Irina Pino’s Diary

Here in Cuba, these celebrations were banned for a long time but they gained new life in the ‘90s, I remember going to the midnight Mass with a friend and I loved it. That time, cups of hot chocolate, sandwiches and sweets were handed out after the religious ceremony.

Looking back over all of the years I’ve spent studying English, I’ve realized that the teaching methods used in schools haven’t been effective. The classes have too much theory and zero conversational practice. The thing is that we don’t learn it like we should: with daily feedback.

On November 29th, dawn broke with rain and trees invoking autumn. The sun replaced the rain at some point. Pain doesn’t last forever. All pain has a bright side.

As parents, it’s in our interest to forget how rebellious we were, our hate for school, our getaways, our drifting around. However, everything is born out of something, nothing just happens.

I was walking past the CIMEX stores, in the Sierra Maestra building in Miramar, and I saw a huge line. I was surprised as the home hygiene department is normally not very busy and empty most of the time…

Sexual object, sex slave, Barbie. For decades, women didn’t have the right to vote. Very few women have been the president of a country. She was reduced to giving birth without being able to stop it, constrained to the home almost by decree.

Reaching old age alone is the worst kind of loneliness. There are also elderly people who, even though they are surrounded by their family, feel excluded; young people distance themselves or ignore them; at home, their opinions don’t count or they are the last ones to be asked their opinion. They are left in their own universe bursting with memories, where they live the life that has now passed.

This post might seem out-dated, but seven days without electricity and sludge everywhere is a trauma for anyone. I never imagined that Hurricane Irma would be one of the triggers of my home arrest.

It was easy for my generation to fall in love and have sex. Everything used to flow so naturally, we weren’t after money. That doesn’t mean to say that prostitution and self-interested people didn’t exist…, however, it wasn’t an odyssey to find pleasant company, far from that.

When you are young, you don’t think too much about your appearance, you just have to be a bit charming, as firm skin makes up for a not so beautiful face. And it’s true, once your body begins to age, you begin to worry…