Wednesday January 8, was our last full day in Cuba. We began the day with breakfast at the Casa and then had some time to relax before we headed to CIPS for our final lecture of the week. This was a later start than usual but gave me time to start organising my stuff to leave.

This lecture was on relations between the US and Cuba and was given by Hassan Pérez Casabona from the Center for Hemispheric Studies at the University of Havana. The main focus of the lecture was on how different presidents have taken different angles and why we are the current environment. He explained that the story of the United States and Cuba goes back to the time of Thomas Jefferson and that the two countries have been closely linked, even when they dislike each other. The main focus of the lecture was on more recent relations. We discussed how Obama made effort to normalise relations and then Trump’s first term rolled back many of Obama’s Policies. Casabona also talked about the future, and that he expects Trump will continue to implement policies hostile to Cuba, especially with Marco Rubio, a Cuban American as Secretary of State. He did say that he expected relations to improve in the next 10-15 years, but that they would get worse for a time before improving. This lecture showed how Cuba is nervous for the future because of the historical trends in relations.

For lunch, we went to a place called Coco Blue, which was run by an American who moved to Cuba several years ago and a Cuban artist who makes sculptures by welding and inflating metal structures. I would talk about this more, but I’m running short on space to talk about the day.

Polyclinics serve as primary healthcare in Cuba, and are situated within communities. Each polyclinic serves around 19 thousand people and 26 consultorios (family doctors). Consultorios are the first point of care and help to ensure everyone is seen regularly based on their risk categories (apparently heathly, at risk, sick, and disability). This was a smaller polyclinic but it still offered a number of services including Ultrasounds, X-rays, Vaccination, ECG, ER, and rehab (physical therapy). This polyclinic usually sees around 16 patients a day and most of these patients are coming for high blood pressure or asthma. If patients are not able to be treated at the polyclinic they would be sent to a hospital for further care. Surgeries are scheduled based on urgency, with less urgent surgeries having a longer wait time. Healthcare in Cuba is also government funded, with the only out of pocket cost being prescriptions that usually cost under 20 pesos or around 10 cents USD. While Cuba has an effective healthcare system they still deal with significant shortages, largely caused by the US trade embargo.

During the Lecture at the Polyclinic we heard sirens outside and the group headed onto the balcony to see. The sirens ended up being a parade to commemorate Castros revolution, that travels from Santiago de Cuba to Havana between January 1st and 8th. We did not know this would be passing by so this was a surprise to see and was one of the only times I heard a siren or saw an emergency vehicle.

After visiting the polyclinic, we all headed back to old Havana to visit the San Jose Artisan Market. We had visited earlier in the week, but several members of the group were interested in going back. The market has two floors, the first was mostly booths with people selling souvenirs while the second floor had different artists selling their work. When we were there earlier in the week, Alyssa and I spent most of the time upstairs, so we looked around downstairs and got some of the other souvenirs. The market was massive but many of the booths had similar offering so we looked around to find the best offers before trying to barter for a cheaper price.

At the end of the day we went to Cafe Laurent for the farewell dinner. This was another rooftop restaurant and had great view over that part of Havana. I continued my streak of getting seafood and had another meal of emperor fish. We also had a couple smaller offerings for appetizers which were similar to those we had had earlier in the week. At the end of the farewell dinner, the API director gave a speech thanking us for coming to Cuba and we took a group photo. I ended up heading to bed earlier than usual after packing up to head home. I had enjoyed my time in Cuba and would have liked to stay there longer, I didn’t know what to expect coming in but would the experience amazing, especially the food.