Fame, photos, and $3 lunch for five people in Cuba

I'm out the door of the residencia a little after 6:30 a.m. to explore the Vedado neighborhood of Havana and capture the early morning light as Habaneros start their day. I stumble upon the Avenidos de los Presidentes, a long, wide boulevard with a beautiful park running up the middle. Municipal worker Roberto Castillo has just edged the grass around one section of the park and is using a small broom to sweep up the clippings. He sees me crouch down to take his picture and he shouts out in English, "I want to be famous!" If I were him, I would want a leaf blower to make my job easier.

I wander back in the general direction of the residencia, following crowds of adults heading to work and children to school. I come across an outdoor produce place just as the workers are carrying large containers of fresh fruits and vegetables out to the tables for the customers to pick over. Perfect – I can grab some "action shots" of people working!

After some breakfast, Matza and I follow three of the American students to the University of Havana, which is a 25-minute walk, so they could talk with a professor about their final grades and say goodbye to some of their Cuban classmates they befriended during the spring semester. The five of us stop at an outdoor cafeteria for lunch. The three girls get pizzas – about 10 inch in diameter – and Matza and I each get a small ham-and-cheese sandwich. Total cost of lunch, with juices to drink, comes to the equivalent of $3 American! As we marveled at how cheap it was, the students reminded us that Cubans make only $20 per month.

The rest of the day we spent trying to figure out where and how to get an Internet connection so we could file our work. Unfortunately, that had to wait until the next day. (See Michael Matza's post on the hunt for internet.)