“So around 1pm, I’m sitting in a college classroom with about 50 Cuban college students. The dean comes in and says in Spanish something that I didn’t really understand…I heard the words ‘Obama’ ‘lifted’ and ‘ban’ and immediately the students started screaming and almost crying. Got the full story from a guy who works between the two countries already. I couldn’t believe that diplomatic relations were resuming. All day people have been coming up to me on the street saying ‘Gracias Obama’ and ‘Tell your president we say thank you’. It’s so crazy to be in Havana on this historic day.”

I posted this status to Facebook on Dec. 17, the day that President Obama announced that the US and Cuba were returning to normal diplomatic relations after a prisoner exchange. This was at the end of my third day in the country. My dad and his organization Chicago Jazz Philharmonic received a grant to go to Cuba and work with the renown music college Universidad de las Artes, or ISA. I went along as a photographer and also to get more experience speaking in Spanish.

When I first landed in Cuba it didn’t seem much different than Miami, where I flew from. Cuba, only 90 miles from Miami, is a shorter flight than Chicago to Detroit. I started to notice little differences. The clock in the airport said 16:30, and I had to stop as and try to figure out what that meant in am/pm time. The speedometer in the car and the signs on the road read 60km.

Then, I noticed the big differences. There was no advertising, but many murals that expressed love for Cuba, the revolution, and Fidel Castro. Everyone hung laundry outside. The WiFi was only available in the hotel and was painfully slow. Some websites, such as Netflix, Skype, and YouTube never loaded. Most people drove old 50’s era American cars.

I was very scared about my Spanish skills and I didn’t think I would be able to talk to anyone. My first day in the country I felt very embarrassed by my lack of Spanish speaking ability. I couldn’t even understand what people were asking me to do. For example, some of the workers in the airport must have thought that I was Cuban, because they spoke fast Spanish to me and I kept saying “Lo siento. No entiendo.”, which means “Sorry, I don’t understand.” When we got to ISA, the music university, the students thought I understood more Spanish than I actually did.

At first, I thought it would be really scary to be in a country where I didn’t know the language well. On the other hand, people didn’t seem to judge me when I told them I didn’t understand or when I said something wrong. The students were patient with my Spanish and nodded enthusiastically when I said something correct, or when they said something correct in English. Most of the Spanish I used wasn’t in deep conversations, but I felt a connection to the students that I don’t always feel back home. This taught me that language doesn’t matter, and that despite the many things that were different about Cuba and America, there were many things that connected us.

The students at the music school were all amazing musicians, even though their instruments and equipment were all outdated. The bathrooms at the school did not have soap, toilet paper, or running water. The administration at the school told us later that they believe that spirit and willingness to work hard and succeed is the most important thing to have and that material things are not as important. Through this, I learned to always be grateful for the things that I never really think to be grateful for, like being able to flush a toilet or drink tap water. I realized how much I complain about things at school, such as the slow WiFi. The students in Cuba didn’t seem to complain about these things and although they didn’t have as nice of instruments as music students in the US, their eagerness to learn and improve and their excellent performance was truly incredible and inspiring.

Saying that Cuba changed my life is so cliche, but it’s more than true. I was able to see that some things aren’t important, like how much money a person has, what a person looks like, or what language a person speaks. It also gave me a chance to look into my own life and to be grateful for the things that I take for granted.

Effective Jan. 16, the US will officially relax many of the trade and travel bans on Cuba. The restoring of the relations between US and Cuba is giving many Cubans hope of internet access and economic advancement, is giving many Americans hope of being able to visit the island nation with less restriction, and is giving me hope to be able to return.