Osmel Almaguer’s Diary

An elevated bridge connects the area surrounding Havana’s renowned Luis Diaz Soto Hospital (better known as the “Naval Hospital”) with the neighborhood of Camilo Cienfuegos, part of the Monumental highway, which joins the center of the capital with its east-laying suburbs.

When a friend of mine, journalist Ignacio Gonzalez, approached me and invited me to host a press channel he planned on launching, the first thing I thought was that the job was not for me.

I don’t want to say these music videos are evasive. On the contrary, they seem to be a reaction to so much theatrics, so much vanity being divulged by the media. We present one from the band “Qva Libre”.

Some two hundred meters from my house, in Alamar’s Zone 11, there are a group of buildings that, even though recently constructed, are in urgent need of repairs. For bureaucratic reasons, however, the appeals of its tenants have met only with negative replies.

Recently, one of my Facebook friends was complaining on-line about the inconveniences that a US postal service had caused him. The addressee was a person this agency had already made deliveries to and claimed not to be able to find them this last time around.

Four years ago, I published a diary entry titled Holguin: My Father’s Land. In it, I reminisced on my last trip to the east-laying province, in the 80s. I recall having broadly described my impressions from then and how it pained me that I hadn’t visited my family for a long time.

At 35, Lazaro is a Cuban like many others, a good person without great ambition, that is, someone with a run-of-the-mill job and rather humble income. He has a girlfriend whom he very much wants to marry.

The waiting room of the emergency ward at Havana’s Luis Dias Soto (or Naval) Hospital has only one bathroom for both genders. The women’s bathroom has been closed up for a while now – since February, at least – and everyone uses the men’s lavatory.

The Azul (“Blue Uniform”) at the bus stop near my house earns a salary for doing nothing. Or, better said, he doesn’t earn a salary, he merely collects it. Every morning, I see him standing alone under a tree, wearing his familiar indigo uniform.

Last week, I spent a number of days in Pinar del Rio, Cuba’s westernmost province, a place renowned for its fish and tobacco – and its baseball team. A friend had invited me to her home in the south-laying town of Cortes, located in Sandino, the westernmost municipality on the island.