When most Cuban workers near retirement age, they endure poor conditions and low wages to receive a pension for their senior years. The most unpleasant aspect of this whole situation is the mistreatment and abuse that almost all bosses subject their subordinates to.
Me, just like most other honest people, are very vulnerable because the chain of swindling that has occurred in the last several years has reached astronomical proportions. This all started with the crisis that began in the early 1990s, when the economic situation was most critical.
Cuba’s loss to Japan on Sunday night created a whirlwind of commentary. From that moment on, everyone that knows anything about baseball had an opinion. Even after defeating Mexico on Monday, the skeptics note that either of the two possible rivals on Wednesday, Japan or Korea, are superior teams.
Suddenly that player, Yosvany Peraza, whom many of us had begged to be included in the regular lineup, did what Cuba’s baseball players are used to doing when in a difficult situation: he triumphed – hammering the ball over the fence close to the left field line.
By 1959, baseball was the island’s most popular sport. Gradually it became a political problem, especially when we played the United States. There were also difficult times in which our victories at the international level contributed to us forgetting our hunger and other needs.
Participating as a worker at the Cuba International Book Fair has given me a different view of the event than as a visitor. Before, I came every year just like the public, buying books that interested me, always the ones that were in regular Cuban pesos.
My father tells me that the roof situation could lead to a collapse and I believe him. However, for now there really isn’t much I can do. To repair it would cost approximately 200 CUC (US $250), equal to a complete year’s salary.
Yesterday I slept at my mother’s apartment because in my house there is no video recorder and in her place there is. I took advantage of the opportunity to see some lectures on Cuban culture, a required class that I’m currently taking in the University.
In his book The Solitare Mystery Gaarder maintains that all people are born full of questions and as they grow up they forget this eagerness to discover mysteries, although the curiosity still lives inside them. Gaarder’s most read book, Sophie’s World, has a widely sold Cuban edition.
—“We shouldn’t do what we don’t want others to do to us. It’s time to begin to regulate not only human rights but also human duties,” said Gaarder.
Could it be that those who baptized the new park, or perhaps just re-baptized the old one, sensed these difficulties and decided not to dishonor the name of the Soviet martyr with a place of so many limitations?