A young Latina journalist recounts her four-year, twelve-nation tour of the Communist bloc during her education at the University of Texas, a period during which she volunteered at a Moscow children's shelter, edited propaganda for the Chinese communist party, worked as a belly dancer in Cuba, and more. Original.
A young Latina journalist recounts her four-year, twelve-nation tour of the Communist bloc during her education at the University of Texas.
Desperate to escape south Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. So she headed to Russia looking for some excitement - commencing what would become a four-year, twelve-nation Communist bloc tour that shattered her preconceived notions of the "Evil Empire."
In Around the Bloc, Griest relates her experiences as a volunteer at a children's shelter in Moscow, a propaganda polisher at the office of the Chinese Communist Party's English-language mouthpiece in Beijing, and a belly dancer among the rumba queens of Havana. She falls in love with an ex-soldier who narrowly avoided radiation cleanup duties at Chernobyl, hangs out with Cuban hip-hop artists, and comes to difficult realizations about the meaning of democracy.
This is the story of a young journalist driven by a desire to witness the effects of Communism. Along the way, she learns the Russian mathematical equation for buying dinner-party vodka (one bottle per guest, plus an extra), stumbles upon Beijing's underground gay scene, marches with 100,000 mothers demanding Elian Gonzalez's return to Cuba, and gains a new appreciation for the Mexican culture she left behind.
