Back in the 90s, Cuban humorists were already mocking the partiality of the press. Despite this, everything remained the same because nothing “threatened” it, there was no “alternative” source of information. Today the situation is different.
Read MoreMost visitors to the island marvel or are astonished at how often Cubans head down to the doctor’s office, polyclinic or hospital, even when they’re in good health. What they don’t know is that this is the only way Cubans can get the prescriptions they need…
Read MoreRaul Castro says that, in 2018, after nearly sixty years of authoritarian and repressive rule, he will step down (not specifying who he will pass the torch to), as though he were offering people a gift. What’s more – and pay attention – he says he would like to visit Miami!
Read MoreStanding in line behind a large group of people to buy food or procuring a public service can be irritating for anyone. However, it is the most common means of socializing for Cubans of any age.
Read MoreA doctor friend of mine told me that ankle sprains are one of the most common accidents suffered by people in Havana. When I asked him whether this had anything to do with the state of the terrain, he replied that that was one of the main reasons.
Read MoreMore than one friend of mine has been taken aback by my decision to retire at 38 years old, when the logical thing to do would be to work more or less this same amount of time before retiring. Even my friend Jorge asked me if my stay in Venezuela (working in cultural promotion) for two years had filled my pockets with enough money to leave my job at Havana’s Centro Provincial del Libro and to live indefinitely off this money.
Read MoreI spent my teenage years along with my sister in this town. We moved there when I was nine and she was twelve. I lived there till the age of 18. That was fifty years ago, back when homophobia seemed like an incurable disease in Cuba.
Read MoreOur blog, Cartas desde Cuba, has a new member: Lucia, our webmaster’s daughter, born yesterday in Havana’s Gonzalez Coro Hospital. There, we were able to see Cuba’s public health system at work, and understand why infant mortality rates are so low in the country.
Read MoreCuban president Raul Castro visits Mexico on November 5-7. The gathering promises to be a mix of the old and the new, where former alliances and new strategies will define themselves against Latin America’s changing political panorama.
Read MoreFidel Castro laid the institutional foundations of Cuban socialism when he announced a constitutional reform during the first congress of the Cuban Communist Party in 1975. The chief decision behind this declared the Party the sole “higher and guiding force of society and the State,” and it was founded on the alleged “infallibility of Marxist-Leninist doctrine, the basis of scientific communism.”
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