Internet Access at Cuba’s U of H: A Matter of Chance

Yanelys Nuñez Leyva

HAVANA TIMES, Feb 8 — An important part of college study these days is being able to reference various websites. In my case, for example, this need is greatly influenced by the absence of updated printed texts relevant to contemporary art.

For this, we at the College of Liberal Arts have a computer lab served by fewer than 15 machines. If a student is lucky and a number of chance occurrences take place, they’ll be able to browse Google.

First chance occurrence: those responsible for the lab (the computer technicians) arrive early to open up the office and there’s no unexpected activity that requires them limit the access that day.

Second chance occurrence: there aren’t many students lined up waiting at the lab’s entrance to get online or to do any homework using Microsoft Word (in this latter case because of them not having a computer at home).

Third chance occurrence: the PC that you chose at random is in good working order at that moment.

Fourth coincidence: the server has no faulty connection or is down.

Undoubtedly it’s all a matter of Afro-Cuban “ache” or good karma.

Once we had a similar service at the National Library, but without so many bugs – though at some point we had to start paying. But good things don’t last. Even before the library closed for remodeling, the computer lab had mysteriously stopped working.

In the Main Library, back at the University of Havana, they recently opened a facility with the same characteristics, but there are too many students trying to use the PCs, which — again — are too few

This is a topic that’s not even discussed at meetings of the Young Communist League (UJC) or at those of the Federation of University Student (FEU), because students are well aware of the serious economic problems facing the country.

But how long will we have to keep “inventing” to be able to obtain the necessary information? How many chance events have to occur to end this situation?