Search Results for: Osmel Almaguer

We Have the Circus, but the Bread?

I believe that what happened suited the majority, because it was a political strategy for the capital to enjoy this degree of happiness in such bitter times. I don’t mean to say that a trap was set to benefit one team to the detriment of the other, but what’s certain is that the squad that won was the team “they wanted” to win.

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Elections in Cuba

The defects of capitalist elections are repeated by heart in our country, but I believe that the time is coming to raise our voices to point out our own blemishes; that will be the point of departure for improvement.

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Joshua and Religion

I’m the son of a man who spent more than half of his life in jail, and not exactly for political or altruistic reasons. My mother ended up divorcing him. Then she married my stepfather, who to me is like a true father.

During that time, some Jehovah’s Witnesses used to come to the house to preach to my mother. Both she and my stepfather were learning from the lectures they received from the visitors. A while later they got baptized as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

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What Exile Had Meant

When I was little I would watch all the women in my family crowd around in my grandmother’s room, where they would open packages containing underwear, shoes, hair ornaments and those types of things.

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A Change of Life

When we refer to a “change of life,” everyone understands that generally one is talking about a change in the quality of life, a trip, moving, a new partner or something of that nature. However, in the vocabulary of the Paleros, this phrase indicates a much more serious and more complicated action.

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HT Interview with Ret. Lt. Colonel

The socialist system is relatively new, in contrast to capitalism which has some 300 years of development behind it. Human beings are not perfect, and neither is the revolution. It is not exempt from human errors, apart from the question of whether socialism is or is not a better system.

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An “Atypical” Fair

We think that contact with the “strong” currencies of tourists is one of the most profitable sources within the context of the lack of money —almost chronic, almost typical— among most Cubans.

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House Swapping in Cuba

A few years ago I met a man whose name I can’t recall although the story that he told still astonishes me. He was a man in his forties who was always dressed in shorts, with no shoes. He never cut his hair, and when he smiled, you could see that almost all of his teeth were missing.

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The Rooster of Moron

The rooster is one of the most common creatures in Cuba. Within the world of the visual arts, this bird was the preferred theme of a 20th century Cuban painter: Mariano Rodriguez. In our national sport —baseball— the Sancti Spiritus team has the rooster as its mascot.

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Beneath the Rouge of Old Havana

Joshua is my youngest and most recent friend. He’s 22 and has worked for eleven months at the same place I do, the Cuban Book Institute. It turns out he has an apartment in Old Havana, the oldest area of the city, one where many colonial structures still remain.

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