Veronica Vega’s diary

I want to thank readers for their comments regarding the post To Leave or Not to Leave Cuba. To my friend Rene, who appears to be sincerely worried about me, I would like to ask whether he’s offering psychiatric services.

In a conversation we had between the many of us who write for Havana Times, somebody brought up the topic of choosing to emigrate and the editor said that it would be a good subject for us to discuss: whether we would leave or not, and why.

My sister told me that her six-year-old grandson reproached her mother for practicing the Yoruba religion. “Those saints you talk about are not saints. Children go missing because of them in December.”

I would like to thank the readers who commented on my previous post, and clarify a number of points that may remain confusing, as I limited myself to narrating facts and expressing feelings that do not constitute a definitive verdict.

Entire generations who have developed a skills that prove useless in an organized system, sometimes holding degrees they have bought, lacking in or entirely devoid of training, in practice master no trades at all.

These days, I’ve been recalling a two-part post I wrote for Havana Times, titled Cuba’s Horizontal Gravity. I’ve also been thinking about this force that restricts our movement across the world, not unlike the physical force that tethers us to the Earth.

One day, when he was four, my son showered me with questions: “Why does it rain?” “Why don’t planes fall from the sky?” Then there were others, more difficult to answer: “Why are there wars?” As he grew up, he began to notice contradictions I hadn’t paid attention to…

The question in the title of this post was inspired by the Israeli film Haganenet (“The Kindergarten Teacher”). Nina, a teacher at a kind of day care center, discovers the unusual talent of Yoav, one of the children under her care.

On June 21, International Yoga Day was celebrated for the first time around the world. Yoga is an age-old system of thought that, through the school that has been most widely accepted and divulged in the West, Hatha Yoga.

I must admit I am rather put off when someone sees me buy some food from a nearby stand for a stray cat or dog and, while the animal devours the food desperately, compassionately says: “Take it with you, girl!”