It had been raining for a few days in the eastern part of the country, and that day dawn came in the rain. It seemed that Marbelis wouldn’t be on time to her job. “I’m going to be late today,” she said. “Thank God for the rain we need so badly, but please don’t let it rain at this time in the day,” she thought to herself while looking up at the sky.
The workforce restructuring plan that will soon be implemented in Cuba is worrisome to everyone: State employees as well as retirees, homemakers, self-employed workers and students. In one way or another, they will all be affected by the half million who will shortly find themselves without jobs.
Three blocks before getting to downtown’s Jose Marti Park, a student asked the driver: “How far are you going?” However the driver only responded with another question: “Where do you want to go?” “Well, I wanted to go north,” the young girl replied. “Baby, all of us want to go in that direction, but we can’t,” said the driver smiling.
Workers in Cuba are preparing for a process that will result in the elimination of more than 500,000 jobs in the dominant public sector of the economy.
When the tragedies hit home, when we go to the doctor but can’t find a cure, when a boy or girl begins to suffer strange attacks, when a parent loses a child —or a child a parent—, when a relative finds themselves in jail… in the midst of all such difficult situations, many of us Cubans call upon our Patron Saint for guidance, for the power to endure all pain and to even remedy our misfortunes.
Maria could have been a doctor, an engineer or an architect, because since she was little she was intelligent and studious; that’s why her dedication and talent always placed her among the best in her class.
The end of the school year is approaching, and my little girl is among the top three in her class. Although some psychologists advise parents not to reward children for getting good grades in school, I ignored those scientific opinions and decided to encourage my eight-year-old by buying her a nice toy.
In Guantanamo, the covered wagon is part of tradition. It’s not because people want to go to “Bayamo en Coche” (Bayamo in Carriage), like the line from the song made famous by the popular artist affectionately known as “Tiburón” (shark), but because out of necessity for many years this has been the most common form of getting from one place to another.
Perhaps for some readers outside of Cuba, 10 murders in one month is not an alarming figure because they are accustomed to hearing that 30 women die daily in Latin America from this cause. For us, however, the figures are worrisome, not only because this is an issue that goes practically unspoken in our media, but also because it points to a rise in gender related violence.
Yesterday I got up early as always, but I guess I was moving more quickly than usual, since by 6:50 I was already at the bus stop to see if I could get the 7 a.m. bus and save myself the trouble of hitchhiking, or the 2 pesos for a collective horse-drawn taxi.