Osmel Ramirez Alvarez

There is a wonderful growth and development plan in Cuba, which anticipates 103,000 rooms for 2020. We currently have 64,000. If this plan is carried out, this will represent a 60% increase in just 13 years. It is undoubtedly an ambitious and feasible goal, at least technically speaking.

I can’t help but think about the parallel between the way of tackling the problem of outstanding payments for rice farmers and the tobacco farmers’ struggle to receive a fair price for tobacco. The solution in the rice farmer’s case and the problem being dealt with, in our case, only appears once we complain to the press.

As always, a sea of people filled the great avenues that surround Revolution Square in the Cuban capital for May Day this year, well-organized, with banners in their hands, waiting their turn to march. The same thing happened in provincial and municipal capitals in the country.

My father returned home and was clearly exhausted; he silently got off of his bike and fell into an armchair. We became worried thinking that he was suffering a great deal of pain and we ran to help him; but he stopped us by stretching out his right arm with an open palm. “I’m not sick, I’m frustrated.”

There isn’t an idea more absurd than the one that stigmatizes neo-colonialism with wanting greater freedom and a market economy, as an example of falling under the US’ radar. There are dozens of countries which have a market economy and democracy and they aren’t subordinated to the US.

The Government tells us that electricity is “subsidized”, in conformance with their calculations which are made in USD, but the effect it has on our pockets is as if it were the “black market”. To highlight the State’s generosity they compare these prices with those in New York and London.

The need for democratic change in Cuba is pretty much public consensus. It’s even greater among Cubans living abroad. For those who live on the island, it’s becoming increasingly so. As our people free themselves from the utopian trance they begin to discover the limitations our freedoms and most basic human rights suffer.

I’m not going to deny the fact that I thought it was an exciting and hopeful time when Hugo Chavez won the presidency of Venezuela back in 1998; and he swore before the Constitution, which he called “dying”, to fight for a new Venezuela: a more equal and prosperous Venezuela.

We ordinary Cubans have very few entertainment options left. For thousands of people in Mayari, just like across the nation, cockfighting is one of the few forms of amusement that exist here; but it has been illegal since the Revolution’s early years.