The Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University in Havana,Cuba

Washington State University's Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, in Havana, Cuba

The Cougar flag hangs proudly from a beachside cabana in Varadero, Cuba.

"C'est Cuba"

Kaitlin Gillespie,
Reporting from Havana

A dark-skinned girl in a mustard yellow skirt stands before a crowd of about 50 Cubans and American journalism students. She holds the violin to her chin, and begins to play in a competition that may mean a better future for a 15-year-old.

The notes that pour out of her violin and soul are beautiful. Someone more knowledgeable in music than I am tells me later that her interpretation of the Italian piece is advanced for her age. From my seat, the mahogany of her violin gleams in the low light of the ballroom.

"You should have been there."

Matt Benoit
Reporting from Havana

It’s a cliché, really—normally uttered when a person’s story-telling skills aren’t up to snuff, or at the least, when he or she is lazy about it.

Sometimes though, “you should have been there” is a necessary phrase, for when you want so badly for people to not just understand what you experienced, but to know it for themselves.

In this particular situation, I think, the latter applies.

It is hard, in so few words and pictures, to convey the essence of a place as overwhelmingly exotic and beautiful, so strikingly anachronistic, as the island of Cuba.

As a writer and photographer, however, that is my task: to not just re-live the trip, but to attempt to take you there with me. To a place where vintage Bel-Airs roam the streets, where the Internet is virtually non-existent, and where you can drink juice box-sized cartons of rum while walking Havana’s pot-holed sidewalks. 

 

So if just for a couple of moments, come with me. 

Taste the bitters in my mojito, smell the sweet tobacco of a freshly-rolled cigar, and feel the cooling breeze as you walk along the Malecón at night.

I’ll wield my words and flash my photos, but you must keep in mind that—no matter what you see here—the bottom line is simple:

You should have been there.

Military Marching

Stevee Chapman

Reporting From Havana

At first they sounded faintly in the distance, but as the beats steadily grew louder, it became clear that something was approaching from just down the road. The unmistakable sound of a marching band filled the air, but the melodies were not the cheerful ones I was familiar with from the parades in my hometown growing up. This music was slower, more somber, and from my perspective a little intimidating.

Claudia, Rachael and I had been on location in a small park, just outside the United States Interest Section in Havana, since before the sun rose that morning. We were working on a story that had to do with hopeful Cubans looking to be granted permission to either visit or permanently relocate to the United States.

The park was crowded as hundreds of hopeful Cubans were filtered through the interview process while their friends and family, who came to support them, waited to hear the news. We were sitting in the park under the hot late morning sun, waiting to hear if a family we’d interviewed earlier would be approved to permanently move to New York, when we first heard the drum beats.

The Paladar- A Growing Opportunity for Cuba's Entrepreneurs

Madison Horner

Reporting from Havana, Cuba

According to an old fable, Cuba’s first privately owned restaurant was opened by a woman in her home and named “El Paladar”. For years, paladar owners made profit, under their own kitchen tables, serving tourists in an economy where the average wage is equivalent to $19 per month. As Cuban President Raul Castro makes economic reforms to a socialist system that is crumbling, the paladar is one of the many types of businesses that have become privatized.

Hector Higuera Martinez, owner of the popular French eatery Le Channonsier, has been in the business for more than 20 years.  He says the reforms make it easier to run his restaurant, which is located in a renovated 19^th century Havana mansion. The private sector in Cuba still has its shortcomings.  For example, all of the markets in the city are still state run. A lack of competition and an agricultural system threatened by the black market limit the variety and availability of many food products. Higuera changes his menu every night in order to serve the French-Cuban cuisine that is popular among tourists. Higuera says he relies on friends and customers to bring him hard to find ingredients—especially spices.  Additionally, inspectors visit the paladares regularly to ensure products such as meat and produce are purchased legally. Higuera and other paladar owners must keep meticulous records in order to stay in business.

There are many paladares including Le Channsonier that have proven successful, however the restaurants are very reliant on the tourist industry.  The price of a meal is approximately $25; much too expensive for the average Cuban who earns $19 per month. Since the paladar was legalized last year, many doctors, teachers and other professionals have quit their jobs to cash in on the opportunity.  The tourist market for private restaurants is not large enough to sustain such growth. Thomas Palaia, an economics expert at the U.S. Interests section said he expects more political reforms in the future will help to sustain growth in this new private sector and stimulate the economy overall. 

The Arts of Cuba Video

Reporting from Havana, Heather Flynn 

The arts of Cuba

Strands in the Wind

Christine Ruston, Havana
May 14, 2013

HAVANA- Dinner at the docks near Hemingway’s museum satisfied my need for cuisine familiar to my American stomach: Pizza. No meat, no diced vegetables, just dough and cheese and a thin slathering of marinara. Contented and relaxed bumping away in the backseat of a taxi with a speedometer perpetually reading nine kilometers per hour, we pulled next to another car with a family and a three or four year old girl waving in the back. As the wind from the Malécon coiled her light-brown hair around her face like a cobra, her smile forced the corners of my own mouth to turn up in return.

What's the point of education?

Claudia Ramos
Reporting from Havana

Making my way back from dinner in the streets of Havana, I ran into four children between ten and eleven years of age.  These children ran freely through the streets, barefooted and shirtless. They seemed to be lost in their own world, a world full of happiness and free of social problems.

Happiness; that is the standard that defines the Cuban people. Who despite any obstacle, any limitation continue to smile and embrace their difficulties.

FOREIGN JOURNALISTS LIMITED IN CUBA

FOREIGN JOURNALISTS LIMITED IN CUBA

By: Alicia Taisey

Edward R. Murrow College of Communication

HAVANA, CUBA _­When a foreign journalist receives an assignment in Cuba, his task can seem limited by the Cuban government, whose local reporters cannot stray from regulations imposed by the state.

Although foreign reporters, with audiences outside Cuba, do not have to adhere as tightly to regulations as their local counterparts, they still feel the weight of the state bearing down.

A Defector's Reflections

Adam Lewis

HAVANA -- Kendrys Morales and Enrique Diaz Martinez used to be teammates. It's the only connection remaining between the Cubans, formerly of Havana's Los Industriales, nine years after each made a decision that took their lives in different directions.

Night Moves

Matt Benoit
Reporting from Havana

 

Havana's El Capitolio is seen amid the city at night.

Havana, Cuba is not a city most people would compare to Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Yet during my time here, I find it is not a stretch to do so. After all, not only can you wander the streets with open containers of alcohol, but people will also routinely offer you prostitutes and/or drugs.

It is a lively and potentially dangerous nightlife, one that the majority of our group decides to investigate on our first full night in Havana by piling into taxis and visiting a local nightclub.

Initially, I feel this is “not such a good idea,” by which I more specifically mean “an idea that might ultimately result in being kidnapped, blindfolded, and exchanged for black market petroleum products.”

After several drinks at the lobby bar to improve my decision-making abilities, however, it seems a much more sensible idea.

A foreigner on familiar land

Kaitlin Gillespie,
Reporting from Havana

I’ve never felt more like a stranger than when I was a foreigner in my own country.

As I stepped through the gates of the airport, my ears and eyes tingled with the familiar sound of a foreign language. Announcers shouted instructions over the intercom, first in Spanish, then in English. TSA signs were emblazoned with bold Spanish. It was as though I’d already stepped into Latin America, but I hadn’t. I was still on United States soil, in an airport where my sleep-deprived brain saw it more like Guantanamo Bay by the time our seven-hour delay in Miami was over.

No Phone? No Problem.

“We’re finally on the plane. Hope to take off soon. This will be our last communication until we return to Miami in 10 days. Happy Mother’s Day. We love you all.”

I sent this text to my wife Tori's parents and my family before we left the Miami International Airport for Havana before powering down my phone for our flight. When we landed about an hour later, my iPhone had been reduced to a camera, note-pad, and voice recorder. Not too shabby, but far from the icon of connectivity it is back in the states.

Without cell-service, the "Maps" app on our
iPhones was useless. so we took pictures like
this one from guide-book in case we got lost.

Viva La Digital Revolucion

Thomas Pankau
Backpack Journalism—Cuba
May 25, 2013
                                                Viva La Digital Revolución

Cuba is a land of revolution.  From the country’s 19^th century wars for independence from Spain to the communist takeover in the late 1950s and the support of guerilla movements in Latin American throughout the Cold War, revolution has been and continues to be a concept familiar to all Cubans.  It pervades the many forms of government propaganda while the Cuban people publicly show their adoration for revolutionaries like Jose Marti and Che Guevara.  “Revolution” has become a source of collective pride for Cubans, as an integral part of their country’s history.  But there’s a certain revolution the Cuban government won’t embrace—the digital revolution. 

The rise of a new revolution

Claudia Ramos

Reporting from Havana

It is approximately 5 in the afternoon in Cuba, and it seems as though it is only past midday. It has been a long day of walking and touring old Havana, but I am fascinated! Walking through the crumpling buildings of the ancient city, I encounter all types of scenarios. From an old woman sitting on the edge of the sidewalk asking for some coins to a father picking up his daughter from school. People selling “churros” (sugar coated fried bread) and “empanadas” (a typical treat in Cuba) and a child carrying around a wheelbarrow with some rocks.