Being an independent producer in Cuba means having to negotiate at least three main obstacles: the State’s monopoly over institutional spaces, the ever-present and surreptitious threat of censorship and the general lack of faith in the viability of self-management.
Read MoreOf all the problems Cuba has, the one that strikes me most when I go out on the street is the number of animals that are abandoned. Behind the impotence we feel at their suffering is an alarming lack of social consciousness and the absence of an Animal Protection Act to call a halt to all the sadism and irresponsibility.
Read MoreWhenever I hear someone complain about how bad it is Cuba, if it’s one of those people who fought, convinced of what we have today (or about the promises blown away by the wind), I’ll note that in times of greatest political upheaval, many useful details go overlooked.
Read MoreThe Hindus pray to be always in the right place at the right time. From that perspective, I couldn’t have been anywhere else on the afternoon of February 2nd, but at the Cathedral in Old Havana. I was there to see an unusual concert of a very atypical duo: Ananda Stephan and Joseph Röösli, father and son.
Read MoreCertainly there are born revolutionaries, but they’re the exceptions. Now, being strictly honest, how many human beings have proven themselves to be “revolutionary” (re-evolutionary?). How many can be revolutionary in every single aspect that society needs?
Read MoreThe months of thorny legal claims that resulting from my teenage son not being allowed to go to school because of his long hair are over. I felt relief that he decided to drop out of high school. He’ll look for other alternatives to studying and I gave up on appealing the case at more asphyxiating offices.
Read MoreThose familiar with the hawker tradition recall it as the art of promoting the wares with well-modulated inflections that tempt us more with the power of the word, with the power of the music, like that of the peanut vendor which Moises Simons immortalized through the unparalleled voice of Rita Montaner.
Read MoreThis title isn’t merely a journalistic hook; it’s the conclusion drawn by the parents of two teenagers after fruitless dialogue with the current Director of Education in the Municipality of East Havana. This is because our children, Kabir and Sebastian, have been denied access to their own school day after day for almost a month.
Read MoreAs Einstein once said, every crisis is a challenge that forces us to exploit our potential to the full, and since scammers and rip-off merchants are here to stay, it seems to me, we might as well create the job of “Scam Detector “, especially with the renewed enthusiasm there is today for self-employment.
Read MoreA friend of mine, very excited, told us that one evening he had walked by G Street and 15th, where he saw people painting on a huge wall on one of the central streets of the Vedado district. Intrigued by the size of the image, he returned the next day and was shocked by what he believed was more than just a mural
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