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Havana Adventure
by Viveca Ohm
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Viveca Ohm is a former ESL teacher from Vancouver, now semi-retired and living on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, where she teaches an online course in effective office writing. |
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AS MY FLIGHT touched down at José Martí airport last February 2007, my excitement mounted. I was really in Cuba! I've always had a special fascination for societies in isolation – whether geographical, political, or economic – and to me Cuba was the brave little island that could. I didn't want just to laze at a beach resort, but to get a sense of how ordinary Cubans lived. When I saw the ESL Cuba Volunteer website, I knew that was the trip for me. Not only would I get an intensive orientation to Cuban culture but I'd be doing what I loved, teaching English.
Our guide, Marina, was waiting at the terminal with a big sign and a big smile. Soon other members of the group emerged and we piled into a comfortable bus that took us into the city. Camera at the ready, I was too busy taking in the royal palms, the legendary old cars, and the billboards with a smiling Fidel assuring "Todos va bien," to pay undivided attention to Marina's welcome speech.
SO BEGAN the first week of our orientation in the capable hands of Marina, herself a teacher, a flirtatious mother-hen whose pride in her country was infectious and whose personal anecdotes gave us an insight into how Cuban women manage to work, shop, cook, and raise families with far fewer conveniences than we're used to.
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Viveca Ohm: midday respite in the park like grounds surrounding the Hotel Nacional. |
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We were shepherded through the beautiful plazas and narrow streets of Old Havana. We visited schools, museums, art studios, and neighbourhood gathering places. We drank Cuban beer; we learned to salsa; we enjoyed the ubiquitous musicians. We listened to lectures until our brains and our notebooks could soak up no more, and we collapsed in our rooms at the end of the day until the tropical darkness fell. Then revived by hunger, we met in the lobby and ventured out to local paladars to sample Cuban dinners, which ranged in price and quality from wonderful to forgettable, but which usually meant chicken, fish, or beef with surprisingly minimal vegetables.
For me, certain highlights stand out this from this first week. The weathered, intelligent face of Nidia Gonzalez, president of the Cuban Teachers Association, as she shared her philosophy of education – to raise another Che Guevara or José Martí, a humanistic citizen with a social conscience. The blackboard with bullet holes at the Museum of Literacy. The vast rolling lawns of the Institute of Superior Arts, once a country club for rich Americans, now the nurturing ground for Cuba's brightest painters, writers, musicians, dancers. The doctor visiting the Casa del niño y de la niña (House of the boy and girl) who explained her caseload had now doubled to a thousand patients because so many of her colleagues had been sent to Venezuela. The children who came to the Casa after school, still in their uniforms, and listened so intently to our careful greetings.
THE TEACHING TURNED OUT a little different than I expected. I had brought tons of teaching materials, including articles with comprehension questions for various intermediate/advanced levels that I thought would be suitable for the older students, and simple stories and puzzles for the younger ones. But the students at the University of Havana's Faculty for Foreign Languages (FLEX) were already very competent in English and wanted mostly to talk with us and ask about Canada. For the younger ones at the Casa, on the other hand, English was a totally new experience, so it was a matter of starting from square one with colours, clothing, and very simple vocabulary.
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Carriage for hire in Old Havana. Photo Viveca Ohm |
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I was shocked at how decrepit the physical space was at FLEX. Dingy classrooms with bad lighting, dirty windows, broken desks, insufficient blackboards or chalk, no elevator to get to the fourth floor. But I was more than impressed at how the students seemed to thrive even in these conditions, and how seriously they took their language studies.
I WOULD HAVE ENJOYED spending more time with them and getting to know the Cuban teachers. Unfortunately I got sick halfway through the three-week tour, so I never had a chance to spend more than a few days in a teaching environment. My respiratory infection was exacerbated by the pollution in beautiful Havana, and even after several days rest, I didn't have the energy to face the long walk to FLEX. No, it wasn't actually such a long walk, maybe half an hour once you got used to the route, and I did enjoy the sights on those days when I made it. In our final week, Marina also managed to arrange individual visits to classes at the main university campus. Along with a fellow Canadian teacher, I spent a few hours in a class that taught English to law students. This was very interesting as we had a chance to discuss the different aspects of the legal system in Cuba and Canada, as well as different attitudes about law.
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My Canadian teaching mates and I third from left sample a refreshing sugar cane juice drink known locally as guarapo after ESL instruction classes. |
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Our hotel made it easy to explore the immediate neighbourhood and find restaurants, parks, music, movies. Like virtually every structure in Havana, the St. John's Hotel had seen better days (that's part of its charm) but it was comfortable enough and located a couple of minutes from the Malecón seawall and the historic Hotel Nacional. Facing the sea, my 11th floor room had a sweeping view of both as well as of central Havana. Rooftops as far as the eye could see culminated in the distant dome of El the Capitolio and the less elegant oil refineries in the harbour with their perpetual plumes of black smoke.
Despite my illness, I have wonderful memories of this stay and of my fellow travelers. The first week I felt I was learning more about Cuba than I ever expected. The second and third week I realized how much, much more there was to know and that I had only begun to scratch the surface. I'm grateful to Cuba Education Tours for organizing this trip, for being flexible enough to adjust schedules and destinations, and for always being there to help. I warmly recommend this experience to anyone who is seriously interested in Cuban society, especially its multi-faceted education.
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Havana's former Capital building now houses museums, an internet cafe, and the Academy of Science.
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