Author: Danae Suarez

The small business that my family decided to start in order to survive was renting an apartment. In this case it meant renting out my grandmother’s apartment, where I had been living for a while, independently and far from my parents.

A verse in a popular song goes, “Oh mamma Ines, all us blacks drink coffee.” But for a long time this should have been changed to, “Oh mamma Ines, all Cubans drink coffee.”

Although I admit that for some hidden reason or maybe because of my sensitivity toward children, I noticed something about her: she’s always attentive to the street from her high and barred-in balcony, she was always gazing out and always alone.

The current problem of the lack of medicine in the country is reaching alarming levels, and it’s already gone past that point for medicines required for special illnesses.

The week before last I talked about the water leaks suffered in the streets of Havana. Today I want to refer to the poor state of the capital’s streets stemming from the lack of repair work.

In Cuba every day ambles by marked more by stagnation and the lack of any seeming need for promptness. To waste time, sometimes out of simple apathy or because there’s no other alternative (which is usually the case), is the fate of Cubans.

The city’s historical center is currently undergoing a reconstruction effort led by City Historian Eusebio Leal. Walking through the streets of Old Havana no longer seems dangerous, at least not from above.

People talk a lot about the violence that reigns among the peoples of Latin America today. Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia are all countries — to mention only a few — that possess ruptured systems of civil security.

Several days ago I was taking the bus home, and I wouldn’t be lying if I said I felt completely out of context among the passengers.

The problem is the poor preparation acquired by these students, who for more than six years have been dragged along by a faulty educational system made up principally of “fast-track teachers.”