This week President Barack Obama became the first American president in nearly 90 years to visit Cuba, but one Cranberry Township native was there about two weeks ahead of him.

Not many Americans have visited the communist island nation since the United States broke diplomatic relations with it in 1961.

“It’s kind of strange, it’s been so off limits, but it’s just right there,” said Adam Harris, a 2014 Seneca Valley High School graduate and a sophomore at California (Pa.) University, who visited Cuba earlier this month.

In December 2014, Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro announced that the two countries were taking steps to normalize their relations.

This first step included allowing some educational and sports trips to Cuba. The Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday played the Cuban National Baseball Team. Obama attended the game.

From March 4 to 12, Harris spent a week touring Cuba along with five California faculty and five other history students.

What they saw was shocking and fascinating, Harris said.

The capital city Havana, which welcomes tourists from nearly every country besides the U.S., looks good, but outside the city most people live in extreme poverty.

Despite their living conditions and the history of animosity between Cuba and the U.S., the Cuban people were generally friendly and welcoming and many of them speak English, he said.

“Technically we’re enemies, and we’re not supposed to like each other, but I didn’t experience anyone being rude to me,” he said.

Since his group spent a lot of time driving around in a bus, Harris noticed that the roads are crumbling, the cars are old and give off noxious exhaust fumes, and many people try to hitch rides.

“They put all their money into health care and education and forgot about the infrastructure. The entire place looks like it hasn’t had any work in 50 years,” he said.

Since the students on the trip are studying the history of Cuba, they visited the Bay of Pigs area, site of a failed U.S. -backed invasion in 1961.

They also visited multiple Community Projects” where disadvantaged students were participating in gymnastics, art or other activities.

Traveling the country, it was apparent to Harris that it is ruled by a totalitarian, communist regime.

For example, in Havana there are no billboards and minimal public advertising. But there are murals and governmental propaganda on display, Harris said.

One mural’s message translates to “Socialism or Death” while another reads “Revolution is Forever.”

The trip was led by California history professor Sean Madden, who said he began planning the trip through Education First tours in January 2015.

Classified as a People to People trip, they had to stick to a strict itinerary that focused on the themes and parameters of a People to People trip, he said.

The state department did not require full background checks, but it did screen each person traveling to Cuba by checking their passports and requiring them to fill out forms stating the purpose of the trip and agreeing to follow the government’s guidelines and restrictions.

One of the main goals of the trip was for the students to meet Cuban people and experience their culture, Madden said.

“When you get past the significant ideological and political barriers, people around the world are the same, with the same wants, fears, needs, hopes and ambitions,” he said.

Currently, the American public is not allowed to visit Cuba for vacation and there is still an embargo prohibiting trade. However, people who are approved to visit there may return with up to $400 in souvenirs, including rum and cigars.

Both Madden and Harris agree that the future of Cuba is uncertain.

Harris said, “It’s going to change a lot in the next few years with trade restrictions being lifted. Whenever a country is barred off from the strongest economic power in the world and then thrown back in, it’s going to see a lot of change.”

Madden said there are multiple groups with differing opinions about how relations between the U.S. and Cuba will continue.

“When I asked folks in Cuba about the future, we all agreed on the same answer. It is complicated, compounded by a large and relatively influential Cuban-American population,” he said.