Del Mar man brings playgrounds to Havana children

By David E. Graham
STAFF WRITER
June 24, 2003

HAVANA - A little girl walking home from school with her grandmother smiled with surprise as she noticed the colorful new playground equipment. "It's beautiful," she said in Spanish.

In a neglected corner park - surrounded by ornate, but crumbling, houses and buildings - American volunteers, toiling under a searing sun, were digging holes and pouring concrete to put into place elaborate climbing bars, slides, swings and jungle gyms all brightly colored in yellows, reds, blues and greens.

The girl's delight was just the reaction the group hoped to inspire.

"The Cuban children are so appreciative of the smallest things, and in visiting here I recognized there was a need for safe areas for them to play," said Bill Hauf, a Del Mar real estate investor who organized the project.

Last month, Hauf led 58 Americans, from San Diego to Boston, who signed on and paid their own travel expenses to build playgrounds at three sites in the Cuban capital.

The group included college students, lawyers, office workers, teachers, a graphics designer and a marketing analyst, lured by the chance to visit Cuba and improve, if in a small way, the lives of children in this poverty-ridden Communist nation. The Cuban government assigned some local families and laborers to help them.

It is a rare example of cooperation between the peoples of the two nations, long separated by political acrimony and a trade embargo the United States maintains against Cuba that essentially forbids most Americans from traveling here.

Hauf, who also operates a business arranging legal travel programs to Cuba, developed the playground project through a charity he formed, It's Just the Kids Inc. He spent more than $200,000 of his own money to refurbish the three sites, and he said he intends to do more.

A different tone
The effort has nothing to do with any political points of view, Hauf said. As citizens of the two nations worked together, Americans said they were struck by the warmth and hospitality of the Cubans.

"The work was exciting - we're not tourists," said Joe Jimenez, a teacher at Montgomery High School in south San Diego. He works in the school's technology lab and made a video of the event to show students.

"The Cubans were just great. They were friendly, open, loving and curious."

During four years of planning, Hauf had numerous meetings with bureaucrats in both governments who were skeptical, if for no other reason than that few Americans pursue projects in Cuba. He had to gain approval from the U.S. Treasury Department, which enforces the trade embargo, for a humanitarian mission, one of the few types of legal trips to Cuba. And the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation had to allow the group to build the playgrounds in three districts of Havana: Regla, Plaza and Marianao.

The new equipment replaced a few tattered and weathered pieces that had been in the parks, typically a merry-go-round, slide and a swing.

Uncertain start
In the first days of the construction, Hauf said, the Cubans were not completely certain what he intended to do for them. But when they saw the high-quality equipment, built by a Pennsylvania company, unloaded at the sites, they more fully appreciated his intentions. The next day, the ministry made available machinery and enough workers to complete the project.

The playground equipment alone cost $100,000, which Hauf paid. The volunteer workers each paid $900 to defray the costs of their travel, hotels and meals.

Hauf became interested in Cuba in 1996 when he obtained permission from the Treasury Department to visit to become a distributor for a magazine about business possibilities on the island.

"I was captivated by the mystery and the general lack of information" about Cuba, Hauf said.

Through his visits, he made friends with people who had children and grandchildren, and he was taken by how joyous the youngsters seemed despite having few toys or organized play areas.

"I'm single without family," said Hauf, now in his 50s. "I wanted to see if there was something I could do to contribute a little bit of joy to their lives."

Other groups from the United States have taken medicines to Cuba and staged musical events. Hauf wanted to help children, and when he could not interest any existed charities, he said, "I realized the most assured way was to provide it myself."

Hauf is serious-minded. During the visit, he continually pored over details of the project, devoting his trip to work and denying himself Cuba's legendary pleasures. He doesn't smoke the island's powerful cigars and had nary a mojito, the popular rum drink, usually settling instead for a soft drink with dinner.

Evening scene
As salsa music blaring from homes and bars filled the streets one languid evening, so humid the air felt like a steamy shower, many volunteers had long ago headed out to night spots across the Cuban capital. Hauf sat in a restaurant pondering ideas for maintaining the new playgrounds, no small order in a country where materials and even paint are scarce.

The group finished two of the playgrounds during their weeklong stay, and the Cubans were to complete a third, in Marianao, after the Americans left.

Community leaders in Regla thanked the volunteers during a public ceremony that included speakers and singers, and they presented Hauf with a shovel they had signed.

Hauf hopes the project's success will allow the charity to raise money beyond what he alone can contribute to refurbish additional sites.

Already, he believes the venture has stirred an awareness that people living on both sides of Florida Straits have an untapped potential to be good neighbors.

He remembered a Cuban man, probably in his 80s, who had heard a big group from the United States was in town and, disbelieving such a thing could be, hobbled down to the Regla park to have a look.

After scrutinizing the frenzy of work and the colorful equipment for a few minutes from the curb, the old man walked up to an American and said, in English only, "Thank you," before going back home.

"For all he's seen and heard about America," Hauf said, "I bet the last way he thought the Americans would be coming to town would be bearing playground equipment."

David Graham: (619) 542-4575; david.graham@uniontrib.com

Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.