on rafts or tiny boats. The Mariel boatlifts of 1980 and other stories of refugees can make us think everyone is trying to escape the small island. On the contrary, Cubans are incredibly proud of their country as it is, as well as its past and burgeoning future.
Their literacy rate and education system, and high-quality free healthcare, stem directly from the revolution of the 1950s. But we found some points of pride that cross a longer history. There is a sweet and odd fixation on Ernest Hemingway and the decades of his prominence there. Baseball, the national sport, holds fascination for most. Below we share a few pictures and thoughts on these areas of national pride.
Literacy and Education
After the Cuban revolution, one of the first actions of the new regime was to…
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I’ve been enjoying your Cuban travelers tales. I hope Cuba continues to be more open to the world and the U.S. encourages more contact.
It will be continuing to open, I think, depending on US policy. Under the Obama administration we’ve made a lot of progress. All that could be rolled back depending on who is elected next.
Lovely travelogue. It might be interesting to return in a few years now that U.S. – Cuban relations are normalized – to see what changes.
Are Hemingway’s six-toed cats still out and about? Also the Spanish word finca usually referrs to a small farm or ranch. These days that usually means a hobby farm. I’m wondering how much land may gave been originally associated with the house.
Yes, we’d be interesting in going back. Three to five years may make a lot of difference in some ways.
There are no cats on the Hemingway property, so we were told. There were dogs roaming freely, though, as they seem to pretty much everywhere. In most places random cats were visible, too, but not there.