Janis Hernandez’s Diary

Here’s the story about the “technical norm,” the one I promised to share in my last post, the one I heard one of my compatriots tell while we were waiting outside the household appliances repair shop.

In the post I wrote last week (A Micro-Wave Oven and Macro-Stressed Woman in Cuba), I promised readers I would finish the absurd tale of my microwave’s ups-and-downs in a second post. I’d left the story at the third and last failed attempt at fixing the oven.

Microwave ovens can be of great help in the kitchen and have become nearly indispensable household appliances. They allow us to properly cook foods in a relatively short period of time and retain the nutritional properties of these foods.

The first soap opera ever (based on the radio play El Derecho de Nacer, “The Right To Be Born”) appeared in 1950. The radio program had become so popular that it was adapted for television. The number of viewers it secured is still unprecedented.

Ten days after leaders from the region met at the Summit of the Americas held in Panama, Cuban television is still airing fragments of Raul Castro’s address between different programs. In recent days, the news announced that “all of the people of Cuba support Raul’s remarks at the Summit of the Americas.”

For years, the Cuban State has been preaching that so-called “internationalist missions” are a means of offering other nations “selfless aid.” Many of us know, however, that something else hides behind this philanthropist spiel…

Some have turned the sale and subsequent care of pets into the business of the moment in Cuba. Private businesses that sell purebred animals have sprung up around the country.

Cuba’s official discourse cannot help but celebrate or solemnly commemorate certain events. There is even a television program about such events, where I’ve heard as absurd commemorative remarks as: “On a day like today, the Commander in Chief visited this or that place.”

Hard-currency stores were part of a government strategy launched a little over twenty-years ago to collect and control the convertible currencies the population had. They appeared as limited companies or department store chains subordinate to the Council of State.

The Cuban news have been touching on the issue of the US embargo and the re-establishment of relations between Washington and Havana for some time now. The headlines have already become rather monotonous.