Jorge Milanes’s Diary

“Freeloading is over,” the grandmother shouted at her two year-old grandson as she took off her house shoe and gave him a couple of spanks.

Manolo is a friend of mine who used to work as an electrician at the Havana train station. Recently he found himself without work as a result of the previously announced round of mass government layoffs.

I like sugar cane juice. Here we call this product “guarapo,” which was one of the foods that — along with beef jerky and root vegetables — was fed to slaves so they’d have the strength to work longer.

I have a friend who’s been a radio announcer for twenty years. In terms of the media, there’s no one who can tell him anything new. This guy has seen and heard everything.

Winter is a season many Cubans prefer because it gives us a break from the island’s suffocating heat and humidity. This is the time of the year when people seem less hurried, when winter clothes come out of the closet and perfume lasts longer.

“We’re going to the Alamar Cultural Center? Today a rock group is playing that maybe you’re familiar with; they’re called ‘The Kents,’” announced my friend and classmate.

At home we cook using a gas cylinder. We were planning a party among close friends, but it would be necessary to figure out how much gas we’d be able to use and still have enough to get through the rest of the month.

I don’t have a problem with telephone service, but I know the trouble a lot of people experience because they don’t have one of these devices in their homes – something so indispensible in this modern era.

I vividly remember the story told by Uncle Lindo, who one day went to the general store to ask if anyone was interested in breeding their hog with his sow and sharing the profits.

Jorge Milanes Despaigne Early in the morning I was walking toward the Plaza de Armas, a place where on November