I Cuban doctors

The latest on Katrina... Fidel Castro offered to send 1100 doctors and 26 tons of medical supplies (more here).

I've been thinking about Cuban doctors since this thing started.

For those who don't know (and how would you?), whenever there's a major health crisis in Latin America (and often enough, in Africa), the Cuban doctors arrive on the scene and save the day. Cuban and Cuban-trained doctors also are to be found throughout Latin America and Africa setting up clinics and working in the poorest areas where local doctors "fear to tread."

You can consider this a marvelous PR sleight-of-hand, a devious plot to instigate worldwide revolution, or the realization of a genuine spirit of socialism—or all of the above—but the fact is, Cuban doctors are pretty much the heroes of the world. (I wrote about them before here).

I wonder what would happen if they came here... that would be amazing, 1100 Cuban doctors. An army of doctors.

Not that anyone would ever let them come here--Americans might discover that folks can go to the doctor for free anytime in Cuba, and we might get the crazy idea that that's a good thing.

As for Castro himself... well, I'm not his #1 fan, but check out what he says here:

[Castro] would not comment on the U.S. government's response to the tragedy because "this is not the time to kick an adversary -- while he's down."

*sigh* ....I can't imagine Bush saying anything half so classy...can you? (Though my favorite Castro quote is still when he offered to send election observers in 2000).

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In other news, I saw my old student-teaching teacher today—not the mean one, the awesome one, from 2003—the one who got her start when, together with a few of her cousins, she was selected by her community in 1955 as someone who could survive being the first Black students to attend the formerly white high school. She has some tales to tell. She's a warrior & she tried to teach me how to be one, too. If only!

Anyway, I knew she had family in Mississippi, but turns out, she's got a ton of family in New Orleans—her Daddy's sister settled there and all the cousins and their children are there. But she hasn't heard from anyone, doesn't know if they're dead or alive, or where they are, or anything. I almost cried on the spot, thinking of all those terrible pictures and all those horrible stories and wondering if any of them were Miss Tenia's family.

Somehow it really does make it more "real" to have it be someone you know. Shouldn't be true but it is...