Safie M. Gonzalez Archives

Rolling Through Havana

In Havana, getting into a shared taxi is not an everyday act. Surviving transportation is a feat. A relentless battle…

As Havana crumbles it is also falling apart in its memory. I walk through the city like someone rummaging through the ruins of a lost empire.

I’m forced to take the same route every time I leave the house, so it’s hard for me not to run into the same old holes, full of water…

My childhood was in the 1990s, when Cuba began its so-called “Special Period” crisis. However, back then many Cubans trusted in an improvement

In a town in the Pinar del Rio province, there’s a young 18-year-old girl; whose real name I won’t disclose here for obvious reasons…

Last Saturday, a friend invited me to the “26th Street Zoo”, in Havana. It had been closed for a good while because of the pandemic…

Every day, my elderly neighbor Margarita wakes up early and goes to the closest kiosk (retail point) to her house.

If there’s one thing they tried to drill into us, it’s that all Cubans are equal, that there is no “difference between social classes” here.

The time came when most of these stores were left empty, only those big stores taking precedence, which then began selling in US dollars.

If there’s been one issue that has made headlines in Cuba in recent months, it’s not exactly been the famous COVID-19, but increasing prices.