This past weekend, from in my stairwell I could hear the racket of the fumigation machines, which sounded close by. I had clothes hanging on the line and the lunch half done when an exterminator came to my door.
Read MoreIt’s not that I particularly like stories of conflict or people’s love lives in crisis; it’s just that without me searching for them, they find me. This is why I write about them so often, especially if economic issues are the defining elements.
Read MoreIn Cuban elementary education there is an institution that strives to instill state and government values in students enrolled in the first through the sixth grades. This subject is known by students and teachers by the name Los Pioneros, (The Pioneers.)
Read MoreAlida was one of the first self-employed workers in Cuba. Back in the ‘90s she got a license to repair and make glasses, since she was able to present her certificates and titles that indicated her training in that line of work.
Read MoreAt that time, my late mother was barely 16 years. She was the daughter of parents who identified with the revolution and—herself deeply moved by everything that was happening—she joined the brigade.
Read MoreFrom when I was a child, I remember my father going off to participate in the sugar harvest at a time when the country was engrossed in the attempt to harvest no less than 10 million tons of sugar.
Read MoreDo you remember the book The End of History? It was written by the neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama, the co-founder of the (imperialist) Project for the New American Century.
Read MoreFor a long time there has been talk of unifying the two currencies. I don’t think this will happen soon. To be honest—though it may seem like a radical thought—I do not think this will ever be done.
Read MoreOne benefit of Cuba’s very centralized bureaucracy is the prevalence of statistical data on just about anything at any level of government. This extends from the Federal level to the neighborhood Committee of the Defense of the Revolution.
Read MoreWhen people find out that I have a dual ethnic identity, that I share Russian and Cuban origins, and that I had a childhood and adolescence that were also shared between the two countries, they often ask, “What language do you think in?”
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