Cuba

I couldn't resist taking this photo of these Cuban school children bouncing up and down on a tree branch as I climbed a hill in the Vinales Valley, Cuba to visit the Aquaticos.

The Aquaticos are a group of folks who live in the hills, accessible only by foot or horseback, who believe that their water has healing qualities. They bath in the special water, multiple times each day, and dry themselves in the air . You can see in the background a hill the locals refer to as mogotes. Mogotes were once columns that held up the roofs over a vast cave systems carved out of the limestone by flowing water. Cuba, like the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico is composed of limestone laced with underground rivers and caves. The magotes were once columns that supported the roofs of caves. Over time the roofs collapsed but the columns, magotes, remained. The Vinales Valley provides spectacular vistas in addition to producing fine tobaccos and a wide variety of food crops.

Did you know that Cuba, a poor third world nation, has a world class health care system that has reduced child mortality to a level less than that of the U.S. and a public education system that has produced a higher literacy rate than that of the U.S? In Cuban cities there is a doctor that serves each block and its health care system is free to all.

Cuba has an advanced biomedical industry that produces vaccines exported throughout the world and has so many doctors that Cuban doctors are serving in poor nations throughout the world at no charge. Additionally, Cuba provides medical education for students from all over the world, including 150 U.S. students, at no charge.