Category: Regina Coyula

In our population of eleven million, in round numbers, five million make up the workforce. And next year one in five workers will have to find another way to make a living because, in many cases, they are sustained not by the salaries, but with the subsidiary advantages of their job. (Share of petrol, construction materials, food, office supplies, use your imagination).

There is no mention of the laid off Cuban workers receiving unemployment benefits, though you can see the job security of some European countries; if our future “available workers” came to hear of it they would wonder what happened to the workers’ and farmers’ state, convinced as they were that this gorgeous paradise was in Cuba.

November 19, 2010

In my country there is no police blotter — what we would call “the red report” — nor is there a tabloid, or “yellow,” press. Gray, a lot of gray for this harmless information that wastes ink and radio and TV time. Given the endemic drought in information on the part of those who supposedly exist to report the news, this space has been filled for many years by “Radio Bemba” — literally, “Lip Radio.” And on Radio Bemba the latest news is like the Saturday night movie. That masked men boarded a bus and, threatening people with weapons, invited the passengers to give up all their belongings, money and technology; that a bank branch was stormed in Vedado; even the robbery of a snack from a currency exchange in Diezmero, or a store, or, depending on the source both places, ended up as news because, it’s said, that the thief – crazy or desperate — attacked the guard post at 11th and 12th streets in Vedado, a post that is maintained because that’s the address on Fidel Castro’s identity card. The latest is they say that four children disappeared on the way home from school.

The police — I’ve been told — denied that there was any assault on a bus, an extraordinary event that suggests the dimensions this rumor — or ball — achieved. The simile in this case cannot be better, because that news has been a like a snowball, growing in size and gaining speed. It is interesting that many people still believed the rumor even after the People’s Revolutionary Police spokesman denied it.

Collective hysteria or not, a desire to spread fantasies or not, in any case it is an omen of the escalation of violence that we could see in the coming year with the layoffs of a million people.

November 17, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, headlines were made by the establishment of the guayabera as the garment for formal occasions, where once reigned a jacket and tie. The guayabera goes well with our climate and although other geographical regions claim its paternity, Sancti Spiritus, in the center of Cuba, is regarded by Cubans as the cradle of the garment, and is about to open its own museum where one can find the guayaberas of the painter Kcho, Garcia Marquez, Compay Segundo, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro, among others.

Who attends formal activities in which the use of the guayabera is now in good taste? Officials. At receptions and official functions they gleam due to their whiteness. For young people, however, this garment is identified with power and they would only wear it if obligated. But if they decided to wear it, they would face a serious difficulty. The officials receive this garments as part of a module of clothing, or something like that. But guayaberas are only available in the foreign currency markets at the following prices:

Short sleeve, polyester: 13.50

“Creole” linen, long sleeve: 38.00

“Compay Segundo” linen, long sleeve: 64.00

Seeing what the area for comments has become, I am trying to shape this space to be a place where opinions lead to a debate about the future of Cuba, and an exercise in the understanding and tolerance we are so much in need of. With this in mind I am planning to moderate the form, but NOT the content, of the discussion. I will publish simple rules which, if adhered to, will maintain respect for others Those who fail to comply with the rules will be blocked. I have tried to communicate with the most frequent violators but many people list false email address and my emails to them are returned. They say that war does not kill warned soldiers. Many thanks for your attention. Respectfully.

Do not incite to violence.
Do not offend.
Do not criticize editing nor spelling.
Those who violate these norms,
Will NOT be welcomed.

I was surprised that the cake man passed by my door in a hurry without calling out to me. I was going to my mother’s house when I ran into him, and as we were on neutral ground I asked him what was wrong. With downcast eyes and few words he told me that it wasn’t “convenient” to talk to me, a neighbor had warned him that I was “one of those Human Rights” and could derail the management of what they were doing. Saying Good Evening, he ended the conversation. Poor country where the citizens don’t know how to reclaim their rights, where fear sows distrust.

November 4, 2010

Visit Marmalade, a newly created blog from Cuba.

November 4, 2010

My son has spent months asking me to share this impression with you.

It has been a gift to me in recent months to hear a rock band that has become my son’s favorite, and incidentally, now and again he’s asked to listen to them on headphones so as not to miss a single note of the spectacular waterfall of sound.

I can’t avoid seeing a strange resemblance between this band and pepper. With that childhood messiness of kids who are picky eaters, I always set aside the little bits of onion and garlic I found. A little more grown-up, I made friends with onions, but it was only twenty years later that I tried peppers, and discovered what I missed!

The same thing has happened to me with Dream Theater, spending so much time without having tried it. My son loves to compare our reactions to one or another piece (usually very long), we each have our favorites, but enjoy teasing out the details where we agree. Thanks to my nephew Daniel, a drummer in a rock band, and the number one fan in the family, we have the complete discography.

A quite emphatic recommendation for people who enjoy the classical music of our era, because I have no doubt they will be classics. They will likely be extremely famous and I am discovering the already warm water, but discovering it at last, and, I repeat, I won’t let it go by!

November 3, 2010

If you live in Havana, are between the ages of 18 and 35, and have completed the tenth grade, you can enroll in an eleven month course during which you will receive a stipend of 280 Cuban pesos (~$11.00 USD) during the first half and 310 (~$12.50 USD) during the second half, with additional payment incentives, promotions, seniority and opportunities to go to the university. Tempting, no?

Well, enroll this course for traffic police and get the great features described.

My son’s classroom was visited by an Interior Ministry official, who gave a presentation on the advantages of studying at a military center and having a career working under MININT (Ministry of the interior). You don’t have to do your Military Service, you can enter with low grades, receive a good stipend, increasing while you study, and get vouchers and reservations for recreational facilities. There were the “aces” in the offer. However, the boys weren’t tempted, preferring to compete for a career that requires high grades, because they omitted to mention it, but most of the boys know, that if you give up a university career for the military life and then decide you don’t want to spend your working life in this institution, you have to serve eight years or they withhold the title.

At a time when a million people are on the verge of losing their jobs, the Ministry of the Interior not only is NOT reducing its workforce — as they have assured their employees – but they are offering hot promotions to recruit staff.

October 28, 2010

Oceanic rocks? Moon stones? No. These conglomerates belong to this month’s rice ration (six pounds per person). My laconic shopkeeper preempted me with, “It all came like this.” It was a lucky day for the bobolinks, blackbirds and sparrows that inhabit the royal poinciana tree at the entrance.

So tell me that truth isn’t stranger than fiction. In Moa, the city of nickel, in Holguin province, the workers at one of the plants, faced with the impossibility of meeting an agreed delivery to China and the prospect of losing their pay in foreign currency, decided to send the agreed-upon number of tons… making up the weight with dirt and the dregs from the nickel processing. The Chinese were not very pleased.

October 21, 2010

The Varadero Hotel International is one of the symbols of my adolescence. I stayed there twice, and if you spent a vacation week in Varadero you had to go to the cabaret at night, there were no discotheques then, your spent your beach nights there or at the Kawama cabaret. The International is linked in my memory with daring attitudes that were only summer kisses. I loved coming into the spacious lobby and finding familiar faces, even an ugly photo next to a vase of artificial flowers that they had in the vestibule.

For those like me, who have treasured the image of Varadero for more than twenty years, the familiar and beloved silhouette of the Hotel International will be no more. It is going to be demolished to reaffirm the loss of identity of Varadero in pursuit of the new, more Benidorm, more Cancun. Rounding out my feeling of loss, is that I haven’t even been able to find the ugly photo.

October 14, 2010