We were carrying a two-meter-tall, cardboard house. We only had a few blocks to walk to reach Esquina de Tejas, where the bus would pick us up. It was the opening day of the Puente Sur National Performance and Installation Day.
Read MoreObama came to Cuba and I can’t help wonder whether the much-announced changes will actually take place. I’ve become a little incredulous, see, having heard the same things time and time again and then seen that next to nothing changes.
Read MoreI’ve had two unpleasant, nearly traumatic run-ins with fire in my life. The first time I was around 13 and lived in a house with a guano thatched roof, much like the surrounding houses, on a lot rented out by a landowner.
Read MoreThe longest performing rock and roll band, the Rolling Stones, played their long-awaited first concert in Cuba on the evening of Good Friday, March 25. It was a free event and held on a sprawling outdoor grass area of what is known as Havana’s Sports City. The happening was amazing after decades of cultural repression.
Read MoreAs Obama was landing in Cuba I got a call from the US Embassy. They invited me to attend the speech the US president would deliver at Havana’s Gran Teatro, before members of civil society, on March 22. Incidentally, my beloved and only grandmother would be turning 89 that day.
Read MoreThe Rolling Stones are coming. They will play on the night of a holiday, Good Friday. The Cuban State declared this day a holiday four years ago, as a show of respect towards members of the Catholic Church.
Read MoreEvery 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.
Read MoreI wasn’t able to hold back the tears when I heard him pronounce such words as “the future of Cuba has to be in the hands of Cubans,” his faith in the new generations, in Cuba’s youth, and my own hopes of building a freer, more equitable and truly just Cuba.
Read MoreOne of the major contradictions caught sight of in Cuba’s self-employment and small business liberalization process is the marked absence of a wholesale market that can sustain the activities of these two sectors.
Read MoreReliable sources informed me that certain magnates and Cuban-American and US lobbyists met with members of the president’s staff to try and temper the tone of Obama’s speech on the island dealing with the support for democracy and human rights.
Read More
