Yenisel Rodriguez’s Diary

Despite the poor working conditions, succeeding at signing one of these super-exploitative contracts is a big deal for any member of the precarious community of Cuban musicians.

The complicity of Cuban natural scientists in the demagogic slogan promoted by the British Embassy — “For a Green 2012 London Olympics — evidenced their future Eurocentric aspirations.

There’s a huge wall that separates the neighborhoods of Santos Suarez and El Canal, located in the center of the Havana. On the wall, graffiti art was first practiced well before the recent wave of graffiti hit the capital.

The facade of a house also serves to indicate the economic and social status of the people who live inside, though this is not a question of laws or cold calculations.

The first time I saw the tree, from three blocks away, I felt that I needed to share such beauty with my friends. I was 14 years old and in high school. It had a hypnotic beauty, giant in its green innocence, yet a veteran of so many springs.

People in Cuba prefer to lead their lives their own way. It’s a need that arises when one realizes that neither the market nor the state will provide a dignified and accommodating existence. People become unilateral. They do what they please.

Some are laughable, others pathetic. I’m speaking about those TV broadcasts of the Cuban Baseball League in which sports commentators focus their attention on promoting emerging economic and social development in provinces outside of the capital.

Neighborhood life demands being a man and a friend. Being a man means confronting — face to face and with courage — the conflicts that persist in Cuban neighborhoods.

My father is a barber. A few days ago he sent me his equipment so that I could follow in his footsteps. Though he knows I’m not very good with the symmetry, he asked me to try nonetheless.

“If there was only cheese!” This is how Cubans express their eternal impatience with their taste buds. Justified or not, this demand assaults us at every instant – sometimes as diners, and other times as hosts.