Search Results for: Osmel Almaguer

The Law, Like in the Jungle

The Lazaro Pena Polytechnic School in Guanabacoa where I teach has gained the reputation for being one of the high schools with the most violence among students and teachers alike, and this refers to physical as well as verbal violence.

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Cuba’s Spanish for Chinese Program

In 2007, at the initiative of Fidel Castro, it was decided to create a program to teach Spanish to Chinese young people who in their homeland were less likely to attend college. This would not only reorient the lives of those foreign students, but would also provide China with the personnel needed for penetrating the Spanish-speaking market in the Americas.

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When a Teacher is Asked to Cheat

Yesterday we gave the final exam in Spanish literature for seniors at the high school where I teach. For them, this was the last step before graduation. Giving the test was a complicated process as there were nearly 200 pupils that had to take it though there are only three teachers of the course in the entire school.

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Cuban Singer Arema Arega Negussie

Versatile and charismatic, Arema Negussie Arega, is a young promise of Cuban music who is almost ready to explode as a supernova. After studying music and visual arts, she composes much of what she sings, although I’ve also heard her perform songs in English.

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Improvements in Cuban Baseball

With a week to go before the conclusion of the regular season of the Cuban Baseball Leauge, two essential features have marked its course. The first and most striking has been the decline in batting averages, while the second has been the hard fought rivalries in each of the clashes that take place.

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Teed off with the Telephone Company

Yesterday, after showing up to put money in my cellphone line at one of the offices of ETECSA (Cuba’s phone company), I read a notice posted on the door. Two things caught my attention, or — better said — two things pissed me off.

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Cubans in the Chicken Line

For many years I’ve been hearing my father say “it was the consumption of meat that enabled humans to develop their brains.” I’m sure that he obtained such information from his vast readings, always based on his understanding of Marxism.

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