Love is Our License
The 22nd Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba - See the Photos from the 2011 Caravan on this blog.
We were about 100 people, mostly from Canada and the US, later to be joined by about 12 Mexican companeros, in 12 buses, traveling routes throughout Canada and the US, visiting 130 cities picking up aid and participants and talking about our mission of solidarity with the Cuban people and defiance of the US law prohibiting travel to Cuba. Heat, hard work, long hours, and difficulty at the borders were just what we expected, but the special challenge of this Caravan is that Pastors for Peace founder and leader Lucius Walker died shortly after the Caravan last year. It became very clear that the organization is far more than even the best, most charismatic leader (just as the Cuban nation is) as this year's Caravan delivered 100 tons of aid and masses of human solidarity to the docks of Tampico for shipment to Cuba.
The buses converge in McAllen Texas, where we trained for non-violent civil disobedience; unloaded, packed and invoiced, and reloaded all the aid; formed affinity groups and work teams; repaired buses; and learned about the Pastors for Peace and about Cuba. Kitchen teams worked about 16 hours a day in shifts and security shifts we shared round the clock kept us and the buses safe from harm. (Violence and sabotage from those opposed to the Cuban revolution is a real threat both here and in Cuba. In my personal experience a bus had its windshield smashed when a church security guard along the route failed to arrive and we were not aware of the problem.) If you are getting the idea that this is not a tropical vacation, well...
The border crossing from the US to Mexico is a double crossing, for the US border authorities take a great interest in our exit, attempt to inspect our cargos and seize aid. This year it was 7 computers which were taken. Then we enter Mexico, which had historically been noted only for meticulous inspection of our boxes and invoices, but where, in the past 2 years, Mexican border authorities, we suppose in cooperation with the US government's wishes, have been harassing the caravan by pretending to regard us as a commercial enterprise rather than as humanitarian aid, and requiring payments. This year our Mexican comrades helped organize a demonstration inside the office of the Border Supervisor. It seems the Caravan always wins by being more determined, more enduring, and louder than the opposition. Onward we went, through Reynosa, and along the highway to Tampico, with a few pauses for bus repair. We loaded all the aid into shipping containers, ate dinner at 3AM, slept a few hours and got into a plane which landed us in Havana.
Our first event was a welcome at the Museo de Bellas Artes, where a curator took us through exhibits of Cuban art of the last 5 decades. The flourishing of culture during the years since the revolution is impressive, as is the fact that there's no "socialist realism" here - content and styles are wildly varied. Next in Havana is an event which every year moves me to tears: the graduation of the Latin American School of Medicine. These students, who come from all over the world, including the US, to study medicine for 6 years, with plans to return to their own communities to practice medicine for poor people for the rest of their careers, actually carry out these plans. In Cuba they learn not only family, community, and disaster medicine, but internationalism, practical idealism, and cooperation.
On Sunday most of us, even the atheists, went to church. I went to Ebenezer Baptist, part of the Martin Luther King Center in Marianao, a working class section of Havana, where we were received with enormous warmth. Cubans kiss each other on the cheek in greeting and my cheeks were thoroughly kissed. The early days of the revolution were anti-religious, in part because the Catholic Church then served as a counter-revolutionary center, even circulating the false rumor of children being taken from their parents to be raised by the state - a rumor which led to the family tragedies of Operation Peter Pan. Both the church and the revolution have changed; the church no longer works against the Cuban people and there is no government hostility toward religion at all. It is interesting and unique to Cuba to meet devout evangelicals who are also devout Communists.
We then went in 3 groups to different provinces. I went to Pinar del Rio, to a rural area where we helped transplant 500 banana trees; played volleyball, chess, soccer, and swam with our Cuban companeros; had interactive meetings with youth groups and Federation of Cuban Women members including an elderly woman who was blind in one eye from a childhood injury for which no medical care was then obtainable, and who was not shy about telling us her life and opinions; learned about the formation of Cuban militias to combat counter-revolutionary violence and met the last surviving member of the first self-organized group; celebrated the 26th of July at a small but lively settlement; toured a cave, and petted a one ton water buffalo - as strong as a tractor and spare parts are not a problem. This was especially notable as the mechanics in our group were helping the Cubans repair a tractor for which the soviet parts were unobtainable.
Returning to Havana, we visited the Latin American School of Medicine, and the Center for Biotechnology. The Cuban medical system needs its own article, which I'll try to provide soon. We went to conferences about youth in education and medicine, about US Cuban relations, about gender and family issues, and about the Cuban economy and planned changes - a planning process which involved almost the entire adult Cuban population. We saw a performance of children's musical theater and other musical performances. We went to events honoring Lucius Walker who is a great hero in Cuba as he is to all of us who knew him. We went to Casa Africa for discussion of race and racism and were shown art and religious artifacts. Again this year we met with relatives of the five Cuban heroes who are imprisoned in the US after they attempted to investigate Miami-based anti-Cuban terrorism. They are known in the US as the Cuban 5. This is another subject which needs its own article - coming soon.
I missed the last big event - honoring Lucius Walker - because a Caravanista needed emergency medical care. Details in the Cuban medical system article!
We flew back to Tampico, rolled through Mexico, and recrossed the border. After a few hours of US border official harassment of one Caravanista, a former political prisoner, we all returned to the US. Our seized computers were then returned and we turned right around and we walked them back across the international bridge into the arms of our Mexican companeros who will get them to Tampico in time to ship with the rest of the aid. The Cubans will never give up and neither will we. A better world is possible.
Aqui nadie se rinde. Un mundo mejor es posible.
SEE PHOTOS FROM 2011 CARAVAN ON THIS BLOG.
