Author: Daisy Valera

Should I spend my last 50 cents? Will I or won’t I end up being cheated by the phone company? But after the fifth ring I had no doubt, so I accepted the charge [in Cuba you have to pay to receive calls] and got the phrase: “I have to see Daisy …today.”

The Cubavision Television network will soon begin broadcasting a new Brazilian telenovela: “Insensato Corazon” (Foolish Heart). Watching it, my grandmother will feel bad about the misfortunes of the protagonist and curse of those ne’er-do-wells who always make life impossible.

I don’t know how many times a police officer has beaten or dragged in Pablo this month. I don’t know if tonight he’ll sleep under a roof, in the Plaza del Sol or in jail. I fear for his agile hands, and for his voice that cured my allergy to the Iberian accent.

Yesterday I was almost happy, although it may seem that pleasing me isn’t something so easy. The titles of my posts are usually more like: “My job is going to kill me” or “My pay isn’t enough.”

Warning: I don’t believe that “complaining” is the prostitution of one’s character. For this reason, and as a way of thanking all of the readers of Havana Times who have tried to help me, I’m writing this second part in an attempt to jump from complaining to reality.

Almost every evening, as 10:00 p.m. approaches, I try to go to sleep. I try to close my eyes and stop thinking. I try to forget that in the morning I’ll go back to my beat-up desk and an office that always reminds me of a suffocating 12-by-12-foot cell.

The question “What is The Revolution” in Cuba could have been the title of Rebeca Chavez’s latest documentary “Luneta No.1.”, which premiered recently in Havana.

Could it be that the Ministry of Transportation has come to the conclusion that the bureaucracy eating away at that agency is preventing it from providing people with decent services? Could it be that the proliferation of small, privately owned food stands has only resulted in the theft of supplies and the aggravation of the public health situation?

My mother called me on the phone at my job to tell me that I don’t love her. She told me that she had been sick but that I didn’t go see her this past Mother’s Day. She said that it’s been more than six months since I’ve gone back to my hometown.

Demands such as the legalization of gay marriage and the possibility of child adoption by gay individuals or couples still loom as battles for the future in a society still marked by a high degree of homophobia.