El Tumbao Cubano - El Blog de Cuba en el Exilio

Americans Travel to Cuba with It's Just The Kids, Inc. to Join Cuban Families to Build Playgrounds In Four Havana Neighborhoods

American volunteers, organized by the nonprofit organization It's Just The Kids, Inc., assemble and erect the latest in playground equipment assisted by Cuban family members in a local Havana neighborhood.
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 2005--Hardly anyone receives permission to travel here for any purpose, but on September 24, two 30-passenger aircraft will leave Miami International Airport in Florida with over 50 enthusiastic volunteers to travel to the island of Cuba to participate in a project whose goal is to build four playgrounds in one week for the children of Havana. These American volunteers will join local Cuban families to assemble and erect new swing sets, climbing structures, crawling tubes, triple twists, turbo towers, infant playhouses and many more pieces of the latest playground equipment.

This project was the idea of an entrepreneur and real estate investor, Bill Hauf, who six years ago formed a nonprofit foundation, It's Just The Kids, Inc., to fulfill the unrealized dreams of children. Hauf's organization will construct four brand new playgrounds in record time, utilizing American volunteers working alongside Cuban family members, building friendships as well as playgrounds.

No PlayStation, X-Box or Nintendo for these children: only the latest in playground equipment that will take these children off traffic filled streets to the safety of a new neighborhood park playground.

Two years ago, in May 2003, Hauf's organization built three similar playgrounds after investing four years of tenacious effort in the bureaucratic process. Finally, he received the approvals necessary from both governments to build these playgrounds, which took a quarter million dollars and 100 Americans working in friendship with Cuban family members to assemble and erect this equipment.= Cuba may be miles apart in geography, but for one short week, through the joint efforts of caring people and a common goal, the people, if not the countries, got a little closer together.

With the intent to continue the success they achieved two years before, 50 American volunteers will arrive in Cuba on Saturday morning, September 24. They will immediately head for their hotel for a quick check-in, light lunch and then be sped across Havana Harbor to the neighborhood of Cotterro to start unpacking shipping containers, sorting parts, pouring concrete, assembling structures and erecting playground structures for the first of the four playground sites. No time will be lost by these volunteers in trying to fulfill these children's dreams.

Language may be a barrier for some, but no lack of translation can hide the joy in friendship as people of two cultures meet and make new friends and form new bonds that transcend generations.= At night the group will enjoy Cuban family hospitality, listen to Cuban music, savor Cuban food, maybe see a ballet or baseball game and learn about Cuban culture and life in modern day Havana.= The week will conclude with ribbon cutting ceremonies and a farewell celebration dinner on Friday night, where Cuban families will join with their American counterparts for an exchange of addresses and a plethora of thank yous and mutual gratitude for such a rewarding experience.

It's Just the Kids, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the needs of children at home and around the world. Its goal is to help children by providing that which is necessary to promote their physical and mental health and development. Safe playground equipment in family neighborhoods is one way to reach that goal and to enhance the emotional, physical and psychological quality of children's lives.

To learn more about this program, visit: www.itsjustthekids.org

Havana Pizzazz With The Saratoga Hotel

There are ripples of excitement in the air as the Cuban capital of Havana prepares for the opening of The Saratoga Hotel. The hotel is reputed to evoke the pizzazz of a bygone Cuba – aching back to the 1920’s when the city’s elegant inhabitants met for afternoon tea while listening to orchestra performances of the famous group ‘Anacaona’.= The hotel has undergone extensive restoration at its original location enabling spectacular views of the Capitolio building, the Fraternity Park, the prestigious Partagás Cigar Factory and the Grand Theatre.

Revamped features include a roof top pool offering near 180-degree views of the Bay of Havana and Fortress of “San Carlos de la Cabaña”. The restoration has combined traditional elements including the magnificent façade, with modern technology to guarantee the best service and comfort for guests.

The hotel is set to be a must for discerning travelers wishing to combine culture, sightseeing and Havana’s renowned nightlife. Luxury brand One & Only were, until recently, hawking the hotel for their portfolio. It is now being managed by the Havana company, Habaguanex.

The hotel has 99 bedrooms and seven suites. There is a restaurant with a French chef and three bars including the rooftop bar.= As an example of price a three-night stay at the hotel with tourist visa, return Virgin Atlantic flights from London, accommodation with breakfast, private transfers from Havana airport costs from £739 per person sharing room (based on April 14 – July 13, 2006) rising to £930 per person for seven nights. =

Cuba Goes to Extremes

Story.   May 21, 2005. PLAYA MEGANO, Cuba (AP)

In a land where amateur sport is king, some people go to extremes.= Surfboards, skateboards, parachutes — let alone kitesurfing kits — you just can’t buy that kind of stuff in Cuba. Yet on a sunny, blustery weekend at Playa Megano, a beach a few miles east of Havana, there they are: surfing, kitesurfing and ripping the rails on skateboards.

At one moment, four kitesurfers — there are only about a dozen on the island — three windsurfers and a scattering of plain old surfers skitter across the waves and whitecaps. In a nearby parking lot, skaters and BMX bikers tackle a rare ramp.

It’s a sort of X Games, Cuban-style.

Che Alejandro Pando has enough rings on his ears, lips and nose to form the Olympic symbol. He makes a living as a self-employed tattoo artist.= But he shares one thing with his more traditional colleagues: passion.

“My knees hurt. I’ve broken a lot of bones. But I love what I do,” said Pando, 32, who said he took up skateboarding at age 10.

He started with metal skates nailed to a board. A few years later, a friend gave him a real skateboard that he suspects had been stolen...

Americans Sympathetic to Cuba Plan Visit to Island, Despite Law.

Americans Sympathetic to Cuba Plan Visit to Island, Despite Law.

Posted Friday, March 25, 2005 :: infoZine Staff.
By Lauren C. Rivera - Wanting to see for themselves what the United States calls an oppressive regime, a group of young Americans is preparing to violate U.S. law by traveling to Cuba.

Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - Armed with T-shirts bearing a logo that displays the star from Che Guevara's hat and two machetes symbolizing guerilla warfare, about 80 members of the Venceremos Brigade are getting ready to make the trip again this summer without permission from the Treasury Department.

For $1,300 per person they will fly from Toronto to Havana, where a government organization called Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP, sets their schedule and helps them get acquainted. - "You don't see as many negative things as the U.S. government would have us think," said Arturo Perez Saad, 34, an New York elementary school teacher who took the trip last summer.

Atlantis Found Off the Coast of Cuba?

The article was written by Kevin Sullivan, of the Washington Post Foreign Service.

The images appear slowly on the video screen, like ghosts from the ocean floor. The videotape, made by an unmanned submarine, shows massive stones in oddly symmetrical square and pyramid shapes in the deep-sea darkness.

Sonar images taken from a research ship 2,000 feet above are even more puzzling. They show that the smooth, white stones are laid out in a geometric pattern. The images look like fragments of a city, in a place where nothing man-made should exist, spanning nearly eight square miles of a deep-ocean plain off Cuba's western tip.

"What we have here is a mystery," said Paul Weinsweig, of Advanced Digital Communications (ADC), a Canadian company that is mapping the ocean bottom of Cuba's territorial waters under contract with the government of President Fidel Castro...

Tracking Down the Celts in Cuba and the Irish in Havana

Irish visitors to Cuba often remark on the identification they feel with the warmth and sense of fun of ordinary Cubans. While caution is wise with such generalizations, it is a similarity that others have noticed too.

"There is something Celtic about the Cuban that commands the affection of those fortunate foreigners who really know them," wrote Basil Woon, socialite and author of When It's Cocktail Time in Cuba, a delicious snapshot of Havana in the golden era prior to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Mafia takeover of the city...

Driving in Cuba

by Penny Thompson 12.07.04.

The sign on the main road indicated food, walking trails, a viewpoint and more so my husband and I started up a dirt road in the Sierra del Escambray mountains of south central Cuba. But the road got worse and worse. There was no way to turn around. “If we get stuck here were screwed,” said my husband and I seriously began to question my navigation skills. But there had to be something up here, didn’t there? You don’t see many signposts in Cuba and the one at the turning was a fairly large one. Was this a back way in?

The mystery was eventually solved five kilometers later when we suddenly spotted a cluster of four wheel drive vehicles, dozens of tents and about 60 people eating lunch at picnic tables. Some men were getting into a truck and seemed quite surprised to see us drive up in our tiny rental car. “Somos perditos,” I said in my best phrasebook Spanish. “We’re lost.”

They all had a good laugh. And one who spoke English kindly explained it was an ecotourist resort. The truck was heading back to the main road and they would make sure we got back there safely...

THE CUBA TRAVEL BAN APPEALS PROCESS

Under rules by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), tourists caught traveling illegally to Cuba can be fined up to $55,000, although most first-time violators are fined $7,500 -- less if they can prove, for instance, they performed humanitarian work on the island.

When issued a penalty notice by OFAC, the individual has 30 days to appeal. If the case is not settled out of court, the case goes before an administrative law judge, who can uphold or dismiss the penalty.

There's one more administrative appeal available, to a person known as a ''Treasury Secretary designee,'' according to an OFAC spokeswoman. If the fine still stands, the individual can take the case to a U.S. federal district court.

Sandals Expands in Cuba

Monday, December 06, 2004.

Sandals Resorts International will manage the brand new five-star Princesa Del Mar hotel in Varadero, Cuba, bringing to three the number of resorts now being run by the all-inclusive chain in that Caribbean island.

The 434-suite hotel came under Sandals management on November 1, 2004 after Sandals and Gaviota, one of Cuba's largest and well-respected hotel companies, signed the management contract.

"We are excited about this new development," said Sandals director Dr Jeffrey Pyne. "Our travel partners, particularly in Europe, the UK and Canada, have given tremendous support to our business in Cuba and we are thrilled to be able to include such a spectacular resort in our Cuban operations. We are looking forward with great enthusiasm to welcoming our guests to this special world-class facility."....

Michigan couple face thousands in fines for trip to Cuba

December 4, 2004, 8:59 AM WASHINGTON (AP)

When Michael and Angela McCarthy crossed the border from Ontario into Michigan in April 2001, an officer asked them where they'd been. The couple answered truthfully -- Cuba -- and mentioned they had brought back a couple of cigars.

Three years and thousands of dollars in legal fees later, the Port Huron, Mich., couple is driving to Washington this week to find out how much the U.S. government will fine them for their illegal trip. Administrative Law Judge Irwin Schroeder could make them pay up to $110,000 after considering their case during a hearing Monday.

The McCarthy case is one of about 20 now before judges of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control, according to the Center for International Policy, which advocates ending travel restrictions to Cuba. Many more cases get settled before they ever reach a judge....