This was our first official day in Cuba. We woke up at around 7:00, tired but still excited to start the day. For breakfast there was a quick meal of ham and cheese sandwiches, guava juice, and fish sticks. The bus came to pick us up at around 8:30. We were headed to el Nicho, a National Park outside the city of Cienfuegos. We enjoyed an hour and a half drive through the countryside. Something about the rolling hills and sparse vegetation with a mountain range in the background, made it feel like we were in the middle of a savannah. Big cows, chickens, and goats roamed and grazed through the pastures. I was surprised by the lack of fowl, especially ducks near the little streams and bushes. We arrived at around 10:30 at a little arch in front of the park. Javier, our guide took us through the forest. We came upon the first pool of water within the first five minutes. The water was as a clear and blue as a summer sky. Still Javier lead us past and told us we still needed to continue forward. We were all disappointed but we trusted that we would soon get to dive into the cool water. We passed by a couple more including an enormous waterfall. When we reached the top of the mountain we were welcomed by a stunning view of the canyon below. We then shuffled back down towards the entrance. I was still confused when we kept walking towards the bus. Fortunately, Javier led us past the highway and down a little hill. At the bottom, was a little pool, still and calm and untouched. I marveled at the refreshing water flowing around my body. We dove beneath the waves and sat underneath the waterfalls. The experience was both calming and energizing, preparing us for the long week ahead. We swam and sat on the hot clay before heading back up for lunch. WE enjoyed a meal of fresh chicken and pork along with rice and beans. We also enjoyed our first sample of Guantanamera. There were many more to come. -Aidan
After El Nicho, we took a ~45 minute bus ride back towards home before stopping by El Teatro del Elementos to learn a little about Cuban theater. It is a traveling theater company that is this year celebrating its 25 year anniversary. The majority of their plays are self-written and discuss the lives of Cubans in rural areas. The head of the theater company told us the group’s story and then showed us their own outdoor amphitheater on their property. We then watched some of the actors and actresses perform some short interpretive pieces with some accompaniment by the tres, a guitar with three pairs of strings (hence the name tres), and later some of us (Jesse, Lily and I) did our own performances about what it was like to be in Cuba. Their performances were intense and a little weird to us at first, but their interpretations of non-concrete emotions and feelings were very entertaining. Overall it was a very cool look into what performing arts are like in Cuba (hopefully someone else mentions the Tomas Terry theater). After our time at the theater ended, we headed back home and did a WLS session about defining our personality styles and our defining characteristics. For dinner our host mother, Heazel, cooked us some very good sea bream (I think) and then flan for dessert. After some card playing our host parents took us (Jesse, Bobby, David, and I) out for a walk in the town. It was Saturday night, so a ton of people were out, giving us a good feel of what the city was like. We walked all the way down the main avenue towards La Punta. Along the way we had some good conversation (all in Spanish!) with Juan, our host father, and Heazel about the history the city, the architecture styles, his life growing up, private vs. public businesses, US politics and more. We took the city bus back towards the center of town and just played some cards until we headed to bed. -Gabe
