The arts supplies they directed to Cuba last month are still a hostage, of sorts.
Two Southern Arkansas University professors had shipped eight bags of cement and an estimated 6 gallons of paint materials to Havana for an art project they had planned to start and complete during the Thanksgiving holiday at the University of Artemisa. All of it got there two days before it was scheduled to arrive.
But Cuban customs never released it.
Even after daily calls during their nearly weeklong stay -- including from the country's Ministry of Higher Education -- the art materials are still not liberated.
The glitch was one of the last in a string of events for Ed Kardas, a distinguished professor of psychology; Steven Ochs, an art professor; and SAU student Veronica Ramirez. The trio arrived in the country Nov. 20 and stayed through Nov. 26, a trip that coincided with the death of former President Fidel Castro.
The November excursion is what the Magnolia university's leaders hope will lead to more student and faculty exchange programs with even more Cuban universities, an unprecedented move in Arkansas. SAU is already planning to host the University of Artemisa president in August when, SAU President Trey Berry said, they will sign formal agreements for the exchange program.
"Their administration, faculty, and students have been so gracious to us during our past several trips to advance our friendship," Berry said. "This new relationship will provide great opportunities for students and faculty from both Artemisa and SAU."
The relationship stems from Kardas' trip to the country with the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce in May 2015, shortly after the U.S. began easing travel restrictions to Cuba, Kardas said.
SAU started the Extramural Education Committee once Kardas got back, he said, and the group pieced together in Spanish a webpage about SAU and brochures that he could take along for his second trip, back in February. He and Juping Wang, an associate professor of Spanish at SAU, lugged so many brochures that they had to pay $77 in overage fees, he said.
The two went to Universidad 2016, an international conference on higher education in Havana. As Margarita Gonzalez -- University of Artemisa's director of international affairs and a psychology professor -- tells it, Kardas grew tired and asked if he could sit down at their table, he said.
"We were lucky we found each other," Kardas said. "We started trying to plan for the exchange, and we ended up picking art."
Students and faculty in Artemisa put together thumbnail sketches with 40 to 50 elements of design in about eight drafts, Ochs said. The project -- originally planned as a relief, with textured and elevated parts -- represents images of the emerging relationship between the two schools.
Initially, Ochs made suggestions and answered questions, but the design wouldn't be finalized until they got to Cuba. SAU got word in September that they would be allowed on the Artemisa campus.
"It turns out you can't just walk onto a Cuban campus," Kardas said. "There are guards at all the gates and at all the doors. We had permission, a special visa, and that kind of thing. We could only bring the people we said we were going to bring."
The professors actually intended to bring two students, but one dropped out of going to Cuba. And they couldn't swap anyone else in.
Ramirez, a 19-year-old sophomore studying game design and animation at SAU, said Ochs originally asked her about coming along in the spring. The Huntsville native, who is fluent in Spanish, said she wasn't sure at first.
"I'm a very introverted person, so I hold back on taking chances like that," she said. "The whole trip for me was completely paid, and so I just figured this is the only chance that this could happen. I kind of took the chance on it and went for it."
Step One was getting their visas, which were sent to the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C., Kardas said. They got their congressman's office to pick them up and send them back home, receiving them two days before they were to leave, he said.
Next was getting to Artemisa. The three drove to Dallas, flew to New Orleans and then to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. From there, they flew to Varadero, a tourist destination in Cuba. They were then driven 150 miles to Artemisa.
And then they had to finish the art project.
Smith Paint, one of Ochs' sponsors, provided stains, sealers and polymer overlays that shipped from Canada and was routed through the Dominican Republic, Germany and then to Cuba, Ochs said.
"Just imagine the most Kafka-esque bureaucracy," Kardas said. "We found out late in the game that not any Tom, Dick or Harry can pick it up. You have to have a Cuban importer pick it up for you. I think the subtext here is you have to plan out what will happen."
Luckily, Ochs had brought Bosch tools, including dye grinders, with him on the plane.
The group had to have a Plan B. And a Plan C. And they got all the way up to E.
"That's every day in Cuba," Ochs said. "You have to be pretty innovative and try to figure out another way of doing it."
Still, he said, they finalized a design incorporating both of the schools' logos.
"Their logo is based off a stained-glass image that's on a very important memorial there in Artemisa," he said. "It represented the martyrs that fought with Castro in the revolution."
The SAU trio visited the mausoleum with the memorials of the men, some 30 or so from Artemisa, who were recruited by Castro to attack the Moncada barracks. The 1953 coup failed but the attack is known as the "first shot" in the revolution, according to a PBS report. Castro eventually overthrew Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship and took power New Year's Eve 1958.
Kardas was a child in Cuba when Castro took over, he said. The professor's father worked for the State Department and was posted in the country from 1957 to 1960, when Kardas was 8 to 11 years old. He didn't know what was going on at the time, but Kardas saw that many of his classmates and neighbors fled after the revolution.
He and the others worked day in and day out during that November trip. They cleaned and scrubbed the concrete wall with brooms and buckets of water, Ochs said. They changed the medium after they couldn't find a substitute for the concrete stains. Kardas had found someone in Havana who sold them acrylic paint, and they were still able to carry out some 3-D elements and texture to the 9-by-23-foot mural.
On their last day in Cuba, Ochs received a text from his wife informing him that Castro died and wondering if they would have problems coming back home. He didn't know.
One of Castro's last public appearances was in Artemisa, Kardas said, adding that the mood was somber. The flags were at half-staff, but the airport was business as usual, he said.
Despite all the challenges, Ochs and Ramirez said there was never a language barrier.
"Any time any of the artists were speaking about the mural and what they were trying to do, they just kind of understood," she said.
The Artemisa university has already approved other murals on the campus, Ochs said. He taught them how to use the tools and the paint -- if they are ever released by customs -- both of which were left for the university.
SAU is also planning to have a sister mural on its campus.
"It'll be a public art piece and, hopefully, like the one we created there," Ochs said. "All of it will be meaningful."
Metro on 12/31/2016