Author: Veronica Vega

Watching the movie Seven Days in Havana, with it seven stories by seven different directors (and with the list led by Benicio del Toro and concluded by Juan Carlos Tabio), serious questions arose in me as to whether Cuba is really like the way I see it and how I’ve experienced it.

A German guy who I barely know gave my son a priceless gift: the MP3 player that he’s dreamed of since high school. And since the object itself is exquisitely luxurious, and we Third Worlders are like greedy children, I’ve asked him on occasions to look at the world under the intoxicating effect of music.

The population merely reproduces a code of conduct that they have assimilated. The fact that those who demand abstinence are precisely those who fail to practice it has been true in practically all the social systems.

Personally, I don’t know any Cuban, however poor they might be, who sees themselves as living in “misery,” although this means recognizing at least a minimal degree of misfortune. But I do believe that moral misery exists in Cuban poverty.

From the compilation of Miami broadcasts that people on the island can pick up on banned satellite antennas and dishes, I found a documentary about Elian Gonzalez. What Cuban doesn’t know that name? Even my son, who was only four years old at the time of that incident, knows the story.

Whenever I ride or walk through the central areas of Havana, I have a funny feeling. It’s as if I don’t recognize the places even though I can identify every building, every park and every corner. There’s something new in the rhythm of the city, though it doesn’t involve trains that speed along at 180 miles per hour, new skyscrapers, or enormous malls.

Due to my inability to access the Internet, I had to read the comments and post titled “Controversy Around the Word ‘Terror’” in fragments and late. Still, I was left with the same questions turning around in my mind: Can fear be measured? What authority can demarcate where fear ends and terror begins?

The question posed by Havana Times contributor Jose Iser concerning the tacit ban on playing of Christian music over the Cuban airwaves, started to “pick at one of my old scabs” (meaning it’s one of those sore points that never really heals because there’s no real cure or solution).

A few weeks ago, just by chance, I saw a report on “the real United States” by Tele Sur (the Venezuelan Television network) broadcast here on Cuban TV. Among other things, the material showed the tragedy of the homeless including many Iraq veterans.