Alfredo Fernandez’s Diary

The Anonymous Complaint

Here in Cuba, the un-signed message is the surest way to report misappropriated resources, to identify beneficiaries or to blow the whistle on horrifying manipulations of financing.

Predictable Journalism

My father and a friend’s mother named Daysi, like many people in Cuba, have not had access to other non-state information sources for years. It is to the point that when they hear a rumor about some event outside or inside the country, if it isn’t confirmed to them by the government, they’ll never accept it as the truth.

A Broken Pitcher

I don’t know of another “animal exhibitor” in Cuba except for the man in the photo, the sole person who does this work listed by the Ministry of Labor as one of the 178 types of jobs for which self-employment is now permitted.

The Return of an Epoch

Ivette Cepeda’s voice returned us suddenly to some Havana night in the 1950s, when this was a city teeming with excellent singers and there were as many cabarets as in New York or Paris – without exaggerating.

Sleeping on the Havana Malecon

Her house shoes are under the bed close by her feet, so if she has to go to the bathroom during the night she won’t have to step on the cold floor, since that’s bad for her health. The “bed,” though a bit hard, is at least a “bed.”

Mary, Customs Needs Your Blessing!

No, it’s not what all of you are thinking. What you’re reading above is the English translation of the title of an article by journalist Onnis Tur Pompa in the on-line bulletin of the Conference of Cuban Catholic Bishops.

Slow Internet Connection

The news about the laying of an underwater fiber optic cable that will reach our island from Venezuela should be a reason for joy, but seems to be irrelevant because everyone feels skeptical about the real possibility of eventually having open access to the Internet.