I need to say this, here, in hopes of sparing all future travelers to Cuba. Cuban culture has NOTHING to do with cigars. Or very little.

The Cubans are a people who endured a U.S. supported, overtly corrupt Batista Regime until 1959 when Fidel and Raul Castro and Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos and endless other students and working class members successfully led a socialist revolution. The Cubans are now a people committed to maintaining the ideals of that original revolution; committed to ensuring that all citizens receive education, healthcare, and social security efficiently and free of cost regardless of race, religion, etc.

Cuba is a "third world" country and has endured a severe economic depression since 1989, brought on by the fall of the USSR; it is not a paradise. Yet despite losing the source for 98% of its fuel and 75% of its food a decade ago, the Cuban government has maintained its commitment to social programming, has continued to increase funding for education, healthcare, and social security as promised. And the Cuban economy has grown steadily, though slowly, since 1995, as the government focuses on developing new industries, and as the government cuts and almost eliminates military spending.

Cuba is impoverished, is "non-western," is COMMUNIST, and is 150 times poorer than the United States. Yet Cuba has a higher literacy rate than the United States, a higher life expectancy rate for males and females than the United States. When disaster strikes around the world the U.S. sends money, sometimes, and the U.S. sends guns or helicopters, sometimes (provided the foreign government is capitalist, etc). Cuba is renowned for exporting doctors, a resource Cuba is abundantly wealthy in, and other human capital, a far more effective, more sincere form of humanitarian aid than the U.S. most often provides. And there is much more that can be said, concretely, about Cuba.

But to understand culture requires a level of subjectivity, and here is where mine begins. I will not pretend to understand Cuba; I do not. But as one who was socialized in the United States, this is what I observed, and I am stereotyping of course: the Cubans emphasize family and community, as many other Latin American countries do. Their sense of society is far stronger than their sense of self. Humor is important to Cuban culture, and music is essential. Cubans are baseball fans in the strongest sense of the word; I say I am from Minnesota and they ask if I like Tony Oliva.

Cubans are welcoming, are warm, have no disdain for U.S. Citizens, respect them as hard working. Yet they are nationalists; Cubans love to talk of their revolution and of their heroes. An advisor to the National Assembly of the People's Power, Cuba's governing body, responded to a question on Castro posed by my group with the following: "Only overseas is he called Castro. In Cuba we say ŒFidel' because he is ours, and he is one of us."

Cuban food and art and dance, even Cuban Spanish, are unique to the island. And much more can be said, subjectively, but I am attempting to be concise.

Cubans do make cigars; they do smoke cigars, and they do sell cigars. There is a black market, cigars are stolen from the factories, and in Old Havana and other tourist sections, foreigners are approached by Cubans selling these illegal cigars, as John Klawiter claims in his recent Mess article. Klawiter's experience may have felt as dramatic as his description, but his interpretation is in error. His fears of Cuban jail, and even more of death, of the sellers returning with guns and knives, are irrational and even ridiculous. In Cuba murder and rape and robbery are nearly non-existent; Cubans are not faced with crime as we in the U.S. are. Furthermore, it is only since the depression of the nineties that begging in the tourist sectors has begun to become an issue.

It is important not to let one's preconceived expectations cloud the reality of one's experience. And it is even more important not to contribute to the bias of the "first world" as is so easily done. Cuban culture has little to do with cigars, little to do with rum, and yet in the U.S. that is almost all one knows. Definitely, Cigars and their illegal purchase are NOT "one of the more unique parts of the Cuban culture" as Klawiter claims.

From the United States that is hard to understand. I ventured to Cuba and found a strong nation of strong, innovative, educated people; 95% of whom were adamantly committed to their socialist revolution. I did not find a paradise, but I am choosing, here, not to dwell on the short-comings, for that is all the U.S. government chooses to dwell on.

I found a selflessness and commitment to social programming that I had thought impossible. I found a government that is sincere and that is still maintaining a four decade old promise to its people; a government that has given priority to health care, education, and social security, while the U.S. only talks of such things.

And for all the strength and beauty, I also found evidence of the crippling effects of an inhumane, politically driven, forty year old U.S. embargo on this nation off the coast of Florida. I found an advisor to the Cuban government who responded to a question on the "Post-Castro Era" as follows: "Here in Cuba we fully understand what is being referred to overseas as the ŒPost-Castro Era.' We are not concerned with this. We are concerned with the Post-Imperialist Era."