Author: Caridad

We are less than two weeks away from the first day of 2019, which will mark 60 years of involution, I mean revolution, in Cuba. Sixty years of state capitalism, Russian-Caribbean socialism or, simply, of a Castro monarchy.

A friend from Cuba wrote to me: Are things improving in Venezuela? I asked him why he was so curious all of a sudden, as I hadn’t insinuated anything in the conversation for him to think that. “It’s just that TeleSur said…” Ah, TeleSur!… What did TeleSur say?

I have had a temporary visa to stay in Venezuela for some years now. I could have got a Resident visa three years ago at least. With my temporary visa, I have to go every year to renew it and, as a result, get a new card made. If I already had my Permanent Residency, I would be able to put this pesky piece of bureaucratic redtape off for five years. But, things aren’t always what you want them to be…

Less than a month after Venezuela’s “change in national currency”, things have only been getting worse, which was to be expected. Prices tripling was the only thing that happened, or maybe a statistician or economist will discover that they not only tripled, they quintupled.

It’s already a well-known saying: Maduro will get Venezuela back on track “by hook or by hook” and with “a baseball bat in hand”. The Cuban/Venezuelan advisers haven’t had the creative flair to capture the image and make it into a slogan this time.

President Nicolas was protected by his competent security force, who displayed exceptional professionalism, as should have been. I could leave this article at that really, with some photos I found on Facebook about the event.

When you think you’ve seen it all, Venezuela’s Minister of Petroleum and PDVSA president, Manuel Quevedo, turns up with a mass to pray for oil as a way to increase production.

Imagine you’re sitting in your living room and you receive a call. You don’t recognize the voice on the other end of the line, but this person knows your name, your children’s names, your address and what you do.

Today, I am cooking with gas, after more than three months. Our community got together to organize getting a truck that would be responsible for distributing gas containers and I was lucky enough to get my name down on a list.

The chances of Venezuela having a new president are very scarce, bearing in mind the fact that it’s very likely that Nicolas Maduro will continue at the head of this country. And in the case Nicolas doesn’t remain in power, the new president will be Henry Falcon… who wouldn’t be “new” either.