Nonardo Perea Diary

I find it very curious that President Obama’s address to the people of Cuba on March 22nd hasn’t been re-aired. I say I find this “curious” because these events tend to be covered extensively in Cuba, where they normally repeat things ad nauseum…but this wasn’t this case this time.

Every time my friends meet up at my place, we end up talking about the issue on everyone’s lips these days: Internet in Cuba, specifically the Wi-Fi hot zones that can be accessed through pre-paid cards, the easiest means we have to connect to the web.

I arrived at the Wi-Fi hotspot at the Marianao amphitheater at around five in the afternoon. Immediately, a sixtyish woman approached me to offer me connection time for 1 CUC.

I was hoping something would change this year, but nothing has. Instead, as Julio Iglesias’ song goes, “life is still the same” and we continue to hear the same, boring rhetoric everywhere.

There’s nothing in life I fear more than being unable to carry out my plans. I’m the type of person who’s always looking for new things to do. I write short stories, I make and act in my own films, I dream up the occasional film script and a million other things.

In Cuba, your pockets may be full of all kinds of bills and you can still run into all manner of obstacles and mistreatment at stores while trying to make a simple purchase. The lesson of the story is that, on the island, money doesn’t change things.

The government’s methods change over time. In the 90s, during the Special Period, power cuts were scheduled and people were informed of them in advance through different media. For several months now, they have been unannounced.

It’s said that what a writer sitting in front of a blank page needs is for his muse to come down and inspire him. I don’t put much stock in that. What I personally need to write a good story is absolute peace and quiet.

Whenever acts of police brutality take place in other corners of the world, Cuban television wastes no time to show us the images. They don’t seem to know, or pretend not to know, that police brutality exists in Cuba as well.

It was just a matter of time. A few days ago, at the Wi-Fi hot spot in Mariano, they killed a young man to take his laptop. As a result of this tragedy, they removed the power outlets neighbors had installed there so that users could connect their devices.