Yanelys Nuñez’s Diary

Perhaps I am being overly critical and possibly unfair, but one gets tired of being understanding and seeing the same muck swept under the carpet over and over again.

Though some home-made shoes have rather nasty designs, I do find some models that appeal to me and I enjoy wearing. What’s more, the products sold at the government’s hard-currency stores are anything but attractive.

At the close of December, an exhibition by visual artist Israel Castellanos, funded with a Estudio 21 curator fellowship which the artist received in 2013, opened at Havana’s Center for the Development of the Visual Arts. Estudio 21 sponsors an exhibition of this nature every year. (5 photos)

The premiere of director Juan Carlos Cermata Malberti’s Cloaca (“Sewer”), a version of the suggestively titled play by Dutch author Maria Goos, was recently staged at Havana’s El Sotano theater.

New Year’s is nearing and it feels as though the end of the world is upon us. Cubans scramble to buy as much food as their few or abundant savings allow them. Yes: having a warm, tasty, longed-for meal is what makes the end of the year a true festivity.

The house where my father, aunts and many of my cousins were born is falling apart. Located in a small town (Guara) in some distant corner of today’s province of Mayabeque, the small, wooden, tile-roofed house is the definition of neglect.

Much has been said and written about the massive pilgrimage that takes place on the eve of December 17. Believers in Saint Lazarus travel every year to the sanctuary, located approximately 17 kilometers from Havana, to ask for health and prosperity.

If you take the synopses of certain films seriously, you can end up with an entirely false picture of these movies. This has happened to me on more than one occasion, and one’s sense of smell tends to improve with these experiences.

As the second half of November draws to a close, I go over the exhibitions held over the previous two months by reviewing their catalogues. I am an avid collector of all these pamphlets, flyers, booklets, brochures and other documents.

While heading to work on a bus, I saw an elderly gentleman reading a newspaper and, out of the corner of my eye, caught a glimpse of a note on the artist Lazaro Saavedra and an award he had won. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought.