by Mollie Rushmeyer
news@thenewsleaders.com
After 55 years of a U.S. embargo preventing trade and travel to Cuba, Kent and Barb Nelson of Sartell made one of the first treks to Cuba as part of a tourist group last year in April.
The couple explained the history of the embargo as well as their trip to the previously closed-off country during the weekly Senior Connection Club meeting March 23 at Country Manor in Sartell.
Kent, a history aficionado, said while organized travel groups can now enter Cuba, such as the Holiday Vacations travel group he and his wife went with, during the embargo that was not the case. Many of the older generation know and grew up with the embargo, the Cuban missile crisis and the fear associated with communism spreading to the western world, he said.
All too familiar were talk and fears of war with the Soviet Union as that nation aligned with Cuba’s communist approach. There were also the seeming finality of the Iron Curtain by the Soviet Union separating Germany into two areas after World War II and, closer to home, emergency drills in schools and people building their own bomb fallout shelters in their backyards in case of nuclear war.
During what was known as the Cuban Missile Crisis during 13 days in October 1962, the world was frozen in fear during a tense stand-off between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union had been determined to set up a nuclear-missile base on that Caribbean island, only 90 miles from Florida’s southern tip. President John F. Kennedy demanded the Soviets relent, and Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev finally backed down, causing a vast sigh of worldwide relief. It was, most historians agree, a very close call to complete annihilation, the closest the world has ever come to all-out nuclear war.
A Cuban revolution by a communist rebel, Fidel Castro, started the path to the U.S. embargo of Cuba that would last more than five decades. It was the United States’ way of isolating and punishing Cuba for its application – and possible spread of – communist ideology in the Western Hemisphere.
“Castro looked around (circa 1952),” Kent said. “And 90 percent of Cubans can’t read and write. They don’t have healthcare.”
So, Kent said, Castro and his supporters fought to overthrow the president in Cuba at the time, President Fulgencio Batista. When he succeeded in 1959, the country was split on its support of the new communist regime in charge. And even more split were the reactions to Castro’s death on Nov. 25, 2016. In Little Havana, Fla., to which many Cubans fled from Castro’s communist government, they cheered. In Cuba, Kent said his guide for their trip, a native Cuban, said they mourned his death. To many in the country, Castro came into a broken situation, and though his methods weren’t what most would consider perfect, he gave the people universal healthcare and dental care, a free education and food rations.
The problem, Barb explained during her part of the presentation, is on their firsthand experience of Cuba, people may have a free education, but low-paying wages await them after schooling. The people are also required to give 90 percent of their wages back to the government to pay for their socialized programs.
For Barb, it was a mixed experience.
“They are certainly poor by our standards,” Barb said. “But they’re also taken care of.”
From their guide, who had been a professor but found he made more as a tour guide, they learned 99 percent of people are literate, their healthcare is progressive enough to have a lung-cancer vaccine, there’s a low infant-mortality rate, drug problems have declined, there’s little crime, and, in fact, the police officers do not carry guns.
“There’s definitely things that are happening under the table though,” Barb said.
Because of the rigidity of the government, she said tips and exchanges of different kinds happen everywhere on a daily basis. Travelers should also be aware when exchanging money in Cuba, $100 equals about $80 C.U.s (the currency tourists can use), and the rest goes to the government.
“The government owns everything,” Barb said. “No one owns anything.”
However, after experiencing the hospitality of the locals who said they wanted to move on and mend the relationship with the United States, the Nelsons said they were glad to be among the first land-travel tourists into the country and hope others will feel the same.
“I never once felt scared or threatened while traveling in Cuba,” Barb said.
Her husband agreed and said the people they met were happy to have them.
The Nelsons said they enjoyed seeing the country whose doors for so long were closed to Americans, and they even brought back “a little Cuba” with them in the form of authentic cigars, rum and hand-crafted items from the locals.
Sartell residents Kent and Barb Nelson, a husband-and-wife duo, spoke to the Senior Connection Club March 23 at Country Manor in Sartell. They shared memories of their trip last April to Cuba following the lifted U.S. trade and travel embargo.
Cuban countryside.
This photo is of a tobacco farm operation. It is a two year process from the tobacco planting to the famous Cuban cigar. All of the work is done by hand including the planting and harvesting.
In Cuba, most people do not own cars. Bikes, buggies and carts with horses are the typical means of transportation, especially in the smaller towns.
Kent and Barb Nelson pose next to an antique car in Cuba.
Che Guevara, a rebel from the Revolution, is depicted on the side of a building. This type of art is common in Cuba.
