Graham Sowa’s Diary

We are on the doorstep of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Havana Rotary Club, which had its first meeting on April 29, 1916. The Havana Rotary Club was actually the first Rotary Club to be founded outside an English speaking country.

Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Jesus Christ. Albeit temporarily, the Christian Savior is the third person to be immortalized on the side of a building (in this case the National Library) in the Plaza de la Revolutión.

While hotels like Havana’s Melia Cohiba are full of Americans who think they are getting an early taste of international travel’s forbidden fruit hundreds of United States citizens have been calling Cuba home away from home for some time now.

“Public health in Cuba is not a priority…,” my public health class teacher had finally said something that brought me back from daydreaming “…it is an obsession”. After two years of clinical work in a Cuban hospital being back in a classroom learning public health theory is somewhere between mind numbing and infuriating.

All of a sudden my cheap-o remote control “drone” and I were shuffled over to the customs declaration desk where I was promptly told it would be confiscated. So much for the aerial shots of Parque Lenin, the Botanical Gardens and the Malecon at night I was hoping to put on YouTube.

Here’s some good news for United States citizens wanting to travel legally to Cuba. Even though US based airlines still have not hashed out their plan of operations on the island don’t let that stop you from going as soon as you feel fit. There are many ways to do so.

This week President Obama surprised us with the inevitable: he put in motion what is sure to be a long and arduous 180 degree turn of U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba. Here in Havana I came to the quick conclusion that Cuban media outlets were caught completely off guard.

US citizens call it the Bay of Pigs, Cubans call it Playa Girón. Whatever you prefer, this crystal clear Caribbean bay surrounded by mosquito ridden wetland offers up the best of rural Cuban seaside life.

When the history of how Cuba entered the globalized marketplace is written healthcare will be the principal protagonist. Entering the international medical education marketplace and the dynamic use of human resources in healthcare has become the most globalized feature of the Cuban economy.