Local student sees Cuba from inside

Martha Obermiller, a 2009 graduate of Glacier High School, returned from seven weeks studying in Cuba addicted to the people and the high-octane coffee.

“The people are beautiful and the coffee was so good,” she said. “I came back here and drank American coffee and said, ‘This tastes like water.’”

Since returning July 20, Obermiller said she has been sorting through everything she saw and learned while studying abroad through the University of Colorado, Boulder, at Casa de las Americas in Havana City.

“It was a seven-week, six-credit course called ‘Race & Gender in Post-Soviet Cuba,’” she said.

The daughter of Dr. Tim and Mary Obermiller of Kalispell, she lived at a student residence while attending classes at Casa de las Americas. She said that institution was one of the first established after the revolution to foster the arts.

At the outset of the course, her professor Elisa Facio had the students write down everything they knew about Cuba. For Obermiller, the list was short.

She recalled seeing a picture of Fidel Castro with his big Cuban cigar when she was in the fifth grade. He was on a list of the world’s 10 worst dictators.

She knew little else other than the country had some sort of a “communist/socialist” government.

When she packed her bags, Obermiller envisioned a Third World country experience. She returned with a new perspective on the island country where she said she lived in nice, clean quarters.

“They classify it as Third World but no one is living in the streets. Everyone is fed and has shoes on their feet. Everyone has running water and electricity and a home, not a hut,” she said. “Ninety-seven percent of the population is educated.”

Obermiller called conditions “livable but not prime.” She added that Cuba also has many well-tended parks with beautiful trees thriving in the tropical climate.

As part of her studies, she visited neighborhood clinics called polyclinco. She described it as a complex neighborhood-based system with one doctor overseeing each clinic which has a social worker and patient access to specialists.

Rumors abound about celebrities such as the late Michael Jackson having medical treatments in Cuba. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was a recent patient.

“It’s really good medical services but they are short on resources,” she said. “Cubans are really resourceful because they can’t just go out and buy things they need.”

As an example, Obermiller said she used and reused one plastic bag the whole time she was there. Instead of throwing away left-over food, it is saved or shared with someone else.

Cubans have kept cars from the 1950s running due to the long-standing economic embargo that Obermiller and Cubans prefer to call a blockade imposed in the early 1960s.

According to Obermiller, people still have what they need, but not much else. She said she now appreciated how much her generation has been given and how much most Americans have compared to Cuba.

“One grandma I met, where my professor lived, said, ‘All my needs are fulfilled but my desires are longer,’” she said. “It’s the extras — going to buy some fish or that extra article of clothing. The grandma said they used to save up for a month to have a steak dinner.”

Under socialism, everyone gets a monthly bottle of rum, a small wage, food and free housing.

Even students get a little spending money, about $2.20 a month, but their education is free and the cost of living is low except for travel overseas and telephone calls.

With breakfast provided, Obermiller spent only about $10 a week for food and transportation around Havana City in the classic car taxis.

“It was very refreshing to be in a society that is not so money-oriented,” she said.

Still, Obermiller did not return thinking that socialism was the answer to the world’s problems. She said every system has its inherent problems.

Her biggest criticism of Cuba included the restriction on travel and speech.

“People can be put in prison and held,” she said.

Propaganda remains widespread in the streets with signs proclaiming “long live the revolution.” She said there are cases of government monitoring people but lately Cuba has released some journalists held as political prisoners.

She said Cuban friends her age represent the group most critical of the government where needs of the whole outweigh the individual. Although they can go as far as they want with their education for free, they don’t see any reason to strive that hard without an economic incentive.

“People need those rewards,” she said.

Obermiller said her Cuban peers want to follow in the footsteps of countries such as China and Vietnam, yet they remain fervently nationalistic in their love of their country.

“I had one friend whose family was moving to the U.S. and he didn’t want to go,” she said. “Cubans love Cuba, even those living in the U.S. It’s a special place.”

Obermiller saw many signs of change in Cuba.

“Now they are opening up so you can own your own business,” she said. “You can own your own property.”

She said Cubans have a choice of 178 small businesses that they can operate. With Spain building new hotels in Cuba, tourism has become a main driver of the economy, bringing a two-currency system: the Cuba peso and the convertible peso.

With the convertible worth 25 times more than the Cuban peso, people have flocked to the tourism jobs where they collect the convertible peso.

“I met a lot of people in tourism who were originally doctors and engineers,” Obermiller said. “Now you have a socialist system with a capitalist system in tourism.”

With Fidel Castro sick and his brother Raúl taking over, she said the government has admitted some problems since Cuba’s economy collapsed when the Soviet Union pulled out. Most people she talked to said Fidel should step down but they still felt his ideas about a more equal society were positive.

From the many friends she made, Obermiller got a sense of uncertainty about the future with their aging leaders and the onslaught of tourists flocking to their beautiful beaches and countryside.

“A lot of people are afraid Cuba will become the next Cancun,” she said. “To me, that would be sad. The people are such beautiful people — I’d hate to see them run over by tourism.”

Obermiller returns as a junior to the University of Colorado in the fall to continue her major in international affairs with a minor in ethnic studies. She said she would love to talk to a Cuban exile to complete her picture of the country and its turbulent history.

“I’m still digesting everything I went through,” she said. “It was a very powerful experience.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com .