Noel Nicola (1946 – 2005), was an important Cuban musician and songwriter who — along with Pablo Milanes and Silvio Rodriguez — was one of the three main founders of the Nueva Trova Movement, which he directed between 1972 and 1977.
The crackers we bought to “liven up” the end of the year ended up hurting my tongue and gums. They’re so hard that they snap off and break if you bite them, and though they’re sold as “saltines” they have no flavor whatsoever.
The young Cuban artist Yusa is growing in impact both on and off the island. A singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, she plays guitar, bass, keyboard and percussion.
I discovered him sitting next to a garbage can on a street in the Vedado district. He was chewing something that he seemed to have pulled out of that grimy overflowing container, with the filth was almost surrounding him.
Sometimes a problem that’s very simple to solve problem can turn into a persistent nuisance. This is the case of water hoses, the ones that connect supply lines to sinks and toilet tanks.
With the money I’ll receive for my journalistic collaborations, I was planning to take care of some of my most pressing problems.
Amaury Perez is an emblematic figure of Cuban song. A composer par excellence, as he himself said several years ago, “I don’t consider myself a singer, I just sing the songs I write because I need to.”
Several times a year the Cuban Telecommunications Company makes tempting offers to increase their number of cellphone subscribers. Typically, this is at the end of the year, when they offer a phone card balance of 30 CUCs (about $33 USD) to whoever buys a line for that same amount.
The government says that if Cuba’s companies aren’t profitable, then it won’t have the money to pay the workers a decent wage; while the workers say that if they’re not paid more, it doesn’t make sense to work hard all day.
Though private food services in Cuba haven’t succeeded in outstripping state-run food services, in the sale of day-to-day consumer articles this isn’t the case. This is due in large part to a strange solidarity between private vendors.