Santiago de Cuba to Cueto
64 Miles
I am tired! That was a long day fresh off the couch, but it was beautiful. Finding my way out of the city took me about an hour, but then it was up over the lush Sierra Maestra mountains and down through verdant, rustling sugar cane fields. Mile after mile of them, at once beautiful and also a stark reminder of all the enslaved people brought here to work them.
The sugar cane plantations were notoriously dangerous and the average life expectancy of the slaves working on them was just seven years. It was the United States that bought most of the sugar they produced for their rum and it was also the United States who purchased the slaves that had been “seasoned” here.
When I was at the airport, waiting in line for customs, a group of folks from North Carolina sidled up behind me. They told me that they were on a humanitarian mission and were going to help a group of pastors who were negatively affected by the hurricane. We passed through the checkpoint were an official asked the typical questions about one’s visit. Where are you going? How long do you intend to stay? What is the purpose of your visit?
The official took his time with me, asking many friendly questions about bicycling. When I emerged, my North Carolinian friends made a show of how relieved they were that I made it through. “I thought he was going to put you in jail!”, blanched one bird like woman.
Just then an agent approached the group and told them there was a problem. They clustered together nervously. He didn’t speak English and so with my limited Spanish, I tried to help. Turns out they had told them that they were staying in a church, which isn’t an acceptable address for a place to stay. I told him that they were on a church mission and he immediately understood and waved them on. One of the gentleman proudly told the rest of the group that he was told to pretend not to be able to speak any Spanish, even if you can a little, because then people will just take advantage of you. I began to want to make as much distance between us as possible.
As we made our way up to the metal detectors, one of the men tucked his hands in his belt loops, leaned back and said, “I can’t believe they are screening us. They are the ones who need to be screened, with all the drugs they bring to America.” The others nodded their assent. I was flabbergasted.
Not only was he embarrassingly rude, but he was wrong. There are very little drugs here and the penalties for even possession of marijuana can land you in jail for a years time.
Humanitarian mission my foot. How about starting with treating people as humans.
