July 28, 2015
Last week, 10 Commodore student-athletes ventured to Cuba with Soles4Souls for a historic international service trip. Due to a lack of stable internet service in Havana and Trinidad, the Commodores weren’t able to send out daily blogs. Now that they are back in the states, the student-athletes are able to share their journals. The first is from Nicole Powell of the women’s bowling team, written on Sunday, July 19.
Hi Vandy Nation, Nicole Powell from women’s bowling here, coming to you from historic, culturally-charged Havana, Cuba! On Saturday, eight of the 10 student-athletes chosen to represent Vanderbilt met in Nashville to depart for Miami in wake of our early Sunday morning flight to Cuba. While we were in route to Miami, we were anxiously awaiting to hear if Ashlin (Dolan) would be able to make it in time since she faced flight problems due to bad storms on the East coast. Both Ashlin and Georgina (Sellyn) spent the night in the Miami airport and our group was finally united at 4 a.m. on Sunday. It is now 8 p.m. on Sunday as I write this and I am in awe as the reality of our journey has finally set in.
The most difficult adjustment we have had to make so far is learning how to relax and go with the flow  a staple of the Caribbean way of life. All of us are used to being on a relatively strict schedule in our day-to-day lives, whether we have a scheduled time to go work out, study, work, practice, or even spend time with our friends. However, we learned very quickly that we must exercise patience in order to ultimately enjoy our experience! After spending almost three hours going through the check-in process and boarding our flight an hour later than originally scheduled, I am fairly certain that all of us closed our eyes on the quick 45-minute flight  at least briefly. With the newness of travel from the United States to Cuba, we had no idea what to expect as we journeyed through customs and the baggage claim area, but we were pleasantly surprised at the ease of the process. Once we gathered our own belongings and the 14 large duffel bags filled with shoes we will ultimately distribute throughout the week, we exchanged our currency for the Cuban Convertible Units at the airport, met our tour guide, and got on a bus to head to the hotel!
Our tour guide, Eric, has been fantastic from the start. The moment we hopped on the bus, he grabbed the microphone and began introducing us to the history of Cuba. Eric told us that each Cuban is required to complete 2-3 years of service as a way of repaying the Cuban government for the free education offered to all people. He spent his 2 years teaching English in the local education system, and, after finishing that, he moved to the tourism industry, where he has been a guide for many years. The nerd in me was attentive and alive as he taught us about the economic conditions that have transpired over the last 30 years or so. Cuba went from having the most ideal economic situation to the worst, all in a span of 10 years because of economic turmoil in Eastern European countries. The reliance on trade with Europe in the 1980s led the cost of living in Cuba to increase 24 times in the 1990s as European countries went into capitalist mode and Cubans could no longer afford to live in the same manner that they had just a decade before. Although the fascination with the history of Cuba that I have gained may not be shared by people reading this article, I still find it important to share with everyone how much we have already learned in the short 12 hours that we have been here. What has happened in the past has completely shaped the present and it is an unreal experience that we have the privilege of being a part of.