There are two ways to read this interview with Cuban artist Yoanny Aldaya. The first: read the interview and then look at the photo gallery. The second: look at the photo gallery and then read the interview. We recommend the latter. (16 photos)
Marta is Spanish. She has traveled to many countries, but for a long time there were two she yearned to visit but hadn’t, Brazil and Cuba. She traveled to the first one in 2009. Then, this year, her fiftieth, she visited Cuba and was able to compare her expectations with reality.
It’s good that the president recognizes that not all Cubans are represented by the Communist Party of Cuba or identify with its concept of what is and should be the revolution. Part of the Cuban people, perhaps just a minority as was stated (or several minorities), disagrees with the system.
One of the emblematic groups of Cuban hip hop is the duo “Obsesion,” made up by Alexei Rodríguez (aka: El tipo este) and Magia Lopez, who is also the manager of the Cuban Rap Agency. This is an interview with Magia who talks about the CD “El Disco Negro” and her work at the Agency.
Over ten years, Kristina Konrad filmed the life of Cuba soap opera writer Maite Vera. It’s perhaps because of this that the documentary turned out with such a spontaneous and dynamic feel. Maite is not sitting in a chair talking about her life, but living it in front of the camera.
This past November 11, part of the house collapsed where the family of 46-year-old Irina Pino lived. But this is not the typical story of a Cuban house that collapses because the construction is too old and has not been repaired for many years.
Today is my day to buy gas. We don’t have a gas line coming into the house from the street, so I have to buy a “balita,” as we call the bullet-shaped tanks of gas here. Every two weeks I go to the supplier with my ration card, my mother’s ID, the receipt and the empty tank.
I met Rodolfo three days ago while taking photos on the Malecon seawall. He mistook me for a foreigner visiting Cuba and offered to take a picture of me with his own camera: an ingenious device made of empty beer cans, a piece of wood, a spring and some wire.
For months now, there are two people I’ve been wanting to interview: one of them is my Havana Times colleague, known to readers as Amrit; the other is the writer Veronica Pérez Vega who is just becoming known in our country, but who has recently had her first novel published in France, “Here, the only thing to do is leave”.
Andres is a lucky man these days. He has the opportunity to buy items at a hard-currency store with a certain amount of money that’s paid to him on his job. He’s fortunate. The vast majority of workers in the country receive their wages only in national currency, and in many cases they get paid less than 500 pesos a month (less than $20 USD).