Day 8 - Sept. 25

We attempted to speak to someone at the U.S. Embassy today.

To be fair, I had not called ahead or made an official request of anyone at the embassy. But it’s the same way I approached every government official in Cuba.

I thought to myself, how could this be? Every Cuban I have spoken to has provided nearly unlimited access to their country and way of life. Now, here I am, an American citizen, and my greatest challenge to date is getting access to the embassy of my own country? Say it ain’t so. Sadly, it was.

In the evening, we headed down the streets where Cubans have started to gather to use Wi-Fi. In recent months, the government set up a few hotspots in Havana. Most are near the big hotels for tourists. It’s the first time, Cubans have had this kind of access to the world online. It costs 2 cucs an hour, about 1.75 U.S. dollars an hour. I saw families huddled on the sidewalk or in their small cars around a smartphone or tablet connecting with family members elsewhere. For some, it’s the first opportunity to actually see loved ones who left in the 60’s. One woman agreed to let us join her as she called her family in the U.S. She used the imo app on her tablet to make a video call to her mother in Florida.

She asked her mom about her dad. She asked if they could come back to Cuba.

Her mother, not realizing we were filming in Cuba, said she had no plans to come back soon and followed her statement with some not-so-kind words for Fidel Castro.