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.
