A Cuban taekwondo giant said farewell to the sport some weeks ago. I am referring to Angel Valodia Matos, Cuba’s first Olympic champion in the discipline. He looked happy before the cameras, expressing his gratitude for the tribute paid him by the people and authorities of Holguin.

A kid was playing with his soccer ball near the spot where we were waiting in line to buy bread. Not far, his parents kept an eye on him while they talked. The ball flew very close to me several times but the kid’s parents never said anything to him.

For about two months now we haven’t been getting Facebook or Gmail at the Pabellón Cuba internet locale. The people using the facilities – offered free to members of the Association Hermanos Saiz – are worried and don’t know what is happening.

My uncle has a dog on a leash in his back yard. Though I’ve often heard him bark, I have never once seen him wag his tail. The poor creature has a very hard life, at the mercy of the rain, the cold and his fleas.

Though exchanging a house or apartment with “hidden defects” is punishable by law in Cuba, people continue to do it (and successfully, in more than 90 percent of cases). Hidden defects are all such flaws a household may have which are concealed when the property is shown to its future resident.

Imagine you don’t have a broad range of recreational options for the evenings that came after long days of work, that your one alternative is TV programing and that this is the one means of warding off boredom in the time spanning dinner and bedtime. Now, imagine your television set doesn’t have very good reception.

Though I thought I’d gotten over the enthrallment that this island and its people invariably inspire in visitors, I couldn’t help but feel, again, as though I were in heaven, a place where poetry, music, love and friendship ruled the roost. For four straight days, I lived on the edge, almost without sleeping…

I’d always thought of the whole dengue fever business as something that happens to others, something people can die from, but not anyone close to me. I imagine a lot of people think this way and will continue to do so. I don’t think this way anymore.

I recently paid the province of Mayabeque (formerly the eastern part of La Habana) a visit. I was invited to a meeting of writers at the Casa del Joven Creador (“Young Artist Community Center”) located in San Jose, the province’s head municipality.

When a Cuban doesn’t know what a rissole is made out of, they say it’s a “hoonos rissole.” Whoever’s next to them then says: “Who knows what it’s got inside!” and everyone has a good laugh. In addition to the few ounces of ground soy-meat you get through your ration booklet every so often, sometimes they sell you a type of mincemeat (at market price) which is practically inedible.