Diaries Archives - Page 565 of 639

Terms for Money in Cuba

Dollars were given the names fulas, dolores, los verdes (the greens) or verdolaga (purslane) for their color, as well as moneda dura (hard currency), comparing them to the “soft” value of the Cuban peso.

Here Come the Transgenics (II)

To conceal the economic, political and ethical contradictions of the cultivation of transgenic crops is unthinkable for any environmentalist. The public reality of genetically manipulated corn in our fields tells me that it’s urgent that we act.

A Strange Dream

I am in the middle of a strange dream – a collage of tropical flowers, ripe fruit and an oppressive sun that does not relent, even when the wind appears to greet me. This strange dream started when the airplane touched down in Havana.

Guaso and Carburo

When I was a little boy, I liked the Cuban cartoon “Guaso and Carburo.” It was an animated comic strip produced in the 1970s —I think— and involved two dogs, Guaso and Carburo.

An Indissoluble Trio and the Cuban People

In Cuba we all have a file. If you’re a student, you have one at your school; if you work, it’s at your workplace; and if you neither study or work, or if you study and work, you have another file at your neighborhood Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

Here Come the Transgenics (I)

Using the triumphalist formula of our press, they want to make us believe that transgenic produce is the solution to the country’s agricultural difficulties. A little dose of information, fragmented and manipulated, is all that’s provided to the Cuban pubic. Meanwhile, most of the debate occurs in online publications.

Rock, Rap & Reggae: Three Different Connections

Many of us islanders, who sometimes try to cast our fishing pole backwards, say “Cubans have bad memories” or that “if it wasn’t this way we’d all go crazy.” Decidedly, it’s part of the great artistry of the human brain.

Heat and Sex in Havana

If this is going to exist, it would be good that Cuban pornography was less sexist, that the women learn to relax and reach the same degree of satisfaction as the men, in short that they are allowed to seduce for pleasure.

Security Guard Proliferation in Cuba

The decision to combat workplace theft through an increase in “control” has contributed to the proliferation of security guards in all official institutions. Faced with this situation, some say that half of the work force is trying to steal while the other half is trying to prevent them.

Ice Cream from the Leader

Havana’s giant Copelia ice-cream parlor is like a Cuba in miniature. During the moments you spend eating ice cream there, you can find the same symptoms of deterioration in the services as those existing in any other corner of the country.