Signs of Change in Cuba, by Rob Stuart
Days before President Obama’s visit to Havana I saw a yellow Cuban taxi with an NBC sticker on its windshield. I knew things were changing in Cuba, and that logo was a sign of it. I was in Havana with Barbara and Dennis D’Andrea of Wainscott the week that included Obama’s visit. We had not planned to be there because of the president, it just happened that way.
Presbyterian churches on the East End are part of a partnership with the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Cuba in the town of Guines, southeast of Havana. A number of us travel there each March, and recently in alternate years youth from the East Hampton Presbyterian Church have gone to Guines in the summer.
Our trip this year included 12 men and women. Most have been to Cuba before, but one, Joe Haines of Sagaponack, was going for the first time. Joe brought not only his engaging personality but also his music to the Guines church, where he immediately joined Pastor Abel Mirabel, his wife, Sara, and their sons in their gospel rock band. Another in our group, the Rev. Bill Hoffmann, pastor of the Montauk Community Church, joined the rock group on drums in jam sessions before and after a Saturday night concert at the church. Then, for a fiesta with a guest Cuban band, Joe stepped in to play bass.
The rest of us joined in those festivities — Barbara and Dennis, Bill Hoffmann’s daughter Rachel from Washington, D.C., Patricia Wadzinski and Karen McCaffrey of East Hampton, Mayela Vargas, Iris Mitchell, and Susan Raymond of Montauk, and Maria Studer from the Presbyterian church in Levittown.
Sunday morning worship in a Cuban church is not exactly in our customary polite style. With classes by age groups, a break for refreshments, then worship, the experience lasts more than two hours. There is much singing in strong voice, the gospel rock band, prayers, and preaching. Bill was the guest preacher. Each of us also extended greetings from our respective churches, including Amagansett, where I am pastor emeritus.
Dennis D’Andrea and Joe Haines are Masons, and as part of our visit each year the Masonic lodge in Guines invites Dennis, and this year Joe, too, to a meeting and dinner. The Masons are strong in Guines, as elsewhere in Cuba.
When we return home, we are often asked, “What do you do in Cuba?” and “What changes do you see?”
What we do is visit with the people. Some of that is planned, as in visits to the homes of church members with Pastor Abel. Other conversations are as they happen among friends — at the church, on the street, in their homes. In one poignant visit this time, we went to see Miguel, a man dying of cancer whose wife suffers from dementia. Knowing of our visit, Miguel rallied and in characteristic manner spoke effusively, welcoming us to their home. In his life he was never bashful or retiring. On this visit I recalled to him and the group the time from our 2008 visit when Miguel, seeing us on the street, cried out with exuberance, arms in the air, “Obama, Obama, Obama!”
The subject of President Obama’s visit came up several times. Comments from Cubans were uniformly appreciative. One example: We visited the home of Francisco Llano. He is 90, a retired lawyer, and he speaks English. “What do you think of Obama?” Barbara asked. He was thoughtful before he replied, “I have great admiration for him.”
We also visited Ophelia Baez and her husband, Hugo, in their home, an older wood-frame attached house with Hugo’s barbershop in the front room. As a young revolutionary Hugo fought at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. For many years Ophelia was music director at the Guines church. She spoke with feeling about Obama’s visit and the improvement in relations between the two countries. She sang a few bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and a few bars of the Cuban national anthem. And when she spoke of the Guines church as “my church,” Hugo gently added with a smile, “Our church.”
It’s difficult for many people here to understand how some Cuban men and women can be revolutionaries in spirit, given their history, and at the same time Christians. We forget or perhaps do not fully realize that our own country was born in revolution.
It’s also helpful to know that since 1994 the Cuban government officially is secular, not atheist. Pope John Paul II visited Cuba, as did, most recently, Pope Francis, who helped facilitate the opening of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S. in December 2014. Churches in Cuban towns and in the cities are important centers of social cohesion, which in recent decades the Cuban government has recognized and supported. That is not to say all Cuban pastors and priests, or congregants, think alike when it comes to their government — no more than with opinions held by us of our government. It’s easy, and false, to generalize.
To speak, then, of change. The obvious major change is the opening of diplomatic relations. It was a thrill to see “Embassy of the United States of America” emblazoned on the embassy building. There are ripple effects. Among people we know, there is a guarded openness to expressing their opinions more directly. The Cuban government is still repressive, so these conversations are private within people’s homes or at the church. But I find a subtle shift toward openness, which I attribute to improvement in our political relations.
There are more obvious changes. Since a year ago, and much more so now, we see Cubans with phone devices. These are of Cuban issue and not tied to the Internet, still out of reach because of the government, with exceptions for medical personnel and the military. The government has set up WiFi hot spots in various places in the country, one in the central plaza in Guines. We saw young men and women gathered in clusters as they spoke on their phones at the plaza.
What’s more, the Cuban currency will be changing to a 1:1 parity with the dollar and the euro. We heard that an American cruise ship would soon be coming to Havana. And we saw many more tourists than in previous visits, including Americans. Direct mail service between the two countries is another imminent change.
Barbara, Dennis, and I stayed in Old Havana for a week, the others in our group returning on March 15. We stayed in a convent hostel run by sisters of the Order of St. Bridget just around a corner and one block from Plaza San Francisco. It was there that President Obama and members of his entourage were parked before their walking tour to Havana Cathedral. We did not try to see the president since the streets were blocked.
On Monday the three of us took a long walk, and on the way back we saw a crowd of people outside the National Theater. The Capitol building is nearby. Security personnel and Cuban police were patrolling the street, suggesting that Obama might be passing by. We waited an hour and left. I don’t know if the motorcade did go that way, but we sensed tremendous excitement in the air. One Cuban man on a tall bicycle rode by several times with an American flag and a Cuban flag on his handlebars. Barbara, Dennis, and I, with our Cuban friend Yoimel Gonzales, had been to the National Theater that Saturday to see the ballet. Obama spoke at the theater on Tuesday.
We visited an artist friend, Francisco Nunez, in his Havana apartment. He said of Obama’s visit, “The people are stirred up by it. It is the most important event in Cuba since the revolution.”
The significance of Obama’s visit obviously is political. But in rising above the shrill, sniping voices, the president achieves stature from a historical perspective. As a student of American and Latin American history, I appreciate that and value my association with it in my visits with the Cuban people.
On Palm Sunday, we worshipped at the First Presbyterian Reformed Church in Havana, where the Rev. Hector Mendez has been pastor for more than 40 years. The church has an extensive social system of services for the people of the neighborhood, which is downtown, adjacent to Chinatown. The church was filled, as it always has been when I’ve been there, at least 200 in attendance. Prayers were expressed in the morning bulletin, as well as orally, for the visit of President Obama.
Reverend Mendez also welcomed foreign visitors — in addition to us several retired Presbyterian pastors traveling together and visitors from Austria. We Presbyterians were all called up front, where we extended greetings and where by Hector’s unexpected invitation Barbara led everyone in prayer. She did very well, too. I speak Spanish, though not fluently. It is another dimension of the richness of the experience for me to speak in their language.
Barbara has been going to Cuba for 22 years. I have been visiting since 2005. The ties that draw us together are those of amistad, friendship, of long standing, like family. We are excited to see changes. At the same time, as with many Cubans, we are wary, not wanting to see such an infusion of American capital, trade, and business to the point that it unintentionally wrecks the economy or changes it such that it would no longer be Cuba.
President Obama said it is not our intention to direct Cuban affairs, and I hope that will be true. There are remaining issues, which Cuban Americans are quick to point out. It is to be hoped these issues will be worked through with good will. In the meantime, the good will and pleasure we enjoy with our friends is strong.
The Rev. Rob Stuart, a "Guestwords" contributor for many years, lives in Springs.