The world is a beautiful place and I
love to travel. Unlike some who can afford it, I haven’t been to many places,
but I can’t complain. Within the United States, I’ve driven along most of the
east coast of Florida, from Jacksonville to the keys, and once been to Grand
Rapids, Michigan. Outside the U.S, I’ve visited my homeland, Cuba, and
traveled to Italy twice passing through Positano to the south, Florence to the north,
and everything in between. Like me, many
people aspire to travel and see the world. Just last month, I visited my
homeland once again.
Cuba is an island that has been governed
by communism since 1959. There are about 10 million Cubans in Cuba, and the
number hasn’t changed due to number of people who escape the country in search
of freedom each year. The island isn't just a place of poverty, hunger, and no human rights, it is mostly known for the
famous Cohiba Cuban cigar, the Havana Club rum, amazing beaches, and really good baseball teams. It is a place where time has stood still since the 50’s
with the same classic cars still roaming the streets and buildings that are now
falling apart.
I was born in Havana, Cuba, the capital
of the country. When I was 9 years old, I left the country with my mother and
brother while leaving family members behind. Ever since we left, most of my
family from Cuba has also left in search of a better life and are now spread
around the world. The first time I visited Cuba was in 2003 when I was 13 years
old and last month was my second visit.
My mother, my brother, and I were going
to meet with my two cousins and aunt who were arriving a day earlier, coming
from Rome, Italy. All six of us were going to spend the next 2 weeks in Cuba after
a year kept apart by an ocean. We were also going to see other family members,
old friends, and swim in Varadero’s beach.
Like us, every other Cuban passenger was
taking as much clothes as they could to aid their families and friends in Cuba.
Limited by the amount of weight their baggage could carry, almost everyone was
wearing excessive amounts of clothes. A man was wearing 3 hats of different
colors, others wore two or three jeans, my mother wore a sweater in the middle
of summer and my brother and I both wore hats along with our heaviest clothes,
cameras, and anything else we could take.
Our flight from Miami lasted only 30
minutes while our cousin’s flight lasted 14 hours including connection time in
Madrid, Spain. We spent more time in Jose Marti International Airport in
Havana, Cuba than the time we spent in Miami International Airport and flying
to Cuba altogether. At first people couldn’t find their bags and later the long
lines to be charged for the medicine and food bag each person is allowed to
bring for their families. Each of us had money at hand in case we needed to bribe
airport personnel because they could become difficult. In the end we finally
escaped the worst without problems and met our aunt outside who was waiting for
us with an old friend, who had a car, and she had hired him to drive us during
the time we were going to be in Cuba.
Upon arriving at our old home, everything
seemed small. I could not recognize the street where I grew up. As a child I
remembered the houses and the building where I lived much bigger, and roads much
wider. Now with three long steps I can cross to the other side of the street.
Over the next few days, we slept, along with
my mother’s cousin and my uncle, who was staying over to spend time with my
cousins, in a small apartment on the top floor of a 3 story building; what used
to be our home in Cuba. It was no surprise to me how eight people could live in
such a small home, but the fact is, before I even migrated to the United
States, the six of us did live there along with my grandparents.
Many old friends and family members came
to visit us in the apartment and received the things we had brought them. We didn't bring items for entertainment, or jewelry, or for decorating; we brought
shoes, clothing, medicine, money, etc; things that help people in need. More
than 80 percent of our baggage was used to aid our family and friends.
Although Cuba is a place of poverty and
necessity, more money is spent vacationing in Cuba than other places around the
world. The Cuban government invented a currency for the country, apart from the
real Cuban currency, that really has no value, it’s just paper, but they claim
it’s worth more than a dollar or Euro and the government really uses it to
steal real currency. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans spread around the world
send money to their loved ones each year, the Cuban government exchanges it for
their worthless CUC, and keeps the
real currency. One so called CUC is
worth 1.25 dollars, 0.61 Euros, or 20 Cuban pesos.
Cuban citizens get poorer while the government gets richer and soon real
currency won’t exist in the streets of Cuba.
During our stay we spent the first few
days in Havana, visiting the city and spending time with family members and old
friends. On the fifth day, we were dropped off at the bus terminal by Ardiel, our old friend, and Carlos, my second cousin’s friend who
also owned a car. At the station we saw tourists as well as Cubans who were there
to travel to cities all over Cuba, including where we were going; Varadero,
Cuba.
The trip to Varadero reminded me that
there is also true beauty in Cuba. Before exiting Havana, Cuba, I got a glimpse
at various plazas and its monuments of Cuba’s long lost heroes from before
1959, El Morro (Havana’s lighthouse),
and El Malecon (Havana’s breakwater).
In the country side was able to see the country’s beautiful mountains, trees,
and rivers. We also saw beautiful towns and cities, one being the city of
Matanzas. Each town or city we passed by had its own special identity and one
could remember each by the way they looked, the people, or lifestyle. Even
Varadero was unique.
From the bus terminal in Varadero, we
decided to walk 2 miles with our baggage to the house my aunt had rented for
the week and stop to eat on our way there. That same afternoon after setting up
our belongings, we went to the beach which was just 4 blocks away.
We went to the beach every day, swimming
in the morning, returning to eat at the house, and returning to the beach at
around 3pm, when the intensity of the sun had diminished, to bathe and see the
sunset. On our first day at Varadero, I experienced the most incredible sunset
I had ever seen in my entire life. We spent the nights listening to music and
playing the traditional Cuban dominoes.
The beach was amazing. The sand was
naturally thin and the water crystal clear. It was shallow for a considerable
distance, the bottom was clean from rocks or seaweed far out to sea, there were
little to no waves, sandbars lined up parallel to the shoreline, and no worries
of sharks. We saw little fishes many times and a lot of sea stars.
Unlike Miami, which is all coasts, the
beaches in Cuba are actual beaches. People don’t have to worry about sharks in
Cuba’s beaches because since there are coral barriers, bigger fish don’t bother
swimming inland when they know there is little or no food after the barrier.
They also know they can be trapped and die off when the tide is low. Some
people have stood on some of the island’s coral barriers during a low tide
condition with the water up to their knees.
In the morning of our second day at the
beach, my cousins, my brother, and I did as our mother used to do, and swam out
as far as we could with the help of a pool float when the tide was calm. We
went as far as we could to see if we could find anything interesting along the
way at the bottom of the sea and bring it back to shore. The water was always
crystal clear and Varadero is such an amazing beach that we didn’t see anything
but plain sand, no matter how deep it got. When we became tired, we swam back
to shore. I remember seeing around 12 feet deep at one point.
That same day we tried swimming as far
out as possible, in the afternoon when we returned to the beach we began to
find sea stars. My cousins, my brother, and I, started walking around in the
water looking down to the bottom through the clear water, searching for sea
stars. Every star we found we would bring back to the pool float, which was
half filled with water, and took pictures with them. I had never seen so much
sea stars in one place; we counted almost 50 sea stars that day.
The rest of our time in Varadero was
much the same. We enjoyed the beautiful beach, the domino nights, and ate fish.
The day before we left, we went to the coral barrier northern Cuba. My aunt and
my mother talked to the person who takes tourists to the coral barrier in a
small sailboat. They acted as if we were from Havana and not tourists, so that
the guy would charge us less.
At coral barrier, my cousins, my
brother, and I, swam in 20 feet deep water. There were corals at the bottom, a
variety of fishes of different colors and sizes swimming around us, and even a
2 feet diameter orange cushion sea star. Among the fish we saw, there were blue
tangs, baby billfish, and yellowtail snappers.
We travelled back to Havana in a van. On
our way back, again I saw the beautiful country side, the different cities and
towns, and stopped on Cuba’s highest bridge. El Puente de Bacunayagua or the bridge of Bacunayagua, crosses from
the top of a mountain to the other. Looking to one side, the south, the
landscape is filled with beautiful mountains, a plain filled with Cuban palms,
and a river. Looking to the other side, the north, I could see in between both
mountain ridges, the sea. There was rain coming from a single cloud over a
small portion of the sea. The sight was amazing.
I remember, a few days before we left
Cuba, we went to a famous place in Havana called El Coopelia, where people go to eat ice cream. They served us water
before we ordered, but instead we drank from our bottles. Everyone looked at us
weirdly and I wondered if they knew why we were drinking from the bottles.
Because the tap water in Cuba is
contaminated, during the 2 weeks we spent in Cuba, we boiled water every day
careful not to get sick, and then carried it in a bottle or two. Cubans are
accustomed to drinking the contaminated water, but we who have been living
outside the country are accustomed to cleaner water.
Leaving El Coopelia, we walked through Havana and took taxies back to our
neighborhood, as we had done before since we had arrived in Cuba. We had found
out that while stretching out our hands to signal for a taxi, depending on how
we positioned our fingers, could tell a passing taxi driver to what part of the
city we wanted to go. The taxi driver would then stop if he was willing to take
us there. Almost everyone who is fortunate enough to have a car in Cuba uses it
as a taxi to make a living.
Driving through the city one can imagine
the hardship and see there is no future. Many qualified young people can’t
study what they want; no one is allowed to have internet; keeping everyone
apart from the outside world; there are less than 5 television channels with
made up news, to make the country seem like the safest place in the world; and
streets are filled with highly educated persons with low moral standards.
Despite all the hardships, unlike the United States, everyone knows everyone in
the neighborhood. Neighbors are friendly and always lend a hand, giving each other hope.
We left Cuba the following day. Like
many other family members visiting, we felt helpless knowing that we can’t do
much for our friends and relatives in the island. We left Cuba feeling sad,
thinking that what we did wasn’t enough and that we could have done more to
help our loved ones.
Quote:
“Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve
the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.” Jose Marti
Taking
a closer look at microbursts, there are some features that can be used to
identify them. These features include some of the types of clouds generated by
a thunderstorm as well as the use of a sounding.
Another
indication of possible downbursts is the peculiarly–shaped Mammatus clouds.
Mammatus are basically "blobs" of cooled air that sink under the anvil as a
result of strong evaporational cooling by the interaction with dry air below
the anvil. If flying into a thunderstorm inadvertently, pilots can predict the
possibility of microburst situation through observing Mammatus clouds as an
indication of strong evaporational cooling. However, this is still highly improbable since they form in a very turbulent environment. 
