Diaries

Class Differences in a Cuban Classroom?

When I look back at how I felt in the classroom when I first started my English course, the changes I’ve experienced seem incredible to me. At the time, I would see so many people with touchscreen phones that I was embarrassed to pull out my MP3 player, for even something as insignificant as this is a status symbol.

Read More

Cuba: No Country for the Elderly

I was thinking about the inevitable passage of time and, after a very simple calculation, concluded I would turn 50 in 10 years. In 20, if I haven’t died of a heart attack (the main cause of death among men in Cuba), I will have turned 60 and become, as they say, a senior citizen.

Read More

Cuba and Modern Technologies of Indiscretion

We’re definitely living in an era in which technology has become an essential part of people’s lives everywhere. The devices, techniques and processes employed in any field and directed towards progress and development, such as portable computers and state-of-the-art cell phones have become something like a fifth appendage for people.

Read More

Searching for Cuba’s Mahatma

A political event of huge significance for Cubans will take place in 2018: President Raul Castro will step down, not without leaving someone to his liking (and not so much the people’s) on the throne. We may breathe some winds of change initially, but, as the months pass, the situation will likely get more and more tense.

Read More

Violence, a ubiquitous ill

I asked a friend who works in Cuban television to copy me some music videos and movies. I am always on the lookout for new things. When I had a look at the folder in my computer, I saw a film titled Ex-Drummer. I started to watch it, out of curiosity, and every scene was more disgusting than the last.

Read More

Troubled Tree Planting in Havana

None of the silk cotton (ceiba) trees I’ve planted as part of the Guardabosques (“Forest Ranger”) initiative I created in 2007 with a group of people concerned about the city’s trees have survived to date. I admit I no longer know what to do about this, as I’ve tried every strategy I’ve deemed appropriate.

Read More

Will Cuba Get On Line?

The news zigzag their way through Cuba’s online media and down the grapevine. Some say it’s coming, some say it isn’t. It might be this year, there may be plans underway – maybe, we’ll see. In the midst of all this chatter and contradictory news, the arrival of an Internet connection accessible to us simple Cuban mortals seems within sight.

Read More

My First Book Gets Published in Cuba

I am 34 and about to have my first book published. I’ve been in this writing business for 17 years, struggling to get ahead, trying to get my foot in the door here and there, and the truth is that it hasn’t been easy.

Read More