Diaries Archives - Page 613 of 634

Saving Animals

A hermit crab was in the middle of the road as a car was approaching in the distance. If one of the vehicle’s four wheels lined up with it, good-bye crab, not even its hard snail like shell would save it from being squashed.

I like beaches without the crowds

Since the beach is free, the seashore is the preferred destination for almost everybody. That’s why people from all over the capital meet up at the same places and form this mass that I try to avoid, maybe because I was raised in the tranquility of my home on the outskirts.

Haiti in Cuba: Vodou, Racism & Domination

My interest in neighboring Haiti is also inspired by the need to study the process by which emancipatory revolutions are hijacked by the political elite who then use them to erect new systems of domination.

Barrio Leaders & National Leaders

Someone commented on my blog that with an empire breathing down our necks it was very naive to ask that all of the backroom political dealings be made public, thus giving the enemy more fuel to do greater damage.

Something sweet

Ricardo is a neighborhood hero. One time he brought home two jars of olives for an old woman who complained about how she hadn’t tasted them in ages, and another time a bottle of rum for the farewell of a friend who was leaving for Europe.

Campaign against Homophobia

Also attending were partial transsexuals, exhibiting their achievements under their cloths, and transvestites made up especially for the occasion: all of them displaying their finest attire on this warm and informal day.

If Vivaldi were Cuban

If Vivaldi had been born in today’s Cuba, we would not know his paradigmatic work The Four Seasons; rather, he would have probably composed something called The Two Seasons.

The (post) Soviet presence in Cuba

It was a great honor for me to be on this panel dedicated to Russian and East European influences on Cuba. It is a highly debated topic since it is evident for many people that such influences exist, despite there having been little research on it.

Paradises

It’s just that in Cuba you develop – if you’re not a complete idiot – a sense to always look for the essential, which at the moment was to have a nice evening with my wife. I don’t know where that ability comes from to discern what is real within the mind-boggling shit one encounters when you’re so poor.

A Kind Man

It’s a long way to get to my house. I leave work in the evening, and the bus drops me close to a mile away. Last night, like almost always, I had to make that trip after ten o’clock. Walking in front of me was a man, who I tried to maintain a certain distance from.