Wednesday, August 13, 2014

The Kitchen Journey

Duration: 10 Days

Location: Havana and Cienfuegos

Price: Contact us for a quote

The Cuban Kitchen. This 10-day trip is a cultural and educational journey that focuses on the Cuban family economy through conversations and visits with five families who will open their kitchens to reveal their culinary secrets. This people-to-people exchange program provides participants with a unique opportunity to experience Cuba through the eyes of the families as they prepare traditional Cuban recipes. As trip participants learn to cook a typical Cuban dish, they engage in meaningful interaction, learning about the intricacies of Cuban culture, a family’s daily life, and their challenges, struggles, expectations and dreams.

Package includes:
OFAC License to travel to Cuba
Cuban Visa
Cuban Health Insurance
Round Trip Airfare (Miami – Havana)
10-night hotel stay at the 5-star Hotel Nacional in Havana
Breakfast, lunch and dinner according to program
Personalized concierge assistance (AC study leader and Cuban guide) throughout the program
Fees for guest speakers
Private bus transportation throughout the program
Fees for all scheduled visits and excursions
Cuba Information Package and consulting fees

Final Itineraries and Program Contracts will be sent to those who make a deposit towards their program participation.

Visits and Activities
You will be spending five days with five different families – one full day with each family. At each house, you will learn how to cook one of Cuba’s traditional dishes. You will share lunch with the family, become involved in the process of finding the items needed to prepare dinner, and participate in the preparation of the meal. You will then sit at the table with all members of the family and share dinner. Cuban coffee and more conversation will bring the evening to a close.
Walking tour of Old Havana, led by an architect involved in the process of preservation and renovation of this UNESCO World Heritage Site
Fuster Art Studio and Community
Visits with at least three other artists
Museum of Fine Arts
Farmers Market and Craft Market
Numerous music venues
Visit to the neighborhoods of Regla and Guanabacoa
Ride on ferryboat across the Bay of Havana
Museum of Religions
Rumba at the Callejon de Hamel
Visit to the National Arts School
Overnight trip to Cienfuegos

Guest Speakers:
Gisela Arandia, scholar and community activist, who will discuss issues of race and gender in the context of today’s Cuba.
Jorge Mario Sanchez, economist, who will dissect the Cuban economy and provide insights into the economic future of Cuba.
Tomas Fernandez Robaina, scholar and Santeria priest, who will speak on Afro-Cuban issues.
Miguel Hernandez, plastic surgeon, who will speak on the Cuban health system
Sue Herrod, British songwriter and composer, who has lived in Havana for over 10 years and will speak from the perspective of a foreign national residing in Cuba.

The listed activities and guest speakers are merely samples of the activities that will be included in the final itinerary. Many more activities and speakers will be added. Final program and itinerary will be provided to those who make a deposit towards their participation on the trip.

Packages do not include:
Cuban airport departure tax
Gratuities in Cuba
Personal expenses
Cost of excess luggage on any air carrier

The contents of this program and itinerary are the intellectual property of Jose Pineda and Anthropologie Consulting, LLC, and carry the international trademark of Anthropologie Consulting, LLC.

http://www.acjourneys.com/package/the-kitchen-journey-in-cuba/

Louisiana Cajun Fiddler Visits Cuba

Cuba and Louisiana: Similarities only go so far

by The Town Talk

In the dead of this past winter, Michael Doucet of the two-time Grammy-winning Cajun band BeauSoleil found himself on an island just 94 statute miles from the southernmost point of the Florida Keys.

That island is Cuba, the land of Fidel Castro and Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. But it was things like the Buena Vista Social Club that brought Doucet to the island's shores.

"It was mostly for musical and cultural research. We heard all kinds of music. Even French music and that's what I was really interested in because that's where it is," said Doucet. "If you look at Cuba, all the way on the eastern side there's Santiago, that's where the Creoles came from Haiti after the revolution."

And from there, many Creoles found Florida and Louisiana and not only can you hear it, you can see it, too.

“Not only does the architecture remind you of a little bit of New Orleans and St. Augustine, but I’ve always been looking into the music,” said Doucet, which included music from Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique.

“We’ve been playing folk Cuban music for years and to really get into it and to see how they do it, which is just how we do it,” Doucet said, who took the trip sans BeauSoleil through Festival Tours International. “It’s totally a folk music, the turn of the century music.”

Doucet was staying at a colonial hotel with big shutters that overlooked a square. One morning, Doucet said he grabbed some breakfast and another cup of coffee � “the coffee’s great, I always drink coffee” � and headed back to his room to chill.

“And I heard this incredible music. Man, I thought I had gone to heaven. I was listening to Dennis McGee orchestra hits,” said Doucet. So he opened the shutters and there in the square “was an orchestra right under my window.”

The orchestra had two violins, a viola, a clarinet, a trumpet, a trombone and the requisite percussion.

“They were playing turn of the century Cuban music called Danzon and it was so much like the music of turn of the century music of New Orleans,” said Doucet. “You could see where the similarities are because there’s such a connection.”

Doucet said there’s a Spanish cultural and music connection between Havana and New Orleans that has been around since colonial times.

“It was just amazing just to hear that,” said Doucet, adding that he recorded and videoed the concert on his iPhone “and then lost my iPhone.”

Although there may be rations and such on the island, Doucet said music is all over the place, from high school kids playing, to poets and trios “who’ve been playing together for, like, 40 years,” he said.

“There was music every day, all day and all different kinds of musicians,” he said. “I had a chance to play with a bunch of people and read music with them and perform with them. It was just wonderful.”

Festival Tours International specializes in tours where music is the objective. Doucet went with a group of almost two dozen others who were “hip to music and ideas of culture,” he said, noting his fellow tourists included Hollywood producers, doctors, musicians and regular folks.

“For everybody, it was just to go and experience this country of music,” Doucet said. “Everybody was music lovers and experienced this country before it changes, because it has changed a lot, and I think it will continue to change.”

One thing that hasn’t changed too much since the mid- to late 1950s’ revolution are the automobiles.

“There’d be a whole car, like an Oldsmobile ’58 and then after that there’ll be like some kind of funky wagon hauling about 20 people on it by a mule,” said Doucet. “And then there’ll be like a Russian car, which looks like a Fiat, that’s falling apart and then there’ll be Chinese bus. Then there’ll be another old car.

“So that’s how it goes,” he said. “How they keep it running, I imagine they all have Russian parts by now. But there are some beautiful cars over there � from Cadillacs to Chevys � probably ly the latest ones are probably the ’60s and things like that.”

Doucet said the guide told them before the trip to bring anything they could to leave for the Cuban people.

“So I brought a lot of violin strings, guitar strings, music � people just don’t have that,” said Doucet. “Clothes. I brought a suitcase and basically left my suitcase. Everything just means something to them. They’re very creative.”

The fiddling front man also brought a bunch of baseballs, courtesy of St. Thomas More High School.

“And man, I was the biggest hit. I threw a lot of baseballs to kids, and we’d play catch and everything,” he said. “They love baseball over there.”

Doucet saw similarities between Cuba and his hometown in their attitude toward music.

“The music is so rich. In Louisiana, everybody plays music,” he said. “Well, it’s pretty much the same way there. And they just do it.”

The comparisons, however, only go so far.

“If they want to learn music, education is just given to them no matter how high they go, it’s free. Just like health care,” said Doucet. “But then it’s in kind of in that socialist form. They’re free in a certain way. They’re free to think and do whatever, but not so much they don’t want to let them get on the Internet and stuff like that.

“They don’t want them adjust to the outside world and be accustomed to that,” he said. “But the outside world is there.

“Culturally, that’s a whole different subject, but very strange and different,” Doucet continued. “It’s like a Third World country. It’s beautiful and the people are totally educated and totally nice because there’s a big elephant in the room that keeps them down.

“People watch you. People can’t leave,” he said. “And that’s how it is.”

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Inside Contemporary Cuban Film

November 23-27, 2014

Americas Media Initiative (AMI) is organizing a special delegation in collaboration with OFAC licensed Anthropologie Consulting that will focus on contemporary filmmaking in Cuba from November 23-27, 2014.

AMI has brought new tools to the cultural and policy landscapes that have defined U.S. - Cuba relations for decades. AMI is organizing grouundbreaking Cuban film programs in the U.S. that use the power of film to forge landmark cultural exchange between U.S. and Cuban citizens.

In addition to our innovative work in the U.S, AMI has brought important U.S. films and filmmakers to the Cuban provinces for the first time, collaborating with key cultural institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the PBS documentary series, POV.

This will be the first delegation that AMI has organized to Cuba and will provide insight and access that is rarely available for U.S. visitors interested in contemporary Cuban film and its shifting landscape. Due to the close working relationship AMI has with many young filmmakers, delegates will meet with independent documentary and fiction filmmakers and animators. We will visit the offices of independent film production houses such as 5ta Avenida and Central Productions. Delegates will meet with staff of the Muestra Joven (Young Directors Film Festival). We will engage in conversations with filmmakers in a variety of settings about their push to legalize independent production in the context of the new economic reforms that are taking place in Cuba and how they see their role in the future of Cuban film.

This delegation is geared for filmmakers and film business professionals but is open to everyone. All events will have English interpretation. AMI Director, Alexandra Halkin will be present for the entire visit and will share her insights and analysis.

For further information about the delegation please contact Anthropologie Consulting: jepp23(at)acjourneys.com

Report of a Rutgers Medical Student Program

Cuban Health Care: Rutgers Students Witness a Different Way to Serve Patients

by Rutgers

A group of Rutgers students spent four weeks this summer experiencing the complexities of life in Cuba a country with an underdeveloped economy but highly effective health care system.

They went door to door with a doctor in Havana who checked Cuban residents for signs of dengue fever, and instructed them to eliminate any standing water the breeding ground for mosquitoes that spread the disease.

The students observed the country’s maternal care as they assisted a doctor who delivered medicine to patients who were pregnant and questioned them about their health. They participated in an exercise program for senior citizens and helped distribute condoms and literature to the transgender community in the most popular gay nightclub in Havana.

Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Amaya-Fernandez Students in front of a health clinic they visited in Cuba.

For the 10 mostly public health majors who explored a country that has been economically and diplomatically closed off from the United States for decades, traveling to Cuba gave them a chance to witness a dramatically different way of caring for people through a system of socialized medicine.

“It was a great opportunity to see a free system,’’ said Connie Villanueva, a fifth-year public health major from Burlington. “Money is such a big issue when you deal with your health care. Instead of focusing on the money I think we should focus on health and start from there.’’

The experience was part of a service-learning course to study health and wellness in the isolated Communist country offered for the first time by the Center for Global Education (CGE) at the Centers for Global Advancement and International Affairs (GAIA).

Rutgers is joining a wave of universities developing programs in Cuba since President Obama relaxed academic travel restrictions in 2011. Rutgers University-Camden already has an ongoing relationship with the University of Havana and sent 25 students for a two-week service-learning course the year the restrictions were lifted. Rutgers University-Newark offers law students a weeklong educational visit to Havana to learn about Cuba’s legal system and career prospects.

Elizabeth Amaya-Fernandez a health education specialist with Rutgers Health, Outreach, Prommotion and Education (H.O.P.E.) worked with GAIA to design the six-credit course. She wanted to develop a program for students in Cuba ever since she completed her graduate work in Havana nearly 15 years ago. The relaxing of travel restrictions finally made it possible.

She became interested in Cuba while she was working on a master’s degree in public health at Tulane University and learned its health-care system is considered one of the best in the world. Despite the country’s limited economic development, average life expectancy in Cuba and the United States are virtually identical 78.7 years in the U.S. compared to 78.3 years in Cuba.

The socialized health care system in Cuba is built on a foundation of prevention and education to provide care to all its citizens. Family doctors live in neighborhoods and visit residents in their homes. Urgent care centers and hospitals provide additional levels of care.

Photo: Courtesy of Connie Villanueva
Elizabeth Amaya-Fernandez (center) with the students in front of the National Cathedral in Havana.

“I think we are very ethnocentric and believe that because we are Americans we have all this to teach,’’ Amaya-Fernandez said. “I think it is important for students to understand that we can learn a lot from other countries.’’

But organizing the service-learning trip to Cuba involved several challenges. Rutgers holds an educational general license through the U.S. Department of Treasury, which permits the university to send students and faculty to Cuba for academic travel. But the U.S. embargo that has been in place since 1960 forbids Americans from spending money in Cuba making travel complex.

Students are normally required to arrange and pay for their own airfare for study abroad programs. However, independent travel to Cuba is not permitted from the United States, so the Center for Global Education had to work through an authorized travel provider to organize group flights, as well as to legally make payments to the host institution in Havana, explained Gregory Spear, service-learning coordinator at the center.

The National School of Public Health in Havana hosted the students during their trip. They started each day with morning lectures in Spanish from local faculty members, and spent afternoons in the field with health professionals to see the different aspects of care firsthand.

The students also experienced some of the challenges of a country that suffers from a lack of resources partially the result of the embargo that prevents Cuba from trading with the United States.

Victoria Ramirez, a fifth-year student from Leonia majoring in public service at Rutgers University Newark, said she found basic hygiene amenities like soap, toilet paper, toothbrushes, mouthwash and floss hard to find. And although the country has an aggressive sexual health education program, Ramirez learned through a conversation with a shopkeeper that there was a shortage of condoms in Havana.

But she was also impressed by the personal care in the country, that doctors visited patients' homes and health care services were available to everyone for free.

“A lot of people in the U.S. don’t go to do a doctor until they are sick and that creates a lot of problems,’’ Ramirez said. “The prevention and promotion they have in Cuba is what we need over here. It is hard to do preventative care in the United States when care costs money.’’

The experience made an impression on Ramirez.

“It is important to change our health care system so all people can be healthy,’’ she said, “not just people who have the money to be healthy.’’

Amaya-Fernandez had a similar reaction working in the Cuban health care system as a graduate student. She said she believes in “health care for all’’ as a result of her experience, but that was not necessarily the message Amaya-Fernandez was trying to instill in the students.

She just wanted to challenge and broaden their way of thinking.

“It’s humbling to see how much you think you know and to see there is so much more out there,’’ Amaya-Fernandez said. “Whether they think it is a great system or they think it is failing, I hope this spurs students to want to learn more and see how they can contribute to their communities here.’’

Monday, August 4, 2014

Chicago's Mayflower Begins P2P Tours

People to People: Mayflower's New Cuban Tours

DESTINATION & TOURISM | DAVID COGSWELL | AUGUST 04, 2014

PHOTO: Only a 40-minute plane ride from Miami, Cuba is another world.

Mayflower Tours has introduced a new Cuba program as part of the People to People program that allows Americans to travel to Cuba for educational purposes in spite of the ongoing U.S. trade embargo of Cuba.

Known primarily as a Chicago-based operator of escorted tours within North America, Mayflower has been building its international business in recent years and in 2014 has for the first time has done more international than domestic tour business.

For Mayflower’s fiscal 2014, ending October 31, the company is straddling the domestic-international line. “Mayflower for the first time in its history this year had more international business than domestic business,” said John Stachnik, Mayflower’s president. “In terms of numbers of people it’s still more domestic, but in terms of overall dollars, it’s more on the international side.”

Mayflower’s international business is driven by a long-time loyal clientele that likes traveling with the company and will wait to see where it travels internationally and then go with it.

Mayflower’s program lasts nine days and includes visits to Havana, Cienfuegos and Trinidad. Under the strict rules of People to People tourism enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the trips are tightly regulated so that each day must include a certain number of educational encounters, such as meetings with local people in various occupations, such as students, artists, dancers, restaurant managers and so forth.

Fortunately what qualifies as People to People encounters for the U.S. government restrictions includes a wide range of types of experiences and encounters, and though they may technically be “educational,” none of them are boring.

Mayflower’s price for the nine-day program is $4,199 per person. And given the restricted nature of People to People travel, it’s pretty much all-inclusive.

“It’s such a sad thing to have a six-decade old embargo,” said Stachnik. “We don’t embargo Russia, we do a little bit but not a full-blown thing and that will be off in about three weeks the way things are going there. We don’t embargo China or Myanmar, all these other places, Libya. If you search into the embargo of Cuba it’s for human rights violations. Well, come on, compared to what some of our quote-unquote friends around the world do, it’s just a shame.

“This Cuba program is for first movers,” said Stachnik. “It’s an itinerary that is probably a throwback to the ‘60s and ‘70s, the way touring was done 40 or 45 years ago. It’s organized. There’s not a lot of room for wandering off on your own. If you say, ‘I want to hang around by the pool today,’ People to People touring says, ‘You can’t do that. You came here for a learning experience, you have to learn and document your learning experiences.’ So we’re talking to a different kind of traveler with this.”

Mayflower is going to rely heavily on travel agents to penetrate the market and help consumers understand how this trip differs from what they are used to.

“We’re going after the trade, heavy with the travel agents because they can talk to the uninformed traveler and make them understand that it is a different kind of travel experience,” said Stachnik. “But if they want to see it and be a first mover, let’s face it, if they want to go to a cocktail party and say, ‘I just got back from Cuba and…’ tell about their experiences. That’s the reality of travel. People want to do that.”

Like other operators to Cuba, Mayflower is likely to blow out its capacity in short order.

“We could only find space for seven departures,” said Stachnik. “And the departures are limited to 25 or 30 people because... some of the hotels are only 17 rooms and some of the things we do, such as the paladars, the home restaurants, you can’t turn up with 50 people. You’re running a smaller group, which is great for the people, though it limits us. For the first go-round we have seven departures for February, March, April and May. We can’t promote fall because our license has to be renewed in the summer and you can’t advertise tours you don’t have a license for.”

http://www.travelpulse.com/news/destinations/people-to-people-mayflowers-new-cuban-tours.html

Friday, August 1, 2014

Writer Tom Miller Leads Literary Trip

Join Cuba Educational Travel and American author Tom Miller on a literary tour of Cuba!

Meet the people of Cuba and enjoy the music and culture of the island. Your trip to Cuba will expose you to the island’s literary qualities as they have developed from pre-independence to the life of writers today.

This opportunity, open to all professional researchers with documented experience in the literary world, is also open to others with a genuine interest in the literary arts who could benefit by exposure to their practice in Cuba and, in the process make strong connections with the Cuban People.

This visit allows Americans to understand the Cuban people and experience the country through the eyes of its writers. People-to-People travelers – those with a keen interest in Cuba’s literary world but little personal background in the literary arts – will likewise absorb the island's culture through American and Cuban writers. These Literary Havana trips, now in their fifth year, have proven successful, educational, and insightful.

Books, music, art, architecture and the people of Cuba!

Literary Havana travelers will make new friends and build relationships with everyday Cubans. Additionally we will be exposed to colonial, art deco, and contemporary architecture, experience the country’s lively music and its deep rooted culture. We will discuss Cuban poetry and literature with some of the island’s most articulate writers. Cuba’s warm and welcoming people are waiting to engage with you and learn first-hand about Americans and our values. Literary Havana travelers will make new friends and build relationships with everyday Cubans from many walks of life.

Left: Jose Marti, Cuba's most celebrated literary and political figure.

What is People to People Travel?

In 2012 President Obama reinstated “People to People” educational travel, which allows Americans to travel to Cuba via a Specific License issued by the US Department of the Treasury (OFAC). All programs under this License, issued to Project Por Amor Inc. include a full time schedule of educational exchange activities designed to promote meaningful interactions between Americans and the people of Cuba. “People to People” travel is neither tourist oriented or self-directed, but allows participants to visit a wide scope of organizations, institutions, and community projects that provide a deeper understanding of Cuba, its people and its culture. In short, travel under a “People to People” license is both rewarding and unique. Your People to People travel license will be provided by Cuba Educational Travel.

Your trip details

Your very special trip to Cuba includes full transportation-including air-starting in Miami, lodging at a wonderful boutique hotel in Old Havana, many meals, visits with artists and writers, an English speaking Cuban guide and much more:

*Meet and greet at the Miami International Airport

*Round trip air Mia-Hav -Mia

*Cuban Visa

*Transfers in and out from the airport to hotel

*Medical Insurance in Cuba

*Accommodations for 7 nights Hotel Telegrafo ( Or similar)

*Daily breakfast at the hotel

*Three dinners

*Six lunches ( 16 meals total)

*Five visits to literary and cultural organizations
*Discussions with writers and artists
*Motor coach or van transportation to all events
*Full translation by professional Cuba based guide

*Your own copy of: Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba

*General License paperwork handling

PROGRAM PRICE DOES NOT INCLUDE:

*Passport fees

*Tips (Guide Driver baggage handlers & restaurants)

*Airport Taxes upon departing Havana (CUC 25)

*Single room differential ($450)

*Trip Interruption Insurance

*All other items not listed in “PROGRAM PRICE INCLUDES”

About Tom Miller

Tom Miller has been writing about Latin America and the American Southwest for more than thirty years, bringing us extraordinary stories of ordinary people.

Miller, a veteran of the underground press of the 1960s, has appeared in Smithsonian, The New Yorker, LIFE, The New York Times, Natural History, and many other publications. He has led educational tours through Cuba for the National Geographic Society, Cuba Tours and Travel, and other organizations. His collection of some eighty versions of “La Bamba” led to his Rhino Records release, “The Best of La Bamba.” Miller was born and raised in Washington, D.C., attended college in Ohio, and since 1969 has lived in Arizona 65 miles north of the Mexican border. His books have been published in Europe and Latin America as well as the United States. In recognition of his work the University of Arizona Library has acquired Miller’s archives.

Miller has been affiliated with that school’s Latin American Area Center since 1990, and makes his home in Tucson with his wife Regla Albarrán.

Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba

“Havana knew me by my shoes,” begins Tom Miller’s lively and entertaining account of his sojourn for more than eight months traveling through Cuba, mixing with its literati and black marketers, its cane cutters and cigar rollers. Granted unprecedented access to travel throughout the country, the author presents us with a rare insight into one of the world’s only Communist countries. Its best-known personalities and ordinary citizens talk to him about the U.S. embargo and tell their favorite Fidel jokes as they stand in line for bread at the Socialism or Death Bakery. Miller provides a running commentary on Cuba’s food shortages, exotic sensuality, and baseball addiction as he follows the scents of Graham Greene, José Marti, Ernest Hemingway, and the Mambo Kings. The result of this informed and adventurous journey is a vibrant, rhythmic portrait of a land and people too long shielded from American eyes.

Lonely Planet says this "may be just the best travel book about Cuba ever written"

Cuba Educational Travel

Run by Collin Laverty, a leading expert on Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations, Cuba Educational Travel organizes educational exchange programs and people-to-people travel for U.S. citizens and residents to Cuba. We believe our two countries have much to learn from each other and meaningful exchanges that foster dialogue can be highly beneficial to strengthening the artistic, environmental, medical, scientific, and social science communities in the U.S. and Cuba. Most importantly, increased travel and people-to-people contact will strengthen ties between ordinary Americans and Cubans.

Cuba Educational Travel's mission is to connect the people of the United States and Cuba. This is done through coordinating travel between both countries – in both directions – to facilitate two-way learning; as well as producing studies and publications about issues of mutual concern and organizing events in the United States that deal with issues related to Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations.

People to People License Number: CT-2013-303986-1

Cuba Tours and Travel

Cuba Tours and Travel has over fifteen years of experience offering expert-driven cultural travel to Cuba. Our management and program-design team, working together with a team of superb Cuban travel associates in both Havana and Miami, are uniquely suited to offer you the finest in-depth travel program to the island. We are licensed by the US Treasury Department and are fully insured. Most importantly, we have an abiding love for Cuban art and culture and have strong connections to the cultural institutions on the island.

Cuba Tours and travel is a full-service agency licensed by the U.S. Government

TSP# 2073790-40. CST number 2073790-40

We are located at

320 Pine Avenue, Suite 503.

Long Beach, California. 90802

For more information please write tocustomerservice@cubatoursandtravel.com

or call us at 888 225-6439

For more information on OFAC licensing please visit the following document:

http://www.treasury.gov/resourcecenter/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_tr_app.pd

Cuba US People to People Partnership