Horizons Student Support Services Study Abroad - Havana, Cuba: Savannah Belt

This morning started off with bang! We had a free morning and our translator Orlando was kind enough to take us to a fort that had cannons set up everywhere. As we were walking up to it, Orlando ran ahead of us all to the nearest cannon, jumped onto the pedestal holding it and shouted “FIRE”!! Everyone then proceeded to get their photos taken in various poses with the cannons, with mostly comical and a few cool results. Once we were satisfied with that we headed to the walls of the fort, which overlooked the ocean. At this point everyone was climbing around over everything and Orlando started getting a little panicked that someone was going to fall off the ledge into the water (and rocks) far below. To magnify his fear, Stanley, who was sitting at the very edge of the wall with his legs dangling over, decided to scare everyone by jumping onto a tiny hidden ledge and making it seem like he had fallen. While the majority of us found it funny once we realized what was happening, we were told to stay far away from the edge after that.

After a little more exploring at the fort, we went to the statue of Jesus and the house of Che. This was relaxing because the statue was in the midst of a small park, so there were trees and most importantly shade all around. A few of the students went into the house of Che, which was right next to the statue, and thought it was pretty interesting, but most of us, myself included, stayed by the statue and chatted. We did not stay for too long and by about 12 P.M. we were on the bus heading back to Vedado for lunch and then class time.

The topic of today’s lecture was Cuban Education and I really enjoyed it. The education system in Cuba is a point of pride for the Cubans, so I appreciated hearing from a person who is a part of it. Not only did she describe to us the logistics of how the system works, but she also did a wonderful job expressing how important it is to her. I think that this quote from the professor does a wonderful job of summing it up: “Education begins in the crib and ends in the grave”. From my experience here in Cuba so far, this certainly seems to be true; they absolutely love learning and sharing knowledge about anything and everything.

Once the lecture ended we had a group debrief, which is always a good time to process the day, and then rode the bus back to our casas for dinner and free time for the rest of the night. Overall it was a really fun day with a good mixture of learning, adventure, and relaxation.