Diaries Archives - Page 536 of 639

The Thanksgiving Cuba Airport Scene

In a recent trip to the airport I found myself waiting with an eager crowd of Cubans who had dressed to the nines to receive their guests.

Who Says People Don’t Work?

On a trip to Holguin province, I visited places where people were able to quench their thirst by buying drinking water from independent vendors.

Verbal Violence & “A Stick Across Your Face”

I find it increasingly annoying to see how my fellow citizens so easily turn to violence —lining it with grace— by adding it to the vox populi in this fashion.

The Enraged Bus

I felt I was lucky. I’d even passed up piling on the last of the four P-11s with the full faith that the next one would soon be by. Such excessive optimism dealt me a bad hand.

I feel the obligation and pleasure in clarifying that following that first and fateful impression, I’ve begun to especially appreciate the titanic task of one group, the teachers, who are practically giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in an attempt to revive the near dead.

A Call for Unity From Below

We heard the rumor that Santa Cruz’s hospital was going to be turned into a simple polyclinic and that all the specialized services would disappear. Such a decision, taken centrally by the government as part of its new plan for budgetary resource optimization, was not initially discussed with the residents of Santa Cruz.

Girl, you better be careful!

To present ideas, to speak out, to express an opinion, these are seen as restricted exclusively to the domain of so-called feedback meetings with community delegates or the many other meetings we’re required to attend.

Cuba’s Communist Party Congress…at Last

The congress is being organized for this coming April, and it will be held on the basis of those economic and social guidelines. But after reading the guidelines, I can’t say I was satisfied – not at all.

We must first respect ourselves

The need to take care of the environment is constantly reported on in the media. Programs are featured on climatic change and what we are calling for at the world level to stop the degradation that we have all caused to mother earth. But there’s a big difference between what’s being said and what’s being done.

Whoa…Scary!

A specter is haunting the streets of the city but, unlike in the last century, it’s not that of communism. It is a phantasm – one that makes the hair on the back of your neck bristle, or gives you goose bumps; or makes you feel like someone’s watching you, but when you turn to look, no one’s there.