After crossing another item off my bucket list a visit to Colombia’s Amazon I arrived in Havana from Panama City on September 28. Ive been to more than 20 countries this year. Im not your average tourist. I go where other tourists wont. I was recently dodging bullets in the West Bank.
Ive made many trips to Cuba, visiting different parts of the island from Havana to Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba. In 2013, I started Project Love, which provides food, water and basic care packages (toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, clothing, detergent, etc) to needy Cubans.
I run a successful web development and photography business with two locations in Toronto. A few years ago I began offering aerial photography and video services using recreational drones. I brought one on my trip. It cleared customs in my backpack. I rented a car and planned to travel around the island with my translator, Junior.
On September 30, we came upon many tourists taking photographs of the buildings and old cars near Revolution Square. I jumped out, set up my drone and started flying. Four minutes later, military officers showed up. They brought me to the police station for questioning.
Flying a drone is not something that happens every day in a Third World country, although Id never had problems in other countries. Worst-case scenario, Id lose the drone. Instead, I was questioned by military, police and immigration officials for more than 13 hours for what they considered terrorist activities. I didnt know what to think. No translator was provided.
They questioned me on everything from how many times Id visited the White House to how much money was in my bank account and how I felt about Fidel Castro. Raul Castro? They asked me for the names of my employees, where they were born, what languages they speak and their religious beliefs. They seemed very upset about my charity work in Cuba.
At about 1 am, I was escorted to my rental home and told to pack whatever I could in one suitcase. Most of my belongings, including my laptop, iPhone and clothing, were confiscated.
I was taken to a detention centre. It was daylight when we arrived.
After receiving two bedsheets, a pillowcase, a towel and half a bar of soap, I was placed in a cell with no light and a small window facing a big tree. It was 7-by-7 feet (my feet). It held a bunk bed, one cot and a drain for a toilet. I got a cup of water three times a day and stale bread with white rice (and the odd time a piece of chicken). I wasnt allowed out of my cell.
There were another dozen or so prisoners in the detention centre. All were known by their countrys name. I was Canada. There were others were from Venezuela, Italy, Angola. Russia had been there the longest, some 14 months.
At first, I couldnt believe what was happening and thought once they found out I was just a small-business owner from Toronto, they would let me go. There is no way they could have looked at the footage from my drone on my iPhone and thought I was a spy. Look at my work its not even good! I already had the beginnings of a blog in my head: 72 hours in a Cuban prison.
But after the fourth day, I started imagining the worst. I had no idea what was going on outside, or if my family and friends knew what had happened to me. Did my wife and kids think I was dead? Did they think I had gotten into an accident?
It turns out my wife alerted Global Affairs officials in Ottawa when I had not called after the first day. It took a couple of days after that to find my actual location.
Global Affairs officials gave her strict orders not to contact the press while I was being held. They compared my situation to that of Alan Gross, the American government contractor who served almost four years in jail for bring satellite and computer equipment to Cuba. They told her to prepare for the worst.
On the fifth day an official from the Canadian Embassy in Cuba came to visit me. At that meeting, Cuban officials told me their investigation might take one to two years to complete. This was not going to be over quickly, they told me. They denied my request that I be allowed to spend an hour a day out of my cell like some of the other prisoners.
I spent my days play basketball in my cell, using a belt fashioned from a torn piece of T-shirt (they took my shoelaces) and attached to the edge of my bunk as a hoop, and my sock for a ball. Id count how many free throws I could make in a row. I kept score with soap on the wall. I think my record was 54 or 57. I did that all day, along with reading the back of my toothpaste tube over and over again, to keep from losing my mind.
I decided to go on a hunger strike. I reasoned that if I made myself sick I would sleep more, so time would go by faster. I also thought I could prove a point to Cuban officials, but they just laughed. They knew I wasnt suicidal. I quit my hunger strike after four days.
On the 11th day, I was brought into a little room where police, military and immigration officers told me there would be no charges. The drone footage they found on my iPhone had been deemed not harmful to the Cuban people. But I had no clue when I was going to be released.
A couple of days later, on October 12, a guard woke me up at 5 am. At 8 am, I was escorted to a travel agency to buy a plane ticket and taken to the airport, where an immigration official accompanied me to my seat on an Air Canada flight. He told me I was welcome back in Cuba any time.
As told to Enzo DiMatteo.
Editor’s note: Austin Jean, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, confirms in an e-mail to NOW Magazine that “consular officials at the Embassy of Canada in Havana, Cuba provided consular services to a Canadian citizen detained.” And that “consular officials were in contact with local authorities to gather additional information.” Global Affairs, however, declined to provide further details “to protect the privacy of the individual concerned.”
