Greetings from Santiago de Cuba,
We had a wonderful warm (hot) time in downtown Santiago chatting with the locals and trying to piece together the rhythm and pace of everyday life. Our hotel after contacting the hospital near us directed us to the regional director of humanitarian aid. We took a taxi to visit him at his office on the outskirts of town and chatted with him for about 30 minutes. His name is Hector Ferrer (see picture) and he has coordinated doctors from Cuba to work in other countries, mostly in Africa for the past 15 years or so. He has a young family and wanted to settle down while his kids are in school and he and his wife are from Santiago de Cuba. He didn’t have a business card as he just started this new job a week before. He was extremely grateful for our Canadian contribution and was moved by our empathy to what he referred to as ‘our situation’. Hector filled out our form and said he would take it to Hospital Materno Sur himself in the next day or so.
Quick recap of our week: landed on Wednesday, town ran out of beer by Saturday and out of gas by Monday night. Cuba Si!
The locals told that they’re out of tooth paste, dish washing soaps (but they have bath soap – it’s really poor quality, it will burn your eyes) and in general hygiene products. Ironically they prefer to receive perfumes rather than deodorants. My wife who has been to Cuba 15 times but always at a 5 star resort advises that the food in town was 20 times better than what she samples at resorts. Furthermore she learned more about Cuba and Cubans in the first 24 hours than she had in the past 15 years combined.
Thank you for the certificate, as to your question of why it was important to us to take a suitcase the answer is simple: because we can and they need the stuff. Even the process of delivering the suitcase and meeting Hector was one of the highlights of our trip. That said, I am ashamed of how many Canadians told me that they would not consider doing this as it would be a gross inconvenience to them on their vacation and also the sheer paranoia that there might be something in the suitcase that would detain them at customs. Don’t get me going on this – truth of the matter is we’ve been marketed to death as North Americans to take expensive 5 star vacations where we are isolated from local realities and culture (throughout the world), instilled with a sense of fear of the unknown and a belief that if you return more ignorant then when you left but have a bunch of new pics on your i-phone that you have indeed had a world class vacation. Out of a plane full of people only my wife and I and one other Canadian did not board a bus to go to an all-inclusive – what a shame!
Hell, I’m glad I got that off my chest.
Warmest Regards,
Angelo & Judy [NJT Toronto]
