At a time when educational exchange programs with Cuba are disappearing, a class from UC Davis traveled to Havana Sunday carrying money belts filled with Canadian currency and a curiosity about one of the last communist countries.

The Cuba program will be an intensive 10-week experience filled with side trips across the island to African-Cuban and other cultural enclaves, Spanish and music classes, and individual ethnographic studies of Cubans.

It has drawn 10 students who will have an international experience unlike any other, said UC Davis comparative literature professor Marc Blanchard, a Cuba cultural scholar who has visited the island more than a dozen times in the past decade. "I take kids abroad to Paris every summer for a class on expatriate literature, but it's not a big deal. They have corn flakes and cell phones, and everybody speaks English," Blanchard said. "They will have none of that in Cuba."

"This is one of the last non-global places on the planet," added his co-instructor, music professor Pablo Ortiz.

Students will take four classes during the quarter. Several will interview popular musicians to create ethnographic studies of an elite group who, because of their popularity among tourists, earn as much as $40 an hour compared to the $20-a-month salaries earned by lawyers, professors and doctors.

For the faculty and students making the trip, it will be a rare educational opportunity. Federal restrictions and a Cuban retaliation for using U.S. dollars have put almost all American educational programs to Cuba out of business, say university administrators.

However, international education is a top priority at UC Davis, said William Lacy, vice provost for outreach and international programs. Nearly 20 percent of the campus's 23,000 students study abroad during their undergraduate years.

Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said: "I hope that a global perspective will eventually permeate our curriculum and our discussions and that the day will come when all of our students will be able to have an experience in another culture."

The federal government changed its rules in June for cultural exchanges in Cuba, boosting the required stay from two to 10 weeks, a logistical and fiscal problem for many universities, including UC Berkeley, which suspended its program.

Students will pay nearly $11,000 for the 10-week program, due to the Cuban government fees on top of airfare, housing, meals and other expenses. That, combined with the uncertainty of changing regulations from both the U.S. and Cuban governments, made for a rough ride this fall for UC Davis administrators and students who wanted to stick with the program.

UC Davis applied for and received a license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury that allows UC Davis students to study in Cuba. While there, each student has been asked to carry a copy of the license.

Students have been asked to bring vitamin supplements, aspirin and other medicines common in the United States, since such commodities do not exist in Cuba. Often water and electricity will be cut off during the day, and students will be totally dependent on public transportation, Blanchard said. To gain access to a computer or phone, students will have to visit a hotel near their rooms in a converted Havana mansion.

Because the Cuban government is charging a 10 percent surcharge on the use of American dollars, the class has been urged to exchange dollars for another currency, such as Canadian dollars or euros, before they leave on the trip.

Jade Turner, a fourth-year political science major, wants to study the African diaspora in the Caribbean. "I'm excited about being independent and getting out of my comfort zone," Turner said. "I'm looking forward to seeing the big picture in Cuba, the people and what their life is like."