Christ Church Bronxville Travels to Cuba--A Student Perspective

By Alekzandra Thoms, Senior, Bronxville High School

Sep. 9, 2015:  After a harrowing four-hour flight, passing above and through lightning storms, enduring airplane ham and cheese sandwiches, and with strangers seated well within my personal space, we were finally in Cuba.

When the humidity hit us as we disembarked right onto the tarmac, we knew it would be like something we'd never experienced before. Havana's international airport was shockingly tiny, and lined out front were all sorts of trucks and cars originally manufactured in the US in the 1950s. Every route we took on our ride from Havana to the small farming town of Itabo was dabbled with color--every vehicle and every reconstructed, deconstructed, and mid-construction house was pulled right from the rainbow.

When our bus, a surprisingly comfortable coach bus with A/C, stopped outside our home for the next week, the Santa Maria Magdalena Church, it was just past midnight. Yet there stood a half-dozen Cubans welcoming us warmly and hauling our bags from the bus without a second thought.

This was my first inkling that Cubans had attitudes that might be able to change mine. Each day these wonderful Cuban women, men, and children greeted us with the most wondrous meals--bread, espresso, mangoes and avocados picked right from the trees on their farm, and chickens and pigs we'd met the day before in their pens. And with each meal came conversations and a wonderful time with these funny, kind, and absolutely hospitable people. 

Each morning, after leaving our splendidly cool rooms for the arduous heat, we headed to the fields for a few hours of good clean fun, hoeing the thousands of weeds from the farm. Hoeing turned out to be tremendously harder than I'd thought it would be--three hours of constantly engaging my core and actually using my upper arm "strength."

The first day, the young Cuban man overlooking my progress insisted that he take over the area I was to hoe, so I gladly went to hauling rocks from the chicken coop instead. These seemingly grueling tasks weren't so bad, even in the height of the beating Cuban sun, because we were together.

The thirteen of us who embarked on this trip from Christ Church managed to keep up conversation despite the yards between us and the sweat we seemed to be swimming in. By mid-week, we were not only plastered in dirt, but we were fitted with baseball gloves and catchers uniforms. It was Béisbol Across Cuba's turn to show them what we were made of. Through dozens of generous donations, Steve, Claudia, and their son Zip were able to bring fifteen full bags of baseball equipment across the border. We played a full game of baseball, which, to be honest, I didn't understand a second of, to the intense enjoyment of the local Cubans. They'd never played a game with full equipment before and they were absolutely ecstatic.

The pure happiness they experienced because of something so many of us seem to have readily at our disposal was eye-opening. Thursday and Friday were fiestas. DJ Bob blared everything from Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus to people I'd never come close to hearing. And every child, teen, and adult from two to sixty-two could dance like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Coming into this experience, I didn't have any idea what to expect. But every day, without fail, I had clean water and the freshest food I've had the pleasure of consuming, surrounded by the most happy and welcoming people.

Christ Church Bronxville Travels to Cuba--An Adult Perspective

By Michael Pollack, Parishioner, Christ Church Bronxville

Sep. 9, 2015:  Christ Church's Episcopal Youth Community (EYC) has returned from its fourth mission trip to Cuba, and, as always, it proved to be a unique learning and cultural exchange experience. This year, we were joined by Claudia, Steve, and Zip Malley of Bronxville, representing their recently formed nonprofit, Béisbol Across Cuba.

EYC helped carry 15 large duffel bags (weighing a total of over 600 pounds) of baseball equipment to the youth in the villages of Itabo and Favorito, in Matanzas Province, east of Havana. After distributing the equipment, which included bats, balls, mitts, bases, clothing, and cleats, a friendly game of baseball was played with a very jovial and energized crowd of supporters from the community looking on.

This year, the EYC contingent was again accompanied by our indispensable friend The Rev. Yamily Bass-Choate, Missioner for Latino and Hispanic Ministry in the Diocese of New York and Vicar of San Andres Episcopal Church in Yonkers, and the delightful McKenzie Burton, Christ Church's new youth minister and outreach coordinator.

Over the years, we have been fortunate to come to know the country and the people and have developed ongoing friendships. We also have noticed positive changes occurring, even in our relatively short acquaintance with the country. This most recent trip, for instance, was the first during which we did not lose electricity in Itabo for an hour or two each day (thanks to the shiny new Canadian-built power plant that was completed adjacent to the not-so-shiny Russian-built power plant). In Old Havana, the streets are being dug up for installation of new water mains. Many buildings are covered in scaffolding and are undergoing renovations, from the National Capitol Building to the Great Theatre of Havana.

We all look forward to continuing to build our relationships with the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Cuba and of Itabo and Favorito. We are discussing the possibility of organizing an outreach trip for adults during the winter, so stay tuned for updates! 

Pictured here:  Christ Church students in Cuba.

Photo courtesy Michael Pollack