Some Saturdays or Sundays, when I have a little bit of money and want to dance to some rock music, I get ready to go out. First, I choose a simple outfit (jeans, a blouse and a pair of comfortable sneakers). I pick up my purse and daub some perfume on my chest.
Read MoreAt the end of March, I had the immense fortune of finding a well-paying job with a construction brigade (the kind that does restoration work in historic sites around Old Havana), with a nice guy for a boss. The first day, I hammered away energetically, eager to get to the end of the month and to collect my 60 CUC.
Read MoreCuba’s Granma newspaper website recently changed their look and several features including the new possibility of posting comments. We should pay attention to these shy steps and what they could mean for the future: a move towards an acceptable model of free press, or a mere disguise used to conceal the censorship mechanism we know so well.
Read MoreIt was ten to 8 pm, the time the second screening begins at Havana’s La Rampa theater. We were waiting to go in and see the Turkish film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, winner of the Grand Jury Award at Cannes. Ready to take in the 157-minute movie, we were waiting for the ticket booth to open.
Read MoreThe large bus substitute people in Cuba call “camels” – a means of transportation created in the 1990’s to address a critical period of shortages in the country – are a dying species. Once, Havana was teeming with these two-humped lorries with noisy doors which were always packed with passengers.
Read MoreEvery year, I ask myself whether there is any truth to the claim that the huge crowds the annual Havana book fair draws are owed to the “keen interest in reading and the eagerness to buy books that characterizes the population.”
Read MoreThe International Investigative Commission on the Case of the Cuban Five, which convened in London on March 7 and 8th, relying on the participating of prestigious jurists and personalities from around the world and arriving at important conclusions, constitutes an important part of efforts aimed at securing the release of the Cuban anti-terrorist activists who continue to serve prison sentences in the United States.
Read MoreWhat’s really going on with renewable sources of energy in Cuba? The island’s official press is brimming with optimism in this connection, but, do we actually have reason to be so positive? I will start this post with one of the most widely divulged “half-truths”.
Read MoreI am citizen number 96111609987 – a non-organ donor, male. This is some of the information used to classify me, in much the same way a lifeless product is categorized. I’ve hated IDs ever since I turned 16. Before that, I used to go out without a care in the world.
Read MoreA close relative of mine who studied at a religious school in Cuba (Los Hermanos Maristas) was telling me there was a priest at the school who would pat him on the head and sometimes even kiss him on the cheek. This made me think about the issue of religion.
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