Diaries Archives - Page 551 of 642

A Strategic Zone?

I was asked by another guard to leave the area with my camera because this was a “strategic zone.” This time I mustered my nerve and asked why this bus stop was strategic?

All those present reaffirmed the idea that the problem of racism is palpable in our society and that no campaign undertaken since the beginning of the 1959 Revolution has been able to eradicate this disease.

A Toy Car

Those present roared with laughter because we knew that he was referring to the fact that this sound system had arrived in Cuba when it was already antiquated technology, but for us it was a something new.

A Whisper of Lovers

A soft breeze whiffs through the trees in the Plaza de Armas, the site selected by the Spanish conquistadors for the founding of Havana in 1519. Today this is the place where many lovers meet up to be together.

Calzadilla Gets a New Job

Right now everybody’s happy at home because my father, Calzadilla, has just gotten a new job. Now he’s not moaning and groaning all the time —at least not in front of us— when things don’t turn out like he wants, which is almost always.

Questions of Race

Jaime is an acquaintance of mine. We get together from time to time for coffee and to compare our takes on things.

Selling Fast Food or Whatever

In the beginning it was a secret. I don’t mean a secret-secret; it was talk in the building corridors. You could hear faceless voices saying…

Rationing at the Country Store

Through the Cuban media we’ve been called to go back to working the land. While there’s nothing more legitimate than this, I have to ask myself why there are so many obstacles to engaging in such productive undertakings.

A Different Type of Elections

It’s something that has opened my eyes with astonishment, like someone seeing a whale for the first time, because I think I’ll break down and cry the day I ever see one. However, the uproar of an election campaign here in Venezuela is enough to make you cry from not being able to get a good night’s sleep.

Freeing the Productive Forces (II)

How legitimate can the announced layoffs be in the eyes of workers if the alternatives have not been appropriately assessed?