Time and again during our eight
days in Cuba, we saw hope. There was never not hope there. I do not know why it
was so surprising to me. Hope is a core belief of who I am, yet I could not
stop myself from loving the shock and aww I felt over and over as each day we
met a new person with endless amounts of hope for Cuba. I grew up thinking the
worst about Cuba. I was taught it was led by an evil man with evil plans and
filled with evil people because they would choose to stay there. The only
people there we ever felt compassion for (at least in my childlike
understanding of the Cuban existence) was the ones we heard about trying to
escape such as the family of Elian Gonzalez in 2000. I can now say that I have
spent time on the other side of this conversation, and in the words of my
beloved Professor at ESR (Rev. Dr. Nancy Bowen), “it is complicated.” Indeed,
it is complicated. On our American side, we have been given only our side of
the story, and in Cuba they have been given theirs. My mother always taught me
there are three sides to a story: yours, mine, and the truth. Somewhere in the
middle of both our sides of propaganda and experience, there is truth; there is
hope.
Cuba showed
our traveling group a wonderful side of itself. We saw the historical sights
and witnessed Old Havana which is celebrating its five hundredth anniversary
next year. The architecture everywhere is still under repair from the island
experiencing the hurricanes last year. The people however seem unfazed. For
them, as they told us throughout the entire week, it has been and always could
be worse than what it is now. Repairing and restoring is simply what the Cuban
people do. They are constantly finding a way to band together and make things
happen for themselves. During the years after the Soviet Union collapsed and
their main source of income was cut off (commonly known as The Special Period),
the Cuban people knew a hunger that competed with the people in Acts 6 who
witnessed their widows going without while the widows of the privileged had
plenty. One young man shared with us that while he was growing up he was only
ever given one maranga (Cuban potato) a day. He said now that he is a fledgling
adult he will not go anywhere near a maranga. There is an entire generation of
Cubans that have grown up only knowing the post-Soviet Union influence on Cuba.
They are tired and worn out from thinking about what good the revolution
(started in 1959 by Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries) can bring. Yet,
even this younger generation has a never-yielding hope.
No matter
where I looked, I saw the hope that carries the Cuban people forward. They have
known hunger, fear, poverty and separation. They all seemed to have stories of
family in other countries. They are isolated from many of them that have made
their way to the United States. Some Cubans speak with admiration of their
American relatives and others speak with resentment of them for leaving the
island. The people on the island understand something has to change if they
expect their way of life to continue. Socialism to them, from my perspective at
least, is simply and extension of how they already understand to do life as a
community of people. They do not see themselves as individuals. They are Cuban
first and foremost. Their socialist views simply back up what they already know
about what it means to be Cuban. Hope permeates every part of that way of
thinking. There is no amount of blockade, embargo, or isolation that will kill
that kind of spirit. Some worry the younger generation will not be able to
carry it on, but from where I sit, that kind of hope is hard to quash. Hope is
what kept the starving people of Cuba alive in the 1990’s when there was no
reason to believe they could survive. Hope is what makes them sure that things
will only continue to turn around for them. Hope is why they rebuild old
buildings while their people still struggle for basic needs. They know that
they are in this together. Their work to keep it alive requires them to make
personal sacrifices so in another five hundred years Cuba will still stand
proud and independent.
I have no
way of knowing for sure what will happen in Cuba next, but I do know that along
with them I now have hope for Cuba. Whereas when I was a girl I could only see
evil, I now only see potential goodness in every corner of the island and its
people. There is only hope that Cuba will find a way to survive as it has
always done against all odds.
Rev. Samantha Hasty is a church planter in San Antonio, TX. She is an optimist to the end and loves people in a deep and real way with more passion than is reasonable most days. She is an ESR graduate and has plans to go for her D.Min soon. Check out her church website here: www.hopealivemin.org
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