Obamarama 2K9

So during these three months in Cuba, there were only two things that I knew I'd be sad about missing. One of them was the Lost Season 5 Premiere. The other was, obviously, the inauguration. Instead of being in DC, though, we are in Havana and therefore harassed our teacher until he agreed to give us a one hour break in the middle of class to watch the swearing in and the speech. We left class and went to the nearby, aptly named, Hotel Presidente to watch the inauguration on the pool-side television while having a celebratory drink. Not many other people were around, so some of the hotel staff actually gathered with us to watch the ceremony. Later that night, we carried the party into Habana Vieja, although no one really seemed to be partying like us. We did get invited to a random house party, where we danced reggaeton for a half hour before moving on to our next destination. The house party was an interesting experience because, although the facade of the building was gorgeous, the interior was falling apart and we had to step over a makeshift bridge to get to the other side. It makes you think about things and how there's this certain outward presentation, although inside things are rotten and festering. In some ways that reminds me of the system going on here in Cuba. They put on this great face to the world, look at our medical skills and our literacy rates. And I don't mean to disparage those things, because they matter as well. But you can't say that your system is thriving when it is remittances and family-brought goods from the United States and other countries that allow people some sort of cushion that would otherwise be a difficult lifestyle.

Being here gives me the chance to think about what might come in the next four years. First of all, as glad as I am to see Bush go, it's also a little scary, in the sense that he's been the president for as long as I've been politically conscious. Also, he led us into this utter mess (I could use my new favorite Cuban slang, reajo, which translates roughly to clusterfuck), and now Obama's stuck with the job of trying to get us out. I feel like there are so many things riding on Obama's shoulders, so many things that he has to fix from previous mistakes, before he can ever really lead us back into a better place. And it worries me because I don't know how our country will react to that, if people will have the foresight to see those things.