Hello From Cuba – Part four – Bureaucracy Galore –
Hello From Cuba – Part four – Bureaucracy Galore – The University Of Havana
Yesterday I had to join up for my Spanish direction at the University of Havana. The Campus of the University is an astoundingly fascinating series of classical buildings and a Cuban tank graces the doorway to the library.
At 9 am the complete overseas college students, approximately 40 of them, met within the Edificio Varona and we were shepherded through assorted professors into an awfully antiquated lecture hall. (By the way, of the 5 or 6 washroom stalls in the womens bog, in basic terms 1 or 2 have lavatories in them, no bathroom seats, and no strolling water inside the sinks. Again a signal of slightly run-down infrastructure…)
There they informed us approximately the program, yet in basic terms in Spanish, which changed into o.k. for me, given that I speak Spanish, yet approximately part the organization used to be permanently misplaced. We then needed to do a swift written placement check to assess our existing Spanish abilties after which the bureaucracy started out.
We discovered out that we obligatory the subsequent paperwork:
– a replica of our passports
– an respectable copy of the motel visitor card and/or a duplicate of the licence of the personal Casa Particular
– 2 hundred CUC (Convertible Cuban Pesos) in dollars for a 2-week direction or greater for other courses
– 40 CUC for changing our tourist visa to a tutorial visa (in monetary stamps which we needed to download abuot 5 km away)
– 2 passport photos
– 25 CUC in earnings to expedite our instructional visa if we are in town for handiest 2 weeks.
I related up with a host of foreign pupils and we headed off mutually on our quest to meet the Cuban hope for Burocratismo. We first got earnings at financial institution on the Hotel Havana Libre, then obtained the passport pictures carried out (to be equipped for pickup three hours later), then searched for any other financial institution on Calle 23 that might present us with the 40CUC stamps for the educational visa. With fairly long lineups all over the place, this took us about 2 or 3 hours.
Then we bought in point of fact hungry and we were approached by means of a regional “Jinetero” (restaurant tout) who promised us a entire meal with foremost dish, salad and area dish for six or 7 CUC. We walked with him, best to discover that the wait at the Paladar (individual eating place) would be approximately 45 minutes to even take a seat down, no longer along with delicacies training time.
So we walked up Calle 21 and a exclusive eating place owner approached us for a meal and we gave in and got here inner. It became a beautiful colonial villa, except that the guest room with is crucial three tables and 12 seats was once in a darkish small dingy room exclusively with no home windows.
However, we had a scrumptious domestic-cooked meal, I had roasted hen with rice & beans, salad and a lemon gentle drink, all for eight CUC (about eight US$). 2 of my student colleagues had been from Germany and the other fellow is from Toronto as nicely, but at the start from Poland. We had some nice conversations and it was enjoyable linking up with a number of Europeans in Havana.
After a short rest in the inn, my chum Pedro lower back picked me up in the night and I couldnt help yet inform him approximately my ride with the Cocotaxi driving force the day gone by, who had attempted to elect me up, despite my clarifications and statements that I become married and not concerned with any amorous sports.
Pedro explained that sexual kinfolk in Cuba are a extraordinarily fashioned, mild-going component and that it can be very widely wide-spread for employees to hyperlink up for speedy “significant overnight relationships”. He pointed out the Cuban humans as very “passionate and scorching-blooded”, I guess that explains more than one the advances that I were receiving to this point, especially considering the fact that there may be also rather plenty of sex tourism in which men (and even ladies) come to Cuba to have interaction in genuinely obtainable erotic studies.
Pedro and I walked by using the vintage the town and of route alongside the Malecon (the seafront boulevard) and saw the captivating Plaza Vieja and the Plaza de l. a. Catedral in which a mass was being held for the passing of Pope John Paul II.
This became very appealing, because Cuba is a Communist / reliable atheist united states and there are an awful lot fewer Catholics as of late than earlier the Revolution. Actually tons of Cubas religion is a combo of Catholicism and Santeria (devout practices of the African slaves). Regardless of religiousness, Cuba has declared a 3-day “duelo nacional” (a nationwide mourning interval for the Pope) and the mass was once attended by way of 1000's of people.
Pedro and I then had a nice meal in the “Barrio Chino” (Havana’s Chinatown) for five.60 CUC (less than US$6) for 2 humans and a pair of vegetarian meals and comfortable beverages. After a pleasing dinner he once more flagged down a neighborhood inner most auto driving force and gave him about 1 CUC for making a choice on us up and dropping us off at my Hotel. At middle of the night I dropped into bed, exhausted.
However, at 4 am this morning I woke up with substantial intestinal trouble. Apparently my Chinese meal had now not grow to be me so good and I had extreme digestive points emanating from the two http://travisimkp263.huicopper.com/the-chianti-place-wine-and-territory facets of my body. This morning I realy felt rotten and I ended up due to my possess scientific equipment for the 1st time and took a few Immodium.
I turned into unable to devour breakfast, yet I made my approach to the institution the place at nine am our periods all started. Surprisingly the placement check had positioned me into the extent of “perfeccionamiento”, the highest level and the extent of Spanish in my classification was indeed very prime. The elegance consists of 7 students, a young lady from England, a young female clinical scholar from Denmark, a center-elderly woman surgeon from Finland, a younger male legislations pupil from Sweden, a younger woman and guy from Norway and myself from Austria/Canada.
Obviuosly there's a very heavy Scandinavian slant in my elegance and it turns out everyone within the type is a passion sociologist, political scientist, environmentalist and historian. We requested some extraordinarily difficult questions about Cuban lifestyles, the political machine, the financial hardships, the double economy, the subject of women folk and blacks in Cuba, machismo and the challenge of the setting.
Some of those questions made our girl professor think super uncomfortable and it seemed like she become squirming underneath the barrage of probing political and sociological questions. She acquired very shielding a few instances about the Cuban equipment and basically after we discussed the nice and bad elements of European and Canadian societies did she relax a bit of and transform a bit extra open and frank about the actual Cuban life. It looks that to at the moment Cubans have got to be very cautious about what they say in public.
For example, she frankly admitted that racism nevertheless exists in Cuba and to at the present time that is nevertheless a country with a great deal of machismo. However, she did not admit that Internet get entry to and get entry to to non-Communist media is forbidden for Cubans, she truly explained it as an monetary predicament. (Several of my colleagues had heard differently in their travels in Cuba, really that a Cuban just isn't allowed to have entry to the Internet). She additionally admitted that it seriously is not allowed for Cubans to stopover at the vacationer regions of the Cayos (e.g. Cayo Coco) that's completely reserved for vacationers and Cubans have no get entry to to that part whatever, a certain factor of competition many of the locals.
Class ended about 1:20 and my disappointed abdomen did now not enable me to intake any delicacies. I headed again to my hotel, slept slightly and have been on the Internet for the beyond 2 or so hours (racking up a invoice of approximately $US 20.00 or s0), documenting my time out.
It’ll be a quiet night this night when you consider that I am attempting to settle down my abdomen. But I am sure the adventures and the mastering will continue the following day.