Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
The week of May 29, 2026
AI Dawn Boys highlights often overlooked consequences P.3
WINNERS Three home game wins for Peachland Youth Soccer teams P.6
Visit our website at peachlandpost.org • Vol. 2 Issue 21
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
JULIA DEBOLT
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CUBAN CHALLENGES
Dispatches from Cuba, a country struggling Bringing meaningful support to resilient residents of Cuba By Jeff McDonald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
U
nless there are flight cancellations, by the time you read this issue of the Peachland Post, I’ll be in eastern Cuba in the country’s second biggest city, Santiago de Cuba. Why travel to Cuba now, with the much-publicized fuel shortages and power outages? Several reasons. First, I am working with an organization called Not Just Tourists (NJT) that gets medical supplies to countries in need. They do this by asking people who are travelling to take an extra suitcase and deliver it to a medical facility. I’m taking two to Cuba, each weighing 50 pounds. Because I’m travelling to a much poorer and less-visited part of Cuba, NJT has asked me to deliver a suitcase of specialized supplies to a maternity hospital, and the other, which contains supplies for heart surgery, to a cardiac centre in Santiago. NJT was formed in 1990 by
Photo: Contributed
The main cathedral in Santiago de Cuba, on Céspedes Park.
Dr. Ken Taylor, a Canadian who witnessed first-hand the shortage of medical supplies in Cuba. He and his wife Denise started taking supplies to remote areas, and other travellers to Cuba began doing the same. NJT now has chapters around the world and has delivered more than 10,000 suitcases and 2,000,000 pounds of medical supplies and equipment to 82 countries. Its website states that NJT’s mission is to “change the way
people travel and start the journey for ordinary tourists to become humanitarians” and to “prevent the waste of usable medical supplies and get them to those in most need.” NJT takes donations from Canadian hospitals, clinics, medical suppliers and individuals. Supplies include gauze, bandages, surgical instruments, masks, gloves, antiseptics, IV kits, urinary supplies and birthing kits. (The equipment I’m delivering to
the maternity hospital includes an infant-size resuscitator.) The second reason to visit is direct financial support for the Cuban people, especially now. Going there and spending money is the best way to do that. Cubans have been facing hardships created by a non-market economy and U.S. economic sanctions for a long time, but most people in Canada will be aware of even greater challenges emerging in recent months, especially Trump’s blockade preventing oil from reaching the island. It’s always interesting trying to figure out how things work in Cuba. Many of the country’s systems aren’t working well, for sure. Layers of opacity created by decades of rule by an authoritarian dictatorship make it tricky to understand why things happen, or don’t happen, the way Canadians think they would. But I’ve been to Cuba often and have had hundreds of conversations with Cubans about their desire for the political system and economy to change. Trump’s tactics in trying to force a new regime are hurting a lot of people, especially older people, women and children. Cubans don’t like him but they want change too. To me, that’s SEE DISPATCHES PAGE 7