Tourists who come to Cuba obviously arrive with certain stereotypes about the society and people that they are going to encounter. Years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by the remark of an Italian friend after her first day in Havana: “there are no ‘typical’ Cubans”.
Read MoreThanks to TeleSur, a few days ago I learned about a photo published in the Spanish newspaper El Pais that showed President Chavez in poor physical condition and connected to breathing apparatus. A whole program of discussion and debate regarding the incident was presented.
Read MoreHis words are repeated in so many contexts, his phrases parading before our eyes and driving us almost to the edge of hysteria. His idea of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) is now used a justification for the current one-party system.
Read MoreWhoever invented the law definitely knew the trap. Yes, we can now travel as tourists; but to leave, almost any country on the globe requires — in addition to applying for a visa — money in a bank account (in euros or US dollars) that back up one’s trip.
Read MoreThe future scares me. We’ve passed the point of maximum world petroleum extraction — or “peak oil” — and in the coming years the supplies of that fuel will be insufficient to meet demand. Everything seems to indicate that the world we know will succumb.
Read More“Para saber mañana” (To Know Tomorrow) is the leading program in the government media campaign seeking to indoctrinate the younger generation of Cubans with the time-worn and fraudulent ideology of the “Cuban Revolution.”
Read MoreHaving to work to work is no more than one of the obstacles that arise when it comes to doing even the simplest thing here, and of course this is now part of the daily life of every Cuban.
Read MoreThe opportunity to live alone is something that, for many Cubans, is as impossible as finding God inside a church. When I first came to Caracas, I was worried because I knew that I didn’t have a definite place to stay.
Read MoreLeaving Cuba, by whatever means, has become the most cherished dream of many Cubans, just as many Americans dream of becoming millionaires. Although our new immigration regulations seem to open a path to this utopia, international aid missions remain the easiest way to realize this.
Read More“Don’t yell at me, it doesn’t make what you’re saying any more right”, goes a line from one of Beatriz Marquez’s songs. It was popular in the 1980s, when I was a teenager. That little refrain sticks with me like a ring on my finger whenever I read some of the comments in Havana Times.
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