Ainle Ó Cairealláin

Yeah.

So we went along as part of that trip and it was a great opportunity.

But for me, like the real value in that trip came after the events of the convoy had passed after the first few days, because then we really got to speak to people at street level and go around and get to get to know Havana better.

on a better level and have proper conversations with Cubans and get to see what life is like there.

And the Cuban people are under serious pressure at the minute.

And the longer we spent there, the more questions we had.

And it was an eye-opening experience, I have to say.

And like anywhere that has a community that's in struggle, it's always the resilience of the people is the thing that shines the most

And we came away from it, I suppose, thinking just because people are able to struggle doesn't mean that they should be struggling.

And Cuba's in a very difficult situation at the minute.

It's largely because of the blockade that's been imposed upon Cuba by the United States.

But we got to go around and meet people who are working in an urban farm, people who are selling fruit on the street, people who are taxi drivers and people who are cycling electric bicycles around as a form of public transport, kind of in a way to get around the lack of fuel that's there and to speak to people who were regular Cubans.

And it was really an eye-opening experience.

I've always wanted to go to Cuba for a long time.

And I think that this was a really good time to go considering that the United States are kind of eyeing Cuba up as a place that they intend on taking over, to use their own terms.

Yeah, yeah.

On a practical level, Cuba's experiencing national blackouts on a regular basis now because of the lack of fuel that's coming in.

There's also rolling blackouts, which are more scheduled for certain parts of Havana where we were.

Or the electricity is turned off for, let's say, five or six hours and then it'll come back on again.

And the next block over then they'll have...