Author: Regina Coyula

The appearance of witches, pumpkins and black cats in private businesses has been striking; at the Adrenaline 3D home-based theater, which is close to home, there was a midnight costume contest.

It seems that such a fervor for the Halloween festival has set off the critical eye of officialdom. The foreign character of its origin, its highly commercialized content, and, finally, its impact on the family pocketbook, are all mentioned in the work of the journalist Raul Menchaca of Radio Reloj.

We have made foreign traditions Cuban, confining ourselves to the most genuine, throwing ourselves wholeheartedly into areíto and la cohoba. The journalist is either very young or has a very bad memory, because “tradition” was also carrying the bride’s bouquet to the bust of Mella in front of the University, a tradition that came and went along with the shout “hooray!” with knee to the ground for our young people when those massive graduations were held at the Plaza of the Revolution, and some other Slavic tradition I’ve forgotten.

He also suffers amnesia over the very recent American tradition of yellow ribbons, which, unlike this night of the witches, was promoted, financed and imposed by the government.

The mentioned journalist appeals to our idiosyncrasy to discredit a private initiative that surely doesn’t affect the pockets of the “affecteds.” A personal decision that is attacked, as I see it, because it corresponds to that expanding sector of things which are not dependent on the State, and one bad idea brings another, and another, and one more after that, and when you see where it’s going…

1 November 2013

Phrases and slogans are often survival strategies, empty expressions that are repeated time and again until they form a part of the landscape.  The University is for Revolutionaries is one of these phrases that nevertheless makes sense when we can peek inside a protest rally or act of revolutionary reaffirmation such as that held last week against the Ladies in White.

I will not dwell too much on the potential risk of filming, so evident in the distancing of Luz Escobar from what is going on all around, especially seeing and hearing the demand of some of the participants beating on the door for entrance to Laura Pollán’s house; she wasn’t disposed to let these battle-hardened classmates discover and enemy among them.

I want to call attention to the use of university students in these demonstrations of hatred. They are brought in deceitfully, taking into account the importance of gregariousness among the young, and from there, the behavior expected of them. Spontaneous or induced, the fear of showing a lack of ideological firmness which has repercussion on their professional future, to be clever and/or charismatic for different purposes.

The students are taken there during school hours, for a curricular activity that counts as attendance, they are saddled with a badly told story, and between the generalizations and omissions each constructs their own version. Later it is the individual attitude that becomes collective (again, the gregariousness).

Meanwhile, they continue singing songs, which could be annoying but not threatening, but there are always the spontaneous or the indoctrinated who want to excel, raise the stakes, and in this enervated environment these young students, those good kids who worry about the environment and look after their grandparents, I don’t say they don’t think twice, no; they don’t think to commit any vandalism in the name of THEIR revolution, a revolution that is neither theirs nor a revolution (again, emptied of content).

The Ladies in White represent a part of what in any democratic country makes up the opposition to the government. Systematically demonizing them increases their visibility, and however many videos are edited to make them appear evil, their peaceful march continues to garner sympathy.

The fairs of hatred mounted by the repressive apparatus with the government’s permission in Neptune Street, very close to the University, should be incompatible with the current campaign for economic optimization, austerity and savings. The buses and fuel to take the students from the distant universities such as CUJAE or Varona Pedagogical, snacks, a screen mounted in the middle of the street for audiovisuals, a meeting point at Trillo Park where they distribute the troops …

These fairs of hatred should also be incompatible with the current campaign to eradicate antisocial conduct and bad habits and to recover civic discipline, given the shortcomings of the New Man to perform in his environment. They serve, however, the complete opposite: recalling the shameful episodes of the eighties, Jewish children in Nazi Germany, spurring on the worst of each university compelled to scream, as you can see so well in the video.

Many will allude to individual responsibility. Every young person is already grown and knows what they are doing. And therein lies the subtlety of government repression: it doesn’t matter what you think, just scream and nothing will happen to you. The road to democracy will have as one of its biggest challenges to mend the anthropological the damage of such “subtleties.”

23 October 2013

The so-called digital natives are those born after 1970. Not only am I not a digital native, but I must wait for citizenship because I was born much earlier and come from a disconnected planet. In Cuba that date must run with generosity to the late ’80s because of the Blockade and the Imperialist Threat (and rumor has it also because of our former Sister, which bet the future entirely on socialism and not on the technological revolution).

But all mixed together, we Cubans in general came to familiarize ourselves (from afar) with personal computers from the ’90s: before that, some demigods called “micro operators” were the only ones with access to those machines of the dark green screens, there were some who experienced a Caribbean television as a screen.

My first encounter was in 1987, a NEC with a floppy disc reader. As the micro operator of the NEC of my account was my “team” and in the interim I married and went on maternity leave, I learned the management of the exclusive apparatus and when Ana Gladys was absent, Regina took command, most royal at the helm of an ocean liner. In addition, in this office of the micro, the air conditioning never failed, as it was said that the machine could not live without it. continue reading

My neighborhood, a quiet residential one before the process of “updating the model,” has undergone a remarkable commercial transformation. In fewer than four blocks, not counting cut-rate cafeterias, you can find: an Indian food restaurant, another with creole cuisine, another Chinese, and another with international cuisine; three billiard rooms, an English school, and three gyms (the best being the newest and most expensive). I don’t have to walk any further to include a very nice store, a bakery and a spa. But they have just opened, closer to me than the Acapulco, a 3D cinema, called Adrenalina, and as part of Rafa’s twentieth birthday celebration, we went there this past weekend to see World War Z.

The film is forgettable, despite Brad Pitt and 3D. What impressed me was the theater. Located in the vast basement of the house that belonged to Mariano Rodriguez, the painter’s former studio has a room with comfortable seating for twenty people, arranged in tiers, a twelve-foot screen, surround sound, air conditioning, and a small VIP room for six people, with a three-foot screen.

The lobby is tastefully understated. Over the counter, where they will soon be selling cold cuts, is a photo of the painter with his beloved dogs. For now, they only sell popcorn and soft drinks, not included in the price of the movie; no alcohol because the business license is for children’s entertainment.

I saw the 3D, and the truth is I can live without it; I will not return to pay three CUCs for a ticket. It is very good for business. Ultimately the owners and employees emerging during the heat of the update will benefit from the burgeoning middle class, bourgeoisie, or whatever you call those who make up most of the clientele of these places. And who knows what will happen with these customers and with these developing private entrepreneurs: they now have money, maybe tomorrow they will also want democracy.

4 October 2013

A great concern for public health is the epidemic of urinary incontinence that has been plaguing us for a while. It cannot be attributed to the endemic lack of public toilets, given that the public toilets disappeared long before the first cases appeared; on the contrary, now with private businesses there are many bathrooms, which are required to be clean, have running water, soap and toilet paper, a requirement that was never present in the bathrooms of the State restaurants. So, this troubling epidemic worries me, but cannot be linked in any way to the lack of sanitary facilities.

At first they were nocturnal cases, anonymous overnight emergencies, only recognizable by ammonia odor in the atmosphere, but the advance of the epidemic has changed the knowledge of the ill. In its etiology it is described a loss of modesty, so that those infected can be detected with the naked eye in public and in broad daylight discharging their urination. Also, it more frequently attacks males under forty years.

Given this proliferation, it’s no longer just the area around the Capitol or the doorways of the Hotel Cohiba’s mall that are affected, now may be an innocent hibiscus in a planting strip, the entrance of a private garage, the side of a bakery.

My mother often repeats a phrase and I surprised myself several times repeating it also: “In my day …” And in my day, readers, people did not so blithely piss in the middle of the street.

30 September 2013

Image from eCured

What Robertico Carcasses improvised during a demonstration at the Protestodome[1] last week, has been added to our folklore.  The accompanying refrain is now a sort of musical password that identifies the supporters of the musician and/or supporters of what he asked for.  I have only talked to one person who watched in disbelief on live TV the much talked about improvisation by the talented director of the band Interactivo.  The rest get the story through seconds or thirds who add to or take away from it, but on the streets people are talking a lot about it, mostly because it is so unusual.

Everyone had pondered the gesture.  It was not until yesterday that a young man of less than thirty confirmed to me that unanimity is not true the other way around either.  Concise and serious, he told me that he disliked what happened across from the United States Interest Section in Havana.  He said more. He finds dangerous that desire “of yours” (we were five, six counting him) of electing the president by direct vote.  Although skepticism seemed to form his objection, he considers any change negative based on the always useful argument that we are in bad shape, but others are worse. I did not have to reply, the others, all who are much younger than me, did so with arguments that I fully support.  I did tell them, because in that group no one knew, that Robertico had been separated from his band, a measure that undermines the entire transparency and “shirts removed”[2] of the Raulista reforms even if there was a subsequent rectification.

At home, this early morning event was the topic of after dinner conversation.  Alcides, old and wise, pointed out something obvious that I had missed: The dissonant voice belonged to a private employee of a private business with a permanent location.  The conversation took place there.  The rest of us were casual customers protected by anonymity.

–It seems incredible, Regina, that you hadn’t realized that the young man thought the same as the rest, but sought to protect his business from potential accusations.

I remembered the yellow ribbons that many tie without conviction these days, and I remembered General Resóplez[3] when he said:

–What a country!

Translated by Ernesto Ariel Suarez

18 September 2013

With satisfaction, I watched this week as a friend received an exquisitely wrapped gift. My friend took the package, looked at if for a moment, and tore the paper to take out the contents. Ripping wrapping paper is still a luxury, receiving a wrapped gift is a rare detail, receiving a gift…well, you can fill in the blank yourself.  But when there are gifts, most people give them in ordinary bags of those which have been substituted in many places for ones that are better for the environment, bags that blow away and get dirty, along with the little papers of pizzas or beer cans, until the night before some important anniversary of something that has to do with these past 70 years, when the “cederistas*” — the neighborhood members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution — sweep and clean the city and it looks decent for a few days.

Gift wrap doesn’t blow away. Wrapping paper is treasured and recycled to wrap new gifts. Here they sell a metallic paper which is very attractive but difficult to manage and very resistant which has been the solution a second time, a even a third time, for many. My mom who is from an earlier time than I, has always invented a way to make pretty wrappings in an age when without paper there were no gifts.  She saved thick catalogs of wrapping paper that measured, I don’t know, 8-1/2 by 11.  She has those allegorical papers for weddings, Christmas, births, birthdays, couples, and any other event imaginable, in addition to neutral papers and ones in solid colors.  With these little papers my mother wrapped her gifts and they looked great. The catalogs started to get thinner in an alarming way and the lean supply of second-hand paper began. Between the two we developed an efficient technique to hide the wrinkles and folds of their last mission.  It was a thing of trial and error, but we found a way to put the iron at the right temperature, and with a moist cloth in the middle, successfully press this brilliant metallic until it became more manageable.

My mother, poor thing, remained with this fixation. In 2000 she spent Christmas with her sister and nieces and nephews in California, and came back to Cuba with used papers, bows and ribbons that, there, no one understood why she wanted them. They were successful wrappings for the next year and everyone admired and thanked her for them.

It’s not just about the present. Nothing is more satisfying than receiving a gift and tearing the wrapping. Like in the movies.

*Translator’s note: The word “cederista” comes from the initials CDR. In Cuba acronyms are most likely to be pronounced as a word rather than as individual letters, similar to how Americans say “NASA” instead of “en – A – es – A.” So, for example, while Americans say “see – ay – A” for CIA,  Cubans say “seeah.”

13 September 2013

I have the impression (subjective in the end and even mistaken) that the only “Battle of Ideas” has its place in virtual sites and in mass broadcasting media.  On the street, people can’t be more aligned.   Any group starts talking about soccer, or the start of school, and they end up talking about “the thing;” and if they talk about money or food, the temperature rises a few degrees more.  There are some — in general the private workers and those who protect their employee “benefits” with the State — who tend to be more discreet, but end up like “those people” or “that gentleman,” which are understood by any Cuban to be the polite version but full of disdain towards our leaders.

Saturday on the P-3 bus detained at the stop at the zoo, a young person behind me signaled to his companion with certainty to the building ahead and said, “Aldo the Aldeano lives there.  Talking about the hip hop of Los Aldeanos was like a sign to start a somewhat disjointed, but absolutely critical, conversation of the situation of the country. Soon the whole back of the bus exchanged frustrations and found catharsis, and not a single passenger, not one, articulated a timid defense of the government in general or the reforms in particular.  I got off in La Vibora leaving that spontaneous tribune in full swing.

I don’t know if there remains an appointed branch of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Party; Opinion of the People, which as it name clarifies, compiles the popular sentiment with diverse intentions.  But if the trimmings of the Raulist updating happen to close the aforementioned branch, our president, or his son, or his grandson, should imitate this modern version of Harun Al-Rashid, of whom it is said that she went out to traverse his capital on a motorcycle camouflaged in her helmet.  Maybe in this way those in leadership could find out first hand and without adornment how “the thing” goes, since they won’t dare to ride a bus.

9 September 2013

The school year is just beginning, the children chat about their vacations.  Samantha and Yenny show their tans from Varadero; Jorgito learned to dive with a mask and snorkel in Cayo Santa Maria; Barbarita spent almost two months with her cousins in Bayamo and there she made a ton of new little friends; Heriberto, thanks to his grandfather, discovered stamp collecting, and also spent a week in camping in El Abra.  But what caused a sensation were Mayrilis’s vacation photos; with Mickey in front of the Princess Castle, in Universal Studios, in a fantastic water park… Mayrilis enjoyed a week in Disney World.  She brought back a pink backpack with a matching lunchbox and many more gifts, but her mom didn’t allow her bring them to school.

Without looking at Mayrilis’s camera, also pink, Hector was not impressed.  He and Yasmany built a chivichana (a homemade “soapbox” racer) and his mother brought them to the coast a ton of times, where they learned to fish with the flesh of earthworms.  The bad thing was the walk back up the high hill, now without water in the water bottle.

5 September 2013