It’s exactly a year to the day since I arrived in Havana. When I stepped off the plane 365 days’ ago, it was my first time in Cuba, I knew a little but not a lot about the country and, after a recent posting in Mozambique, my Spanish had a very Portuguese twang. A year later and I know a bit more, but still not enough, about the country, the culture, the people and the politics, I’ve visited nine of Cuba’s fifteen provinces, have met hundreds of interesting people and I’m learning to speak Spanish like a Cuban (who needs an ‘s’ at the end of a word anyway?).
What’s happened in the last year? In many ways it’s been a roller coaster ride. President Castro has introduced more changes – for example, in migration, the economy, for co-operatives – and a new First Vice-President, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has been elected. Parliamentary elections took place in February but, equally important perhaps for Cuba, were the elections that took place in the USA and Venezuela. The re-election of Presidents Obama and Chavez and then the election of President Maduro brought continuity to US and Venezuela policies towards Cuba. Whether you agree with those policies or not, continuity in policy is often easier for a government to deal with than change. Hurricane Sandy struck, tragically, in October 2012 leaving eleven people dead and many homeless. The British government provided $2.6m in humanitarian aid. Meanwhile on 1 May 2013, the Cuban government faced some difficult questioning in its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Personal highlights for me in the last year include: the hugely successful British cultural week in June – particularly the wonderful Tremendonga Party; my visits to Guantanamo and Villa Clara where I was received with grace and generosity; and interaction with a lot of Cubans on Twitter – even without 3G in Cuba, Cubans from all over the world are already engaged in the Twitter global conversation. I was also intrigued to learn that Winston Churchill visited the island twice, including to fight in the War of Independence (more of that in a future blog), have really enjoyed listening to a lot of great music, especially Buena Fe and Raul Paz, and was lucky enough to see Carlos Acosta dance during Havana’s International Ballet Festival.
There’s been a lot more – Cuba is in many ways a fascinating, challenging, and unique country. But it can be frustrating too – on a fairly parochial level for example, why diplomats are not allowed to stay in private bed and breakfasts (‘casas particulares’) when other tourists are is entirely beyond me.
When you move to a new country with a different culture, to a new job with new colleagues, when your children go to new schools and you and they make new friends, you spend most of your first year settling in. So apart from everything else, we’ve done a lot of that too. I’m now firmly settled in and am very much looking forward to the second year. Roll on another roller coaster!