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Blog post by Jess Laumeyer – Thursday 1/19/23
Hola! Jess again – I was lucky enough to get to blog for two days! As I mentioned yesterday every day for us starts with an amazing breakfast provided by our host families. We cherish this time with them, they sit and talk with us, ask us about our day and share small insights into their world. Our hosts continue to make us laugh and entertain us with their love for music.
Today was a full day. We started with an energized and passionate lecture from Dr Ana Sanchez. Her passion for teaching was so refreshing and something we are familiar with at St Kate’s. Dr Sanchez explained the importance of the Revolution and the role Castro had on advancing the Cuban education system. The people of Cuba were determined to accomplish literacy and eliminate illiteracy (which they did in 1961). A quote from Fidel Castro that really resonated with me was “If you know you teach, if you don’t know you learn”. This was evident in how the entire population came together to educate. Dr Sanchez taught us, “a teacher who doesn’t love their profession can’t be a full teacher”. Her love to teach was contagious.
After our lecture we headed to the National Literacy Museum – Museo Nacional De La Campanade. Again we were introduced to another passionate educator who was gracious enough to give us a tour of the museum. She shared with us how the entire country came together to spread the new education campaign, mostly women in fact rose to the challenge of educating all Cubans. A fun fact she shared was that the oldest person to be taught during this time was 106 years old and the youngest teacher was an 8 year old boy! Wow! Many Cubans wrote letters to Castro thanking him for giving them an education. Another fascinating fact was how integrated public health was with the education system, ensuring each citizen was ready and able to learn.
Lunch for the day was at Locos por Cuba – of course it was amazing.
After lunch we headed back to CIPs for a student panel with four Havana University students ages 21-23. We met two students from the Tourism program, one from the Art History program and one from the Journalism program. Each shared their background in their program and what they hoped to do next. Even though they were young they had such a great outlook on life and expanding their knowledge. One student said “if you don’t know the rest of the world, you have a very narrow perspective of life”. They were very grateful for us to be there to listen to them and they are hopeful that the relations between our two countries will continue to improve.
Free time today included a quick Wi-Fi stop and a quiet night in. Buenos Noches!
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