Osmel Almaguer’s Diary

In the 1990s everything began to disappear. Within two years, we plunged into the depth of our crisis. Almost no factory operated; benefits and services were null. I was in fact only an adolescent and not fully conscious of the process; I just knew that one day prices began to rise and products disappeared.

Today we have very well-mannered people, but also many people like these, who don’t believe in anybody. Violence engenders violence, because it is as cold as ice, and at the same time it burns like fire, and its light can leave us blind.

I’ve been going out with a woman of late. We met a few months ago, and yesterday she came over to my house for first time. My place is nice, comfortable, and it was great to be able to have my own house to spend time with her.

“The Russian” (as he is known, due to his maternal lineage) was one of the most promising figures on the Cuban men’s volleyball team until he suffered a back injury during the Pan-American Games in Río de Janeiro in 2007.

Enormous cockroaches with human heads climb out across the polished surfaces of the Museum of Cuban Art. Some have fallen, while others seem to have made it to their destination: the roof, or maybe the sky.

It’s counterproductive that we flood our own television with this virus of senseless violence, crass selfishness and a slew of other banalities. This produces a tension within our people’s collective psyche, a dual tendency of acceptance and rejection.

If I couldn’t identify more with this film, it was because of the obvious gaps in the script. The weaknesses in the storyline couldn’t be saved even by the good acting. I was unable to discern a leading character.

When most Cuban workers near retirement age, they endure poor conditions and low wages to receive a pension for their senior years. The most unpleasant aspect of this whole situation is the mistreatment and abuse that almost all bosses subject their subordinates to.

Me, just like most other honest people, are very vulnerable because the chain of swindling that has occurred in the last several years has reached astronomical proportions. This all started with the crisis that began in the early 1990s, when the economic situation was most critical.

By 1959, baseball was the island’s most popular sport. Gradually it became a political problem, especially when we played the United States. There were also difficult times in which our victories at the international level contributed to us forgetting our hunger and other needs.