Author: Maria Matienzo

I don’t like baseball; it just doesn’t go with me. I’m reminded of this each time a fan tries to explain to me the rules and I just can’t connect with the sport.

At one point in her life, Amelia acted with violence. She stabbed her husband. He simply pushed her to the edge.

I have a friend who lives on the other side of the world, which isn’t really a novelty – anyone can have a friend who asks questions and who lives on the other side of the world. The worst is when this friend asks me about my dreams.

If Joe Blow assaults Ms. So-and-so, and she wants to distance herself from him legally, there’s no way of doing so. That’s what I heard on the street, and it was later confirmed by a lawyer friend of mine.

I have a picture of my niece on the desktop of my computer. She’s only a year old and a mulata, like me. What it means to be black in Cuba is summarized by her mother, a light-brown-skinned Cuban woman who would never dream of mentioning the girl’s black grandmother.

Unlike other provinces, it’s not often that you’ll find places in Havana where the government has set up outdoor tables where you can eat and pay for your meal using the workers’ currency: moneda nacional (MN).

Ana Marta is 63 and feels tired. Tired of so many years of “working for nothing,” tired of so much “struggling without seeing the future,” she told me two days ago.

Felo says it was a crime of passion, but no one talks about it. People only know that Alexis — the guy with the prettiest wife in the neighborhood — gagged, raped, axed and then ejaculated on another man.

My friend “B” has problems with her mother. Basically she has problems living with her. Her mother goes through life with a certain dose of frustration for not having achieved everything that she set out to and makes life impossible for B.

It’s not that I particularly like stories of conflict or people’s love lives in crisis; it’s just that without me searching for them, they find me. This is why I write about them so often, especially if economic issues are the defining elements.