Viva Cuba healthy!

Not Just Tourists relies on pasty Canadian
sun-seekers to deliver much-needed medical
supplies to embargoed commie bastion

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Sharon Sweeney

Age: 44

Occupation: Montreal rep for Not Just Tourists

Bio: This spicy NDG gal had been working in the travel industry before putting her career aside a few years back to become a full-time mother. A benevolent babe who’d spent many a vacation in Cuba—well-conscious of said country’s shortage of basic medical supplies and forever wondering what she could do to help out—about three years ago, Sharon started hunting around for ideas and was soon turned on to an organization called Not Just Tourists, which she now represents here in Montreal. Should you ever be heading to the land of Fidel and feel like bringing a 10-kilo suitcase full of humanitarian aid along with you to distribute to the godless commies over there, contact her via pqt.njt.montreal@gmail.com.

Approximately how many drug-filled suitcases they send to Cuba every month: Anywhere between six and 12 during the winter high season.

What’s in ’em: “Gauze, Tylenol, Band-Aids, Tums, ibuprofen, stuff like that, but never anything narcotic or dangerous. Strictly medicinal goods.”

How it works: “It’s simple. You just contact me, we meet, you tell me where you’re going in Cuba, I give you the names and addresses of clinics and hospitals around where you’ll be staying, a letter in Spanish which explains what you’re doing, forms for your Cuban clinic to sign once you get there so we know the supplies don’t end up on the black market, a suitcase full of supplies, you drop it off, and that’s about it.”

How do people know this isn’t some elaborate plan to smuggle crappy Quebec cocaine back to the Caribbean, where, even as a tourist in police state Cuba, the determined can still usually find 85 per cent pure blow for roughly $40 a gram? “Maybe that’s why nobody’s ever been too concerned that might be what we’re doing. I actually ask everyone who takes a suitcase to unpack and pack it again so when they’re asked at the airport if anybody else packed their suitcases for them, they can answer ‘No’ honestly.”

Who’s supplying these Cuban goodwill packages anyway? “They’re largely donations. For example, Selwyn House did a huge fundraiser for us a couple years ago that allowed us to fill maybe 100 suitcases with supplies. But we also get pharmaceutical samples and overstock from doctors’ offices and other places that find themselves with surpluses. I’ve still never received anything from the pharmacy chains though, as much as I’ve tried.”

Why should anyone bother taking time out from their vacation to supply band-aids to the Castro bros’ totalitarian regime? Maybe if enough Cubans got sick enough often enough, they’d finally get fed up, do the revolution thing they’re so good at and overthrow the tyrants to embrace life, liberty and corporate Amerika once again: “For starters, NJT isn’t in the slightest bit political. And when you get there and give them these supplies, well, that’s when the beauty starts. These people really need this stuff and are just so happy when they get it that they usually treat you very, very well. And then you might get taken off the beaten track to see things most tourists never see.”

Last book read: The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster.

Musical preferences: Wings, Michael Franti.

Words of wisdom: “Wait and see.”

Comments: dimwit@hdot.net