“Indirect users” are no more than those people without Internet access, or even email, who construct social networks based on friends who have access to the Web through their jobs or, in rare cases, those who are allowed to have email at home for a few hours a month.
Of all the people who send in comments to Havana Times, “Luismi” is my favorite. His enjoyable presentations — with self-dubbed nicknames ranging from “Luismi the Rat” to “Luismi the lover,” and even the denigrating “Luismi the dictator”.
Macrobiotic diets are winning more followers every day in Cuba since it turns out that simultaneously feeding and maintaining one’s health is the premise of this eating regime created by the Italian sculptor Mario Pianesi.
The power of decision making for a social group is held either by an aristocrat, a dictator, the people, the middle class, the populace, the rich or by a priest. We can speak of aristocracy, autocracy, democracy, mesocratic, ochlocracy, plutocracy or theocracy.
If this country does not embrace this technology in the immediate future, availing itself of the wide possibilities of that reserve of knowledge that is the Internet, an increasingly real possibility exists that in a few years we will have an entire nation of illiterates here in Cuba.
In Cuba, “having a ‘chino’ behind you” is an expression to describe bad luck. It refers to day-to-day luck, which is what’s needed to get through daily life. It’s the kind of luck that translates into good transportation, easy access to food or the good functioning of the institutions on which we each rely.
“Pulling a victory out of the fridge” is an expression used in Cuba by sports announcers to describe that boxer who, after having been beat in each round, is able to win the fight thanks to a devastating blow at the last moment, something nobody watching was expecting.
The website revolico.com has helped facilitate daily life for many Cubans. One needs only connect to this eclectic online center of classified ads to obtain anything as varied as computer accessories, an inter-provincial house swap or a gallon of paint.
I greatly doubt that any other country in the western hemisphere has such ideal conditions for someone to “unplug” as does Cuba.
Last month I visited my hometown of Santiago de Cuba. When walking through the streets of my native city, what unavoidably came to my mind was the post by my Havana Times colleague Dariela Aquique.