{"id":34616,"date":"2017-03-22T18:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T23:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=34616"},"modified":"2017-03-20T10:41:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T15:41:02","slug":"our-trip-to-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=34616","title":{"rendered":"Our Trip to Cuba – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently Mr. Right and I led our annual volunteer vacation, and this year we went to Cuba.\u00a0 If you are new here, let me give a little explanation.\u00a0 For the past 18 years, Mr. Right and I have gone to a third world or developing country to do a project for the less fortunate.\u00a0 We started out building houses through Habitat for Humanity, and then we became trained leaders.\u00a0 We then broke off on our own and have led a group of friends to some really cool countries.\u00a0 We have built houses, repaired orphanages, worked on schools, built playgrounds, repaired apartments, and more.\u00a0 Since going out on our own, we, along with Jordan, have volunteered in Egypt, Zambia<\/a>, Laos<\/a>, Burma<\/a>, Argentina, India<\/a>, Colombia<\/a>, and this year Cuba.\u00a0 (Jordan couldn’t go this year since she has Little Miss.)\u00a0 Each year Mr. Right and I pick a country that we would like to visit or like to return to, and we locate an agency there that puts us in touch with a needy organization.\u00a0 Mr. Right makes a preliminary trip to the country to meet up with the group we will be helping.\u00a0 He learns about their needs and comes up with a plan for our group.\u00a0 There are normally about 20 of us, and we are from all over the country.\u00a0 One even comes in from China where he works.\u00a0 We are very diverse. We meet up in the country and have a great time working on the project, being with each other, meeting the locals, seeing the sites, and learning about how others live.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

I am going to devote this post to the project that we worked on.\u00a0 Then I’m come back later and show you what we did and what we saw in our spare time.\u00a0 I want to let you know that Cuba is beautiful, and the people were wonderful.\u00a0 They are very poor.\u00a0 The average worker<\/span> earns 20 to 25 dollars a month.\u00a0 You read that right.\u00a0 People working in the tourist industry make more.\u00a0 There are professionals like doctors and lawyers working in tourism because they make more money.\u00a0 There is not a lot to buy, and there is not a lot of variety on foods that are available for them to purchase.\u00a0 We stayed in Varadero, which is a tourist area, and this is their beach.\u00a0 It was breathtaking.\u00a0 We traveled about an hour each way to get to and from our project.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

These are some of the houses in the village where we worked.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

Thankfully, this one was unoccupied.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

\u00a0The houses are mostly made from concrete blocks, and the interiors would be a sitting room, a bedroom or two, and a kitchen.\u00a0 Because it is always hot there, some people have their kitchens outside on a back porch.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The center where we were based is a non-profit set up by a man named Willie.\u00a0 They provide food from their garden along other necessities to the needy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We knew ahead of time that they were in need of just basics items like deodorant, soap, toothpaste, etc. So, our group brought suitcases full of those things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We also took toys and school supplies for the children and were so glad we did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One day we stopped by a baseball practice that a young team was having.\u00a0 Here they are listening to the interpreter give them messages of hope from us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Cuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We were so sad to see the shoes they were wearing for practice.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of their shoes had holes in them.\u00a0 So sad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Cuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We bought bags of dry beans and rice and then divided them up into smaller portions.\u00a0 Our group then delivered the rice and beans to needy families.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This nice young man was born with a severe birth defect.\u00a0 He recently received a wheel chair, and he now can get around his neighborhood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

We provided funds so that the room there on the left could be added to his house and actually completed.\u00a0 Then he will have a space that will be easy for him to get to.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

This is a sad story.\u00a0 A 15-year-old girl was out riding her bicycle when she became hungry.\u00a0 She stopped and climbed a mango tree so that she could have the fruit as a snack.\u00a0 She fell from the tree and became permanently paralyzed.\u00a0 She is confined to a second story room in her house so we provided the funds so that this house could be built for her with a first floor that she can get in and out of.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

The center grows organic pineapples to distribute to the poor or to sell to raise funds.\u00a0\u00a0 They were the best pineapples ever.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

They also have an organic garden, and some of our group worked in it to pull weeds, etc.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

Some helped haul gravel for a project, and we cleaned up around the facility and painted some buildings.<\/p>\n

\"Cuba<\/p>\n

We painted the living room, bathroom, and kitchen of this house.\u00a0 The family has two children, and their nine-year-old boy was born with severe defects.\u00a0 He is bedridden in a fetal position.\u00a0 They were so thankful for the help.<\/p>\n

Our group is a very diverse group.\u00a0 We range in age from 40 to 92, and each year we will have a few who can’t make it and one or two new ones.\u00a0 Religions that have been represented are Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Quaker, Mormon, Atheist, and Buddhist.\u00a0 We have gays, straights, married, and divorced.\u00a0 We come from spots like New York City, and a ranch in Nebraska.\u00a0 We have varying political views, but we love and respect the things we differ on and the things we have in common.\u00a0 We look forward to our get-togethers every year.\u00a0 For me personally, I think these small projects with a few people are the answer to world peace.\u00a0 You can’t hate a person when we work and sweat side by side for a common goal.\u00a0 When the people we have helped think of America, I hope they think of our group and then think of love.\u00a0 It’s as simple as that.<\/p>\n

Take care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently Mr. Right and I led our annual volunteer vacation, and this year we went to Cuba.\u00a0 If you are new here, let me give a little explanation.\u00a0 For the past 18 years, Mr. Right and I have gone to a third world or developing country to do a project for the less fortunate.\u00a0 We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34616"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34616"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34637,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34616\/revisions\/34637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}