English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 30 August 2018 — On both sides of the Central Highway and the National Highway there is no other plant that dominates the landscape as much as the invasive marabou weed (called marabú in Cuba, and also called sicklebush in English). However, this thorny bush — which has become a plague … Continue reading “Havana Marabou”
EFE, via 14ymedio, Havana, 9 February 2018 — Cuba has commissioned China, one of its principal economic allies, to fabricate a prototype harvester for marabou, an invasive plant also known as sicklebush which is seen as a plague on the Island’s fields, so it can be used as raw material for vegetal coal and be … Continue reading “Cuba Commissions China to Fabricate a Prototype Marabou Harvester”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, NYC, 6 April 2017 — Resistant and thorny, the invasive marabou weed has inundated Cuban fields and threatened to displace the national shield’s royal palm. The shrub has become a plague spreading across the country, covering previously arable land, and worming its way into a topic for the speeches of senior officials. But the … Continue reading “Invasive Marabou Weed Arrives at the Plaza of the Revolution”
14ymedio, Bertha Guillen and Ricardo Fernandez, Artemisa/Pinar del Rio, 9 February 2017 – When he was a boy, Jorge Luis Ledesma Herrera played around the charcoal ovens his father had built. Now, approaching 50, this Pinar del Rio man dedicates his days to a shrub that is both hated and appreciated: the invasive marabou weed, raw … Continue reading “Invasive Marabou Weed, An Enemy That Became An Ally / 14ymedio, Bertha Guillen and Ricardo Fernandez”
14ymedio, Ricardo Fernandez, Pinar del Rio — The Cuban farmer has only two problems in being productive: the invasive marabou weed and everything else. When Raul Castro promoted a plan to lease idle land to the farmers and invited them to make it productive using oxen, he overlooked the fact that these parcels, in many … Continue reading “Marabou and the Government: Making the Life of the Cuban Farmer an Ordeal / 14ymedio, Ricardo Fernandez”
Fernando Damaso, 5 March 2106 — Poor taste and anti-aesthetics have spread across the whole country. Havana is an excellent example of this. None of its suburbs or districts have been able to avoid it. In Nuevo Vedado, in Tulipán Street, between Marino and Estancia Streets, an African-Cuban religious-cultural centre has been put up, made out of waste … Continue reading “The Urban Marabou* / Fernando Dámaso”
14ymedio,ELVIRA FERNANDEZ, Ciego de Ávila, 21 November 2014 – Seven years after Raul Castro, in a speech, criticized the spread of the marabou weed, this thorny plant continues to gain prominence in our fields. On that occasion, marking the 26th of July, the General said, “Arriving here by land I was able to see if everything … Continue reading “The Nation or Marabou / 14ymedio, Elvira Fernandez”
14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Camajuaní, 21 February 2023 — The hands of Emilio, a 66-year-old farmer, say everything about his trade: rough, firm, and smeared with soot. For decades he has gotten up at dawn, along with his brother Daniel, and they go to work in the fields of Vueltas, a town a few kilometers from Camajuaní, in … Continue reading “With the Blackouts, Charcoal Making Starts Up Again in Cuba”
14ymedio, Mercedes Garcia, Sancti Spiritus 23 February 2023 — “To say I am irritated is an understatement. I’m as hot as a bonfire,” says Luis Mario Godinez, who with his father and brothers produce charcoal from marabou weed in Cabaiguán, a town in Sancti Spiritus province. The family has been waiting for more than four … Continue reading “Cuban Export Agencies Cite ‘Lack of Hard Currency’ for Not Paying Private Fruit Farmers”
14ymedio, Havana, 27 January 2023 — Companies in Matanzas, Cuba, fell far short of their export goals in 2022, some as much as 85% short of the plan. The directors of the province attributed the failure to productive stagnation, the lack of supplies and the absence of “strengths” in the industrial sector, as they explained this Friday to … Continue reading “Cuban Rum Exports Fall Due to the Bad Sugar Harvest and the ‘Lack of Containers’ in Matanzas”
14ymedio, Havana, January 9, 2021 — The Cuban authorities announced that this Saturday the definitive synchronization between the Ciro Redondo sugar mill and a nearby bioelectric plant concluded. This is the first experience on the Island in the generation of energy from sugarcane and marabou biomass, described by the official press, with its usual triumphalist … Continue reading “First bioelectric Plant in Cuba, with Common Technology in Latin America”
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, October 16, 2022 — When a government ignores economic problems, it does so for two reasons. Either because of incompetence, or because there are substantive reasons that prevent the adoption of appropriate measures to meet social demands. Or it can happen as in communist Cuba, where the two converge. For … Continue reading “The Argument of the Embargo and the Ridiculousness of the Cuban Communist Regime”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 29 March 2022 — The recently announced Law of Expropriation for reasons of Public Utility or Social Interest has notorious differences with the abundant legislation on this matter. Here we no longer speak of confiscation as punishment or revenge, as in the laws enacted between 1959 and the mid-1960s. However, when … Continue reading “Lawyers and Compensation Instead of Militiamen and Confiscations in Cuba”
14ymedio, Havana, 24 March 2022 — Sugar production in Cuba this year seems unable to overcome the worst prospects. In Ciego de Ávila, the authorities have reported several “breaks” in two plants that limit “the parameters of efficiency and productivity.” Eduardo Larrosa Vázquez, an official of the State’s Azcuba group in that province, declared to … Continue reading “Cuban Sugar Harvest in Ciego de Avila Winding Down Because Chinese Operators Haven’t Arrived”
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus , 23 February 2022 — A report published by 14ymedio last January has led the military authorities of Sancti Spíritus to review the working conditions of dozens of prisoners who make and carry marabou charcoal. The inmates work for the state-owned Various Production Company (Provari), which does not pay them a penny, but has … Continue reading “The Conditions of Prisoners Working in Charcoal Improve as a Result of a Report by ’14ymedio’”
