A Taste of Cuba

The Vedado neighborhood of Havana after a thunderstorm. Poor drainage often left streets flooded.

Olivia Adechi ’16The Vedado neighborhood of Havana after a thunderstorm. Poor drainage often left streets flooded.

By Mark F. Bernstein ’83

Some things are universal: The first day of class is awkward, particularly at a new school, and it pays to break the ice. As Johannes Hallermeier ’16 discovered, this is no less true in Cuba than it is anywhere else.

Hallermeier was sitting with a handful of Princeton students and a dozen Cubans in a class on the history of Latin American thought at the University of Havana last February, as part of a revised and expanded study-abroad program. While they waited for the professor, the students kept to themselves — shuffling papers, playing with pens, staring silently at their wooden desks. As a rule, Hallermeier would learn, Cubans are friendly and outgoing people, but today, probably because of first-day nervousness, everyone avoided eye contact. It did not bode well for an engaging semester.

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One thought on “A Taste of Cuba

  1. Acerca del trabajo que expondra el Profesor Abel Sierra Madero,sobre las UMAP en CUba,quiero decir que esta Accion formo parte del terror comunista sobre las “desviaciones politicas” Y no contra la sexualidad .Solo se utilizo la homosexualidad como descalificacion contra jovenes “peligrosos” por su inconformidad politica mezclandolos con homosexuals.Los homesexuales “revolucionarios” no fueron a la UMAP,siguieron con sus vida.Se han utilizado descalificaciones varias…”Tarruos”…”mercenarios”…terroristas,etc,etc,pura tactica comunista de utilizer tabues populares para eliminar enemigos.Que conste !!!

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