Caridad’s Diary

Like anyone who’s not accustomed to having such armaments so close, a light anxiety came over me. Whenever there exists an arm, there also exists the possibility of it being fired…of someone being injured.

To travel around Venezuela and not run into a group of Cuban medical doctors is like going to Africa and not finding a lion, or at least not seeing the savanna.

If I were a little girl again among ranks of the Young Pioneers, wearing my uniform and with my hair well combed, instead of chanting the motto “Pioneers for communism, we will be like Che,” I would like to chant, “We will be like Fantito!”

It’s something that has opened my eyes with astonishment, like someone seeing a whale for the first time, because I think I’ll break down and cry the day I ever see one. However, the uproar of an election campaign here in Venezuela is enough to make you cry from not being able to get a good night’s sleep.

Everybody has something to say regarding public transportation in Cuba… well, maybe not everybody, because I know people who haven’t stepped on a Cuban bus in years. But those people are missing out on our experiences, those of us who sometimes walk on foot and other times catch the bus… or whatever form of transportation that might appear.

As sometimes I’m a little slow; it took me a few months to realize what was bothering me. I knew that I didn’t like the balcony a lot at the apartment where I’ve lived for five months.

Lately I’ve noted that many people look at me as if I were a “malandra.” In Venezuela, malandros are said to be those who we in Cuba in generally call criminals: any type of mugger, pickpocket or petty thug – in short, a low class person. (9 photos)

One of the common forms of violence in Venezuelan cities is kidnapping. Interested in greater economic rewards, thieves are no longer content with snatching gold chains from the necks of naïve wanderers; nor are they so interested in demanding at gunpoint what a driver or a pedestrian has in their pocket. Kidnapping pays bigger dividends.