A rare opportunity in february of 2012 — see havana During a time of freer travel

My wife’s uncle teaches a martial art called Aikido. He started studying and practicing it in the early 1970s and made it his lifework. Decades later he’s a globally-respected master and so in February of 2012 we accompanied him to a Havana for a week of seminars. His wife’s family is from Cuba and left when Castro was “liberating” the population into universal education and universal poverty

In a few words: having visited, I cannot in good conscience return until meaningful, liberating change comes to Cuba. Though we did find beauty in the indomitable human spirit, it was something of a cultural safari-macabre.