Author: Danae Suarez

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve loved to go on walks through the streets of Old Havana, strolling between its porticos and columns, admiring its stained-glass windows and the colonial roofs.

A few days ago I received a visit of a friend who works in Italy. Since she knows that I adore Parmesan cheese, she brought back a little bottle of grated cheese as a gift.

Early last Monday morning I went to the Karl Marx Theater here in Havana, the venue where the American Ballet Theatre will perform the first week of November. When I got there, a veritable “Trojan War” had broken out. People crowded into eight lines, with everyone pushing and screaming.

Wouldn’t a more rational alternative —though one also more feared— be the country’s opening up to foreign investment for the creation of small and medium sized companies?

I was elated several months ago when I read in the nation’s official newspaper that each of the Havana buses on the new P lines would have a GPS unit installed on it. “Modern technology has finally made it to the island!” I exclaimed.

Trying to submerge myself in “a thing in itself,” as Kant would say, I headed off to the “agro” (agricultural market) at 42nd and 19th in the capital city’s Playa neighborhood.