Election Night in Havana

Experiencing the American election abroad has been really interesting, especially in a country with such a unique perspective as Cuba. In general, Cubans are very supportive of Obama, since he has spoken openly about reinstating diplomatic relations with the Castro regime. Below the surface of this initial enthusiasm, however, many of them still see him as just one of many presidents before him, and are aware that little beyond Cuban-American relations (if even that) may change. Being a black non-Obama supporter has added another level to the whole experience, since people automatically assume that I voted for him (even more so than in the United States!); I have been personally congratulated several times on his victory since Tuesday, by students and professors alike.

The actual night of the election was absolutely amazing. A few weeks ago, some of the American students went to the American Interests Section (which basically does everything an embassy would do, it’s just not called that, for obvious reasons) to cast their absentee ballots. They met the American Citizen Services Officer, who invited us to an election night party at the house of the head of the U.S. mission (a.k.a ambassador). So Tuesday night we got pseudo-dressed up and caught a bus to Miramar, more or less the suburbs of Havana. The wealthiest Cubans used to live there during the 50’s, but they all fled during the Revolution, so the government appropriated all of their mansions, and now most of them are embassies. Once we got to Miramar we had to show some form of American identification in order to get on a shuttle to take us to Cubanacan, another neighborhood with basically the same story as Miramar, but with even wealthier people. The head of the mission lives in Cubanacan, in the house that was originally built with the intention of housing the U.S. President on his visits to Cuba… oops.

The house and its grounds were absolutely beautiful… I’ve honestly never been in such a lavish place without taking a tour of some sort. The gardens in the back were beautifully maintained, with a tennis court, swimming pool, and vegetable garden all on the property. The event was catered by the house’s staffed kitchen, to the delight of all American stomachs that had been starved for anything legitimately resembling American cuisine (I was beginning to forget the taste of pesto…). The open bar stocked with beer, wine, and various cocktails was also a lovely addition…

By far though, the most refreshing part of the evening was the overwhelming presence of academic and political figures (both Cuban and American), who were not afraid to speak their minds about the current situation in both countries. One of the most frustrating parts of the semester so far has been spending time in a country, all the while forming opinions about my experience with no one willing to validate or correct them, or share any of their own. Since we got here, Cubans and visiting Americans alike have been trying to walk the policy line—some more convincingly than others. Many of them seem hesitant to disagree outright with the current Cuban government, while at the same time they struggle to say something that doesn’t sound as though it came straight from a Communist Party pamphlet. We got to speak to economists and diplomats, one of whom set the record straight on a lot of Cuban “news” we’ve been hearing since we’ve got here. By far, though, the most valuable (and probably the most obvious) thing he told us was that we shouldn’t take his word for it that the American side of the story was any more accurate than the Cuban version, and that we should do our own research once we get back to the states (and out from the watchful eyes of the Cuban government’s information censoring departments). It really hammered home the fact that by no means will this experience end once we touch foot on American soil again, and that only as we learn even more after the semester’s end will we realize the true value of the time we spent here.