Getting to know Cuba

Mickey Foley recounts his experience in Cuba with WFPSC through a series of chronicles, beginning with his departure from his home in Minnesota and continuing through each of his encounters, impressions, and reflections day by day in Cuba.

Here we share the first five days of this journey from Minneapolis to Havana in December 2024.

Visit to the Revolution Square

Cuba: Day 0

By Mickey Foley

"I stopped at Cub (Foods) on my way to the airport to refill my Lexapro, a medication for anxiety and depression that is au courant these days. But the pharmacist said I wasn’t due for a refill. Despite their message to the contrary, the clinic hadn’t updated my prescription. I’d emailed them the previous Friday, Black Friday. My doctor had been out, but the nurse covering for him assured me the Rx would be refilled. I should’ve checked with the pharmacy in the intervening days, but I hadn’t thought it necessary.

Now I was pissed off at the US healthcare system, but I got back in my car and resumed driving to the airport."

Read the first entry complete here

Visit to El Rincón de los Milagros

Cuba: Day 1

By Mickey Foley

"This was when the fun really began, because it was a real pain trying to figure out where the check-in for Cuba flights was. I went up and down the escalators and stairs multiple times before I found it. The United Airlines’ Cuba counter had 2 people to explain how to apply for the visa on your phone. (I don’t know what they tell people who don’t have smartphones.) I was already stressed out, so typing the long visa number on my phone brought me to the verge of tears. The sugar in the mini donuts surely fueled my anxiety.

Eventually, I completed the form and bought my visa for $85. Thankfully, on the flight I caught a break."

Read the first entry complete here

Entry to the Martin Luther King Center

Cuba: Day 2

By Mickey Foley

"In the morning we met with Joél Suárez, the son of the founders of the Centro Martin Luther King, Jr. (CMLK). His parents were pastors at Ebenezer Baptist, the adjoining church that founded the CMLK. He looked like an aging radical with his salt-and-pepper beard. We met in the classroom-lookin’ room on the 2^nd floor of the building across the courtyard from the lodging and cafeteria building at CMLK."

Read the first entry complete here

Meeting with Joel Suárez

Cuba: Day 3

By Mickey Foley

"That morning we visited El Rincón de los Milagros (“The Corner of Miracles”) in a less residential, more wooded district of Havana. It was like the homes in the Oaxaca village I visited in 2016: a courtyard surrounded by a concrete wall with a mostly dirt floor and trees.

It’s a center for African-descended people, including Haitians, Canadians, French and US folks. There are about 1 million Cubans of Haitian descent (out of 11 million people in Cuba). The indigenous name for Haiti is Ayiti, which means “the land of high hills” or “mountains” in the Arawak language. Native Haitians settled eastern Cuba, offered the first resistance to Spanish colonization and warned the native Cubans about the Spaniards’ intentions: gold and other natural resources."

Read the first entry complete here

Visit to El Rincón de los Milagros

Cuba: Day 4

By Mickey Foley

"In the morning we spoke with Ángel Piedra, a media producer, about Cuba’s support for Angolan independence. The discussion began with a viewing of the documentary he made as his art school thesis. It was about the many letters Cuban soldiers sent home while serving in Angola. Piedra served in the military mission in Angola in 1988. He was there for a year.

The men sent to take his place in Angola got bombed their first night there and asked to go back to Cuba the next day. They’d been told the fighting was over. In accordance with the mission’s voluntary status, they were sent back home. Piedra’s group stayed until the next group arrived. They were all volunteers, and Piedra only went to a military school afterward."

Read the first entry complete here

Meeting with Ángel Piedra