Friendshipment 28 (2017)
If you want to be a tourist and go to Cuba only to see old cars, smoke cigars and drink rum, Don't come to Cuba with Pastors for Peace.
If you want to learn about the REAL Cuba, talk to the REAL people and go 'beneath the surface', then join our 28th Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba this July, and be a part of challenging the US economic blockade of Cuba.
Dates
July 11-12 Orientation in Mexico City
July 13 Fly to Santa Clara, Cuba
July 13-26 Caravan visit to Guantanamo, Santiago and Villa Clara provinces
July 27 Fly back from Santa Clara to Mexico City
July 28 Reverse Challenge – fly back to US
Cost of program: $1650 + travel to Mexico City and back from US at own expense.
Our Caravan this year will spend a full 2 weeks in Cuba, following an obligatory 2 day orientation period in Mexico City. We will fly into and out of Santa Clara in the center of Cuba where we will visit the Che Guevara memorial during the 50th anniversary of his death in Bolivia. We will then travel by bus to the Eastern provinces of Guantanamo and Santiago.
In Guantanamo we will witness the reconstruction process after the massive devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew in October 2016. We will also visit, from the outside, the US military base at Guantanamo Bay and the neighboring Cuban town of Caimanera to learn about the impact the presence of the base has on that community. In Santiago, the cradle of the revolution, we will visit the cemetery where Fidel Castro’s ashes were recently interred. Our time in Eastern Cuba will include participating in the festivities celebrating the July 26th 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks which signaled the beginning of the Cuban Revolution.
We will be staying in dormitory accommodation and the weather will be HOT, so be prepared for and be medically fit enough to withstand a challenging trip.
We go to Cuba as a conscious act of civil disobedience in the spirit of the US civil rights movement. We will be committing the civil offence of unlicensed travel to Cuba. In the years 2005 and 2006 all adult Caravanistas received threatening letters from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the department of the US Treasury responsible for implementing the US economic blockade of Cuba, though in the end no further action was taken. Since then there has been nothing, but we cannot predict what stance the incoming Trump administration will take.
Application forms are available from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Deadline to apply:- May 1st 2017