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Release date: February 28, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Trip to Cuba dispels myths for GCC participants

"It was just nothing like I was told it was going to be, nothing like I expected,” says Patrice Mason of Whately, a second-year human services major at Greenfield Community College. "It was much better.”

Mason and Associate Professor Abbie Jenks recently spent ten days studying the health and social service delivery system in Cuba as part of a 23-member Witness for Peace delegation. What they found there gave them new insights into the Cuban people and how to treat our most vulnerable citizens.

For Jenks, Coordinator of the Human Service Program, the trip represented a convergence of two interests: "The fact that this delegation was taking a look at health and social services delivery was of great interested to me professionally. But beyond that is my personal interest in peace and social justice issues,” says Jenks. "So as much as we were looking at the specifics about health and social services, we were also looking at some of the effects of the U.S. embargo on the Cuban people.”

Because of the U.S. embargo, for example, the schools don't have enough school supplies. So Mason and Jenks brought pencils, crayons, chalk, paper and notepads donated by students and staff at GCC to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for distribution to Cuban schools.

Everything in Cuba, Jenks found, exists in a politicized context that can be characterized as either pre- or post-revolution, referring to the 1959 revolution when Castro wrested power from Batista. Everything from billboards in Havana's Revolutionary Square to displays in government-run institutions remind citizens of the differences the revolution has made in their daily lives.

"Fidel Castro, for all his violations of human rights,” says Jenks, "has done very positive things. He took over the hospitals and assigned a woman to run them—women are viewed as very capable leaders there—and created massive changes in terms of how patients were treated. They were fed adequately, new facilities were built to eliminate overcrowding. Then they began to introduce all these other ways of enriching people's lives, like music and dance programs.”

At a psychiatric hospital in Havana, they found that culture, in the form of music, dance and art, is very integral to healing "We were greeted by an orchestra made up of all the music therapy staff,” says Jenks. "They perform every week for the patients. We observed a dance class where the residents were doing a kind of ballet to a piano. We were also treated to a performance by the patients. There was a salsa band. Individuals came up and either sang or played guitar. They even got us dancing!”

Cuban health care consists of a system of clinics all over the island, explains Jenks. "The clinics serve as mini hospitals open 24 hours a day where people have access to testing and prescriptions and things like that. But then they have family doctors who are really in the communities. They work in teams,” explains Jenks. "There's a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, a psychiatrist and sometimes other people, and they work together to address both the individual health needs as well as the larger health issues such as environment.

"I was struck by the philosophical approach to health care,” says Jenks. "It's about working with the humanity in people, and not just paying attention to the economics of things. Treating people holistically is something I think our country could do a much better job at.”

Mason and Jenks became friends with a family who owned a store. "They do an awful lot with the very little that they have,” says Mason. "In their bathroom, although they had a shower and a sink and a toilet, none of it had running water. In order to flush the toilet, there was a large rain barrel of water over in the corner and they would fill up the tank. They would also wash pretty much the same way. There was running water in the kitchen. Everything was very tight quarters, the paint was peeling, and all the furnishings were very old, very used. But it was immaculate!

"They were very hospitable people,” continues Mason. "They were happy for you to come in and sit down and have a cup of coffee. I felt very comfortable with them.”

In spite of the fact that "everybody has a place to live, everybody has enough to eat, and everybody has some form of employment,” Jenks saw a country at a crossroads. "There's a new generation coming along that wasn't involved in the revolution. Some of the younger generation are dissatisfied. They're used to having all these things that their parents' generation didn't have, like free education through college and free health care. But they can't get further ahead, so nobody's standard of living is that great. Because they have contact with the outside world, they know what other places have, and so there's some unrest around that. I think they will need to [implement] a hybrid way of doing things that's part socialist and part democratic.”

For Mason, who returned to college after raising a family, the trip was an opportunity to broaden her horizons. "Going back to college, for me, feels like coming into my own. At Greenfield Community College, I've really had the opportunity to open my eyes and see what's out there and I'm just so pleased with that. It's extraordinary; I love every minute of it.”

Mason is producing a documentary on their trip for the college community. "Hopefully, we'll open some eyes and they will feel a lot like we have, that they have been misinformed all their lives about Cuba, and it will pique their interest in putting some type of political pressure on the government to open relations with Cuba. I think Cuba has a lot to offer the United States.”