Last month, while Friendship Force members worldwide were celebrating World Friendship Day, a delegation of 33 Friendship Force members spent a week in Cuba. Re-establishing peace and friendship ties with the people of Cuba, members immersed themselves in the culture by visiting several local initiatives led by the people of Cuba, while staying in casas particulares, rooms in personal homes of Cubans rented to our group.
The highlight of this trip was meeting Liz Cuesta Peraza (who insisted we simply call her Liz), the wife of the President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Work had begun months before the journey with a special letter of introduction to Liz by FFI President & CEO, Jeremi Snook. With support provided by Paul Bardwil of Global Education Facilitation, a partner of FFI, our morning schedule of tours was interrupted with a call from her senior advisor indicating that she would like to meet that day.
At a nearby hotel, Liz spent over an hour with our group talking candidly about her love of Cuba, the accomplishments of the Cuban government and people, and answering questions from the group. FFI’s President later gifted her an engraved compass as a reminder that ‘wherever the needle points on this compass, there is a new friend waiting to greet you.’
The complex relationship the United States has with Cuba, and that of the Cuban government and her people, were not lost on our group. Reconciling our meeting with Liz with the individuals and institutions we met throughout the week became a topic of much discussion amongst our group members.
In the days that followed, we would visit a local clinic where medical students were getting hands-on experience interacting with the public. We would also visit a nonprofit dedicated to teaching cosmetology skills to young people. We would receive an in-depth lecture on the colonial history of Cuba before venturing to Old Havana where we would take in the present with architectural reminders of the past. Later we would visit Cuba Emprende, an entrepreneurship program that has assisted hundreds of individuals with innovative ideas and given them guidance on launching those ideas. And nothing tells more about the story of Cuba than soaking in the vibrant music and arts culture, whether walking through Old Havana, enjoying a meal, or touring the countryside.
Of course, we couldn’t leave Cuba without visiting a family-owned tobacco farm where some of the group smoked an organic honey-dipped premium cigar!
This journey brought together echos from Friendship Force’s past: remembering President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s journey to Cuba in the early 2000s, the rich history of Cuba, the present face of Cuba’s leadership in Liz Cuesta-Perez, and the creative people of the country who we were privileged to meet throughout the week. In true Friendship Force fashion, our group came home with a very different perspective of Cuba, perhaps even having changed a little from the experience.
Friendship Force International plans to develop a presence in Cuba, cultivating the relationships recently forged and working towards a sustainable partnership.