Osmel Almaguer’s Diary

With a week to go before the conclusion of the regular season of the Cuban Baseball Leauge, two essential features have marked its course. The first and most striking has been the decline in batting averages, while the second has been the hard fought rivalries in each of the clashes that take place.

Yesterday, after showing up to put money in my cellphone line at one of the offices of ETECSA (Cuba’s phone company), I read a notice posted on the door. Two things caught my attention, or — better said — two things pissed me off.

For many years I’ve been hearing my father say “it was the consumption of meat that enabled humans to develop their brains.” I’m sure that he obtained such information from his vast readings, always based on his understanding of Marxism.

On the news, here in Cuba, it was reported that an American student used a machine gun to shoot five of his classmates – two of whom later died. Though the incident was unfortunate, so too is what lies behind the apparent “humanity” of its reporting.

I woke up today to blasting music, but it wasn’t coming from my mother’s next door neighbors. In the homes around here there aren’t any sound systems capable of pounding the walls like this music does.

A few weeks ago I participated in one of the most impression-making meetings in all of my short life. It took place in the school where I’m currently a teacher, where those present consisted of the teaching staff as well as most of the administration.

The first class that I had with my students was focused on me getting to know them and visa versa. I was interested in learning about why they were attending that particular school, and I was especially curious about their plans for the future.

A few years ago, discussion began on radio and television sports programs about the desirability of making the All-stars Game picks in Cuba more democratic, as was formerly done on the island.

It’s no longer something merely suspected; our national sport is being sabotaged.

“Students here have no interest in learning,” said the principal of the polytechnic institute where I recently started working as a teacher. “Just take it easy; treat it like a way to survive, because if you try to force yourself it’s useless when you consider the immaturity and apathy of our students.”