Diaries

Website Makes Life Easier for Cubans

The website revolico.com has helped facilitate daily life for many Cubans. One needs only connect to this eclectic online center of classified ads to obtain anything as varied as computer accessories, an inter-provincial house swap or a gallon of paint.

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The Official Image of Cuba’s Provinces

Supposedly for purposes of promoting tourism, the official image of Cuban provinces is perpetuated, in great measure, through the old mansions and productive infrastructure of the former wealthy classes that inhabited and managed them.

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A Special Drink Made in Cuba: Pru Oriental

Pru Oriental is a refreshing brown-colored drink with medicinal properties. Brought to Cuba by French colonialists after the Haitian Revolution, its production began in the eastern part of the island, although today it’s sold all over the country.

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A Frustrated Trip Abroad

Alfredo, the young man who I wrote about who would sell his clothes and equipment received as a member of the national swimming team, has quit the sport. He still doesn’t know what he’s going to live on in the immediate future.

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One More Take on Habanastation

Marked social differences in Cuba have never ceased to exist. They were there while we were a Spanish colony, while we were an American colony, and they’re here today though we’re not a colony of anyone, but victims of obstinate ideologies.

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The Pan American Games in Cuba, 20 Years On

This past August marked the twentieth year since the holding of the XI Pan-American Games in Cuba. The media featured special reports, documentaries and roundtables on the international event as we watched sequences of some of the competitions on our TV screens.

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Finita, the Self-Employed Worker

A month ago Finita got her “self-employed worker” license that permits her to sell light refreshments in the street. She didn’t want to sell other food because at her age she doesn’t have the physical strength to carry so much on her back.

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