Cuba emerged as the country that has experienced the greatest recent renaissance in the entire world. In the 1990s, when the food crisis hit rock bottom, the massive sale of hamburgers in many cafeterias was touted as constituting a stable source of protein for the citizenry.
Read MoreThe nightmare of most Cuban university students approaches. It’s the annual potato harvest in 85-degree heat. Participation is mandatory for all faculties of the University of Havana, and for every other university institution for that matter.
Read MoreMe, just like most other honest people, are very vulnerable because the chain of swindling that has occurred in the last several years has reached astronomical proportions. This all started with the crisis that began in the early 1990s, when the economic situation was most critical.
Read MoreToday will be the first hearing in which I am appealing my expulsion from the university. When everything is concluded -for good or for bad- I’ll recount in detail everything that has happened. I haven’t done so yet because many of my friends think that I might bury myself deeper, and I believe that they’re partially right
Read MoreNot long ago, I wrote about the rebirth that was taking place in “El Electrico”, the community in which I live on the outlying south side of Havana. It is far enough away to be free of hustle, bustle and the pollution of the central city
Read MoreI heard a joke circulating among my Trotskyite friends. It goes, “What do two Trotskyites do on a deserted island? They found two Trotskyite parties!” I know that this thought tendency is not the one that prevails today among the global left.
Read MoreThe good and bad stories that I had heard about the island would later become real experiences for me. I can say that, by my standards at least, I was not so misinformed about Cuban life. Nonetheless, there was something that did not cease to surprise me.
Read MoreI have taken several weekend trips with my student group while in Cuba. Most recently we went to Santiago, where we also spent a day in Guantanamo, and two weeks before that we went to Cienfuegos and Trinidad.
Read MoreIn the airplane, to prevent the confusion that continued pursuing me, I began to recall how I had got there. It was in August 2008 that I met Yumiko, a Japanese woman who had made close contacts with my friends, who by then had emigrated to different countries.
Read MoreIt then hit me that they were holding the “March of the Torches,” which didn’t take a lot of convincing to get my friends to participate in. We walked closer to the area and found a sea of people clenching smoky torches and heading down San Lazaro St. toward the Malecon seawall.
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