A Glimpse of Cuba: March, 2004

Despite these hardships, a sense of Cuban spiritual spontaneity and cultural expression abounds from classical music groups to Cuban ballet to religious and popular choirs of astounding ability and quality.  Our hosts in the churches and in the institutions of education, health and the arts throughout the island received us with warmth and generosity.  The Cuban people are quick to make the distinction between US citizens as brothers and sisters and the continued problems that separate our two governments.  The difficulty of conducting legal people-to-people exchanges, drastically limited by expanding US travel bans and made possible only through a US treasury department license, makes a two-week visit in Cuba exhilarating as well as sobering.