“Look compadre, I know you from somewhere. I don’t remember from where, but I’m in a big jam,” I explained. “My friends need fifty pesos to pay the airport tax. They didn’t know they had to pay it, but if they don’t, they’ll miss their flight.”
Read MoreAt midnight on December 31, the world will enter the second decade of the 21st century – but we Cubans will enter the third. And it’s not that Cuba opted for a calendar different from the Gregorian one; other pressures forced us to change two for three.
Read MoreUbieta tosses Yoani into that same sack, an accusation of extreme seriousness in a country where to explicitly or publicly oppose the government can land you in jail. Precisely because of the considerable weight of the accusation, we would expect that the journalist’s justifications for these charges were solidly founded.
Read MoreWhen other Cubans hear me say I work in handicrafts, their faces immediately light up. They exclaim, “Ah! So you don’t have any problems then, you’re economically secure.” That always leaves me staggered because it doesn’t reflect reality.
Read MoreIn my mind -trained by the rigors of academia, contemplative art and traditional Party activism- they seemed half-crazy…these “black hippies” dressed in tunics, skirts and sometimes turbans or construction helmets.
Read MoreIf I’d only left work at the usual time, I wouldn’t have run into my ex on the P-11. But I suppose living in the same city means our paths had to cross at some time. I hadn’t seen her in a year and half.
Read MoreI’m the first to enter. My classmates soon arrive and there is a buzz of conversation, something very normal because we’re all very young and we all have the same expectations. The professor, quite serious, states what according to him is going to be the cornerstone of the entire course: “Here, no one knows more than I do.”
Read MoreAs mediocrity and deterioration become the norm in all settings and institutions of the country, there exist people who say “that’s enough.” With humanism, free of indolence and apathy, they carry out work that -if only because of the conditions and the time in which it is performed- is more than enough to be admired.
Read MoreA good while has passed since anyone has mentioned the “much anticipated” holding of the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP); I say “much anticipated” because many Cubans expect significant changes from it with respect to the country’s politics.
Read MoreStarting from a strange public exchange of letters between a US African-American group and several representatives of Cuban intellectual circles, the issue of Cuba’s “racial” problem suddenly acquired a prominent international profile in recent weeks.
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