Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 26, 1993 TAG: 9311250222
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MICHAEL CSOLLANY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But students and faculty at Virginia Tech are working to mend fences with one of the last communist holdouts - Cuba.
For almost two years now, architecture students have participated in an exchange program with the Jose Antonio Echeverria Polytechnic Institute in Havana.
Because of an embargo placed on the country after its 1959 revolution, Cuba has been a mystery to most American travelers. A few have visited the country by traveling to it through neutral countries. Now students are seeing the island nation through academic visas for research purposes.
"It's amazing how the whole country seems to be stuck in 1959," said Brad Johnson, who visited in the spring of 1992.
Most of the cars on Havana's streets were being driven at the time of the revolution. Since new American cars could not be imported, the '50s models have just been retooled and are still cruising along with a few newer Eastern European models.
"They've got those '50s cars, and they're repairing them with tin cans," said Deborah Santiago, who visited last December.
The Cubans are making do with less and less, she said.
Not that cars are very useful. Because of the embargo and the termination of aid from the Soviet Union, Cuba is desperately strapped for essentials such as gasoline.
The roads, however, were clean and in good condition, according to Minh Pham, at least compared to her native Vietnam.
This is probably because most Cubans travel around Havana by bicycle these days.
The students from Tech, in fact, were told to take their own to Cuba. Because of the trade embargo, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control would only grant permission to let the students take bicycles if they promised to bring them back.
The students were not allowed to purchase or sell anything of significant value.
"The poverty is very subtle. You don't get the impression they are poor until you talk to people," said Pham.
"Socialism seems to be working for certain people - benefiting from health care and education." She said the people she spoke with still accepted the socialist ideal. And while the Soviet Union's demise halted large amounts of aid for the country, it has only led to a greater sense of self-sufficiency and conservation, Pham said.
"You do get a sense among the people, though, that they want to open up to the world but not abandon their principles," she said.
As "the only Republican to join the group," Johnson believes capitalism is inevitable for Cuba, but he did say some of his feelings about Cuba changed after his visit in the spring of 1992.
Johnson said he had a false perception of what Cubans and socialists were all about. "We always saw it as bad guys and good guys. We expected to be treated rudely - `Yankee capitalist pigs.' But everyone we met was glad we would take the time to go there," the undergraduate said.
Santiago - a native Puerto Rican - said she felt a lot of kinship with the Cubans because of their similar backgrounds. Her fluency in Spanish allowed her to speak to more people than the others because the group was limited to English-speaking Cubans or the efforts of translators.
"The people were very proud, but there was an acknowlegment that they were lacking. They blamed the USSR much more than anything else," she said.
The program between Tech and the Cuban institute began when Joe Scarpasi, a professor of architecture at Tech, met Cuban Mario Coyula at an international conference.
Another group is scheduled to visit the island nation off the tip of Florida from on Dec. 27 through Jan. 11.
It hasn't been an exchange, per se, because most Cubans lack the hard currency to make a trip to the United States. This month, however, Coyula made his first visit to his Virginia Tech colleagues.
Coyula and Scarpasi described a gauntlet of red tape - mostly the American variety - to make the visits to each other's country.
Because of the embargo, the travelers were limited in what they could buy and sell. For Coyula to visit the United States, he had to prove that he would not be a burden on this country but also that he would not get paid for any services or activities.
Coyula said he was impressed by the students who visited Cuba and the ones he encountered during his visit to the United States.
"There have been a wide spectrum of students, from the more sympathetic to the more critical. They are open and eager to learn about the real situation in Cuba."
Coyula said he's always been impressed by what he defines as an American characteristic: "learn and then judge."
Coyula hopes the connections between the United States and Cuba continue to grow.
"We're two worlds that seem very apart but are very close in many ways. Even more than just geographically, we have a lot of cultural and historical connections," he said.
by CNB