The Cuban Correspondent

Placed atop Daryl DeLuca’s kitchen radiator is a black and gray shoebox full of approximately 100 letters from Cuba. These hand-written correspondences, some in English, most in Spanish, contain similar themes of hope, curiosity, gratitude and need. Many are several years old – others are a bit more recent.

“I just got one on Wednesday,” said the Boston University Office of Judicial Affairs director with hushed excitement as he described a letter received from a mother and son on the southeastern coast of Cuba, near Guantanamo Bay. “They wrote me a letter to say hello. They also wanted to find out how my mother was doing after her hip replacement surgery.”

DeLuca usually receives a letter from one of his 12 adopted Cuban families every couple of months. But this is more than a simple exchange between pen pals; the letters contain questions about his life in the United States and modest requests for simple necessities.

“They are not asking for Xboxes, iPods or Discmans,” DeLuca said. “They are asking for shoes or pants or a belt or sneakers, and what I try to do is accommodate almost all requests.”

DeLuca said the first time he set foot on Cuban soil was an accident. He was vacationing with friends in the Caribbean when someone suggested taking a random trip to the communist-run island.

That was in 1998. DeLuca has since returned 14 times.

“I discovered this whole new untouched un-Americanized country called Cuba,” he said. “And I met some folks and was invited back and kept returning.”

Two weeks ago, DeLuca returned from his most recent trip – a one-week community service project with the California-based non-profit organization It’s Just the Kids.

For seven days, DeLuca and 48 other volunteers from around the U.S. constructed four parks around Havana containing everything from swing sets to jungle gyms for Cuban children to enjoy.

“We worked like gangbusters,” he said, while proudly displaying photographs of colorful playground equipment surrounded by palm trees and neat metal fences.

As the volunteers turned barren landscapes into gleaming playgrounds, DeLuca described how children would flock to the sites and peer through the fences for hours at a time.

“A 6-year-old girl came up to me and asked me in Spanish if we were putting in a pool,” DeLuca said, laughing. “I told her, ‘no, no pool.'”

On Sept. 24, the group arrived in Havana via a chartered airplane from Miami. The volunteers stayed in a hotel provided by the organization, and for the next week worked up to 10 hours a day in 90-degree Havana heat.

“It just goes to show you how 50 complete strangers can come together and collaborate and cooperate in and do something constructive in a communist country that our own government does not even communicate with,” DeLuca said

He first encountered It’s Just the Kids in an email he received during the summer. The organization, which formed in 2003, requires volunteers to raise $1,600 in donations and gives them the opportunity to travel to Cuba and improve the lives of Cuban children through community service.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to do a humanitarian volunteer effort to build playgrounds and to see some of the families I support,” he said.

DeLuca raised almost $5,000 for the trip, a feat that organizer Debbie Watterson said was a great help to It’s Just the Kids.

“Out of the 49 volunteers, he raised the most for us, which is huge,” she said. “He worked hard, like all of us, and we would be thrilled to have him come again.”

DeLuca decided to join the group after having trouble finding other ways of entering to the country.

“Up until September of 2004, BU along with many other institutions of higher education had a license to travel to Cuba,” DeLuca said. “The current administration has decided to no longer issue new educational licenses nor to renew the current licenses, including BU’s, which expired in 2004.”

While U.S. citizens can theoretically travel to Cuba, according to the Department of Treasury website, they are not allowed to engage in “Cuban travel-related transactions” without a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control. This means Americans cannot spend U.S. dollars in the country without special permission from the government, including money spent on hotels, pre-paid vacation packages, food and transportation.

Non-profit organizations, such as It’s Just the Kids, are granted access to Cuba but must apply for a license, which can often be a long and arduous task. The organization must prove how it intends to provide support for the Cuban people along with a detailed itinerary outlining work schedules, travel plans and transportation. It’s Just the Kids applied for their license six years ago and finally received permission in 2003 when the organization made its first trip to Cuba with about 100 volunteers.

Despite the lack of diplomacy between the United States and Cuba, the government happily receives American visitors, DeLuca said.

“The Cuban government greets you with open arms,” he said. “Everyone is a friend of Cuba’s with the exception of the U.S.”

Over the course of the past seven years, DeLuca’s involvement with Cuba has evolved from mere fascination into a love affair. He has traveled to the country with both students and strangers. He has stayed in five-star hotels in Havana and lived in homes with no running water.

He has chaperoned spring break trips and orchestrated cross-cultural excursions. He has collected donations and transported supplies.

“The last time I went with students we took 50 bags of checked luggage, full of medicine, shirts, T-shirts, school supplies, medical supplies and dental supplies,” DeLuca said.

Most importantly for him, DeLuca has educated Cubans.

“They are fascinated with people from the outside world,” he said. “Because they are on an island, they are isolated. What they read and see is controlled. They know an entire world exists outside them but they can’t grasp it.”

And, Cubans have educated DeLuca.

“I don’t complain about anything anymore,” he said. “The average Cuban does not have a shower. They have a shower stall and they have buckets. No one has hot water.”

Each time DeLuca returns to the communist island, he says he is reminded how lucky he is to live in America and is shocked by the lack of freedom Cubans endure.

“The Daily Free Press is thicker and more elaborate than their daily national newspaper,” DeLuca said. “What they see in print and what they hear on the radio and what they see in TV is all controlled and filtered by the Cuban government, and that is called no freedom and no liberty.”

DeLuca described how Cubans face imprisonment if they are caught speaking negatively about their president, Fidel Castro, or the Cuban government, as they are constantly watched by Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which he described as a Big Brother-like organization that seeks out dissidents within Cuban society.

According to DeLuca, someone reported him to the CDR on his most recent trip when he wrote his address on a slip of paper and handed it to a child.

“Someone interpreted it in a completely different way,” DeLuca said. “Sometimes an innocent gesture of goodwill turns on you.”

Deluca said the shortages of food and basic supplies on the island continually surprise him. On one of his trips, he offered a ride to a police officer – cops regularly do not have cars of their own. While they were traveling together, DeLuca asked what the most common crime is in his community. The officer replied, “Cow theft.”

Until the government reinstates short-term academic travel to Cuba, DeLuca said he will continue looking for all possible ways to visit the island nation. Already, It’s Just the Kids is planning its third trip to Cuba sometime in 2006, and DeLuca said he plans to go.

“I am in love with it because of the people,” DeLuca said. “The people of Cuba are the most resilient people I have ever met.”

For more information on DeLuca’s trip, check out his Oct. 25 presentation, “Photographic discussion of Cuba: A Discussion on culture, life, race and society in Cuba through the eyes of a photographer,” located in the Howard Thurman Center Lounge at the George Sherman Union.