Category: Luz Escobar

On Tuesday afternoon, a long line extended under the sun outside what is commonly called the “Cathedral of Ice Cream.” However, those who knew the centrally located place in its first decades of life complained that the remodel has not been accompanied by an improvement in the products, either in its presentation or in its flavor and variety.

A man about 60 commented that the ice cream was “watered down,” he had tried the combination known as a “salad” which is five scoops and some cookies. The man couldn’t stop laughing when near his table a young man exclaimed he was amazed that Coppelia had returned with “a pile of flavors<’ because on the menu you could read that they are selling chocolate, curly chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.

Melancholy, the customer then evoked the original menu that distinguished the most famous Cuban ice cream parlor, when there were 26 flavors and 24 possible combinations. The difference is not in the quantity, but in the deterioration of the quality of the ice cream, that sometimes has bits of ice in it, little flavor and no pieces of natural fruit, like the strawberry, the orange pineapple and the mango they used to have.

To the annoyance of the customers, the place keeps some traces of the “workers diner” that it was during the Special Period. For example, you have to share the tables, there can’t be any vacant chairs, and it is not always pleasant to sit with strangers.

On the top floor, known as The Tower, and beautifully designed by the architect Mario Girona, they still limit sales to “two specialties per person” according to an employee. However, with a couple of bill slipped into the right hands, a customers can take home all the ice cream they want, always with the stealth of “not filling the cups in view of the bosses,” says the waitress.

One of the new features much appreciated after the closing is the white earthenware dishes in The Tower that replace the plastic ones, which, however, remain in the so-called “courts” down below. In the first week of the reopening, all the employees who serve the ice cream haven’t learned how to serve the ice cream in hollow scoops, a unique specialty of selling ice cream in Cuba, and that has characterized the celebrated ice cream parlor for years.

“Let’s see how it is three weeks from now,” said a distrustful mother who took her two little kids to have ice cream at 23^rd and L, the most famous corner in the capital, this Tuesday. The woman sneered that “the cookies that are supposed to go with the ice cream are where they’re supposed to be, on the plate,” but “in a few days they’ll be back in the hands of the resellers outside the courts selling for extortionate prices.

A group of tourists naively asked customers why they were lined up a few yards from a completely empty area selling the most varieties of ice cream. A young college student, who was with a group of students from the philosophy school, explained to the foreigners the difference between consuming things in Cuban pesos versus Convertible pesos. “The one in chavitos (convertible pesos) is better, but there’s no one who can afford it,” said the young man.

The areas that are refurbished now are the The Court and The Tower, along with the imposing white staircase that leads to the upper level, the dome, the roof, and the typical wood and glass windows, also located on the upper level. The refurbishment program includes spaces such as the bar on the ground floor and the bathrooms, which will begin to be restored in the coming weeks.

However, for many customers the improvements should not remain in the physical appearance of Coppelia, but should be targeted to recovering the prestige it once enjoyed, now “watered down” like its ice cream, poor quality, unprofessional treatment by its employees and the absurd measures implemented in its services, including the closure of the beautiful passage to passersby. From now on, you can only enter after standing in the long line outside the Cathedral of Ice Cream that seems to have lost its way.

That story can barely be glimpsed in the ruins that remain, although some of the lost glamor remains in the memories of the hotel’s oldest neighbors. Eduardo, a retiree who proudly shows his ID identifying him as a “combatant,” has lived in the area since 1959. He tells how, when they closed the hotel at the end of the last century, “there were many who took away the bathroom fixtures and even the tiles.”

According to the old man, it was for that reason that the authorities in the area “bricked up all the entrances with cement and blocks.” But the incursions have continued and now, “it has been converted into a public restroom.” Barely a single Venetian blind remains, the metal railings around the interior balconies have been torn off, and not a single piece of glass that used to crown the doors is left.

To the left of the building, where before there was a recreational area for guests, there is now one of those cafes where the underworld reigns. Some tourists approach attracted by the music and end up as “prey” for the agile denizens who populate the place. The offers can range from an out-of-tune bolero, to a round of beers paid for by the naïve visitor, to the most sophisticated sexual acrobats.

From that hovel one can see almost 100 rooms that sheltered the guests staying there, arranged around two parallel courtyards. The press of the era reported on the luxurious furnishings and an elegant ground floor restaurant, in the style of the grand American hotels.

At the entrance, embedded in the granite floor that has resisted the neglect, you can barely make out the initials of New York. On some of the stairs of the stately entrance the complete name remains, standing out amid the grime.

Across the street a modest café sells juices and snacks. The employee says the building “is about to fall down and it could kill someone.” She remembers when it closed “several men came in trucks and took away everything of value inside.” Later, it waited to be restored by the Office of the Historian of the City, but it was delayed so long that “there’s no longer anything to save,” opines the lady.

There is a rumor in the neighborhood that the City Historian, Eusebio Leal, rejected several offers from European companies to repair the Hotel New York. However, despite several calls to his office, it was not possible to confirm this information. “No one was willing to pay the amount he was asking for,” says Eduardo, an elderly combatant whose wrinkled face resembles the cracks in the wall in the hotel. “They wanted so much that no one was interested,” he says.

The façade, which is still impressive despite the deterioration, has four rows of windows and independent balconies. Five large Corinthian pilasters give the exterior wall a touch of grandeur, and a ledge on the 4th story was built when the building was expanded. The whole place seems like a little scale model of its gigantic cousins in Manhattan.

Gone is the time when you had to book in advance to spend a night in the Hotel New York. Today, only the rats fight over the space with the tramps, who have managed to introduce several holes in order to spend the nights in its dark interior.

At all the “Accountability Meetings” held in the area – a routine of taking stock of the achievements of the Revolution – residents argue that the building has become a focus of disease and a danger to health. Nothing that makes the People’s Power delegate flinch in an area filled with buildings on the point of collapse.

Scattered around the city, objects that were part of the Hotel New York adorn the room of an apartment, are resold in the informal market or end up in the trash. An old custodian of the place keeps a screen and an antique grandfather clock that he claims he saved from the looting. “One day when they reopen the hotel, I will return them,” he says with a sly smile, but nobody believes that music will once again echo within those walls.

El Primo is a modern water supplier. He doesn’t carry buckets up the stairs. In his truck he has a little motor and some hoses that reach out to his customers and can fill any receptacle in a trice. Connected to an extension cord that someone loans him, the purr of the pump can be felt. He has the panache of a distant descendant of Francisco de Albear y Lara (a Cuban engineer from the 1800s responsible for Havana’s water supply), but his name will never appear on a monument in the Cuban capital.

El Primo’s method, despite its sophistication, has its limitations. His hoses can’t reach above the second floor, but, he says, “the buildings in Central Havana aren’t that high.”

While filling a blue tank, which once held vegetable shortening and now contains the water for a family of four, the waterseller explains that since he settled in the city, coming from the east of the island, this has been his work. “The police have confiscated by motor several times, but the neighbors appreciate me so much that they themselves have come and gotten me out of jail,” he says.

In less than five minutes, a line has already formed in front of the truck. Antonia, a retired woman who lives alone on the first floor, tells about the time that a policeman prohibited the water-seller from filling his tanks at the water cistern near the Pioneer Cinema. “The whole block mobilized and we got him released from the station the same day,” recalls.

The supply cycles of the Havana Water Company have gotten longer in most of the capital’s districts. Areas like Old Havana are supplied almost entirely by tanker trucks (rather than piped water), but in the poorest neighborhoods, where there isn’t the money to buy it on a more frequent schedule, the trucks only show up “every seven days.” They prioritize “the schools, daycares, and the polyclinics,” the driver of one of these vehicles told 14ymedio on Monday, while supplying a building on Teniente Rey Street.

Abel Salas, first vice president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH), explained that about 70,000 people in Santiago de Cuba get water by way of tanker cars, while in the capital the figure is around 60,000. The deterioration of the water system aggravates the situation. According to data provided by the official press, “companies registered in the capital waste in one month almost 830,000 cubic meters” of water. The latest reports published on the subject indicate that 45% of the water pumped in the country is lost in breaks and leaks.

The contents of one tank can cost between 10 and 15 CUC, which is usually paid for by collecting money among all neighbors. The owners of B&Bs and private restaurants have the luxury of buying it for their businesses, but for most residents in Havana the price is too high.

On the outskirts of the capital, in areas such as Mantilla and Arroyo Naranjo, water comes through the pipes every other day but “with very little force” residents complain. There are also abundant water carriers like El Primo, and when their trucks show up in a street everyone crowds around to fill any receptacle they can.

For these water carriers there will be a lot of work in the coming months. Although the Climate Center at the Meteorology Institute predicted a rainy season with “normal precipitation” also warned that “the accumulated volumes will not solve existing deficits.” The cry of “water” will continue to ring in Havana neighborhoods.

A few minutes after the market opened, most of the customers went directly to the food departments, which is where the new prices are most visible. There, looking over what was in the freezer, a gentleman who said he was a maintenance worker at a polyclinic in Central Havana explained, “Marking everything down is good, but for me it is still going to be hard to feed my family as God commands.” A gentleman responded, “I’m self-employed, but it seems insufficient to me (…), I’m going to lose a few pounds but still it’s not enough.”

With an empty bag and a scowl, a retired seventy-something named Lazarus responded to a lady who was talking loudly about “the new measures.” “What measures, madam? So I can lose 40 pounds? All this is a joke and a lie. I get 270 Cuban pesos [about $11] a month for my retirement, I worked forty-some years. How can I live? Thanks to family I have abroad, if I didn’t I would die of hunger.”

The lady, who didn’t want to discuss it, murmured, “Well, any reduction is noticeable, especially on chicken and picadillo [ground ‘meat’, often largely or entirely soy], it’s better than it was, clearly.”

As usual in these circumstances, people are reluctant to speak up to someone who presents themselves as a journalist, but there are always exceptions. “The wages today are not what they need to be for many workers, and almost no one lives on their monthly wages. If we count what people ‘divert’ and ‘steal’ [from their workplaces] and what they ‘invent,’ then they can come to this store once a month and spend 20 or 30 CUCs, but this is what an engineer earns as a monthly salary,” explained a young man at the exit of the market, comparing the average Cuban salary with the price reductions.

Reinaldo, owner of a cafe in Old Havana, also dared to comment. “The truth is I do not see much of note in these price reductions. For me who buys in bulk, at best I would get some business, but for someone who buys one kilogram, they’re going to save enough to buy the kids a few suckers,” he said.

A couple of hours after opening, the Carlos III market, the only work of the Revolution which bears the name of a king of Spain, had returned to normal. A few curious people looking on from the sidewalk asked those coming out of the store if it was true about the lower prices. A gentleman with a sense of humor responded this way: “Did you bring a truck to carry your purchases?”

NOTE: The average monthly salary in Cuba, according to data from last December’s session of the National Assembly, is 640 Cuban pesos, the equivalent of about 26 dollars US. 1 CUC = 1 US dollar.

And in spite of everything the brand new Google project has also bowed to the government and blocked websites. Sites such as Cubaencuentro, Revolico and 14ymedio remain blocked. The censorship is due to the provider of the connection, the telephone company ETECSA, a state monopoly that maintains control over what can and cannot be seen on its servers.

However the lines never end and every hour only 20 numbered tickets are issued. Prior to entry, users must leave all their belongings in lockers, with the exception of their ID cards without which entrance is denied. They cannot enter with cameras, phones, USB memory sticks or laptops. All published photos of the interior have been taken by the official press and a few foreign correspondents who have been allowed to publicize the new project.

Although initially there was talk about the possibility of being able to use storage devices, such as flash drives or external hard drives to take information home and to upload materials to the web, as of this Wednesday this is still not permitted. This limitation gives the surfing room the aspect of a museum: look, touch and go, but without taking anything, the employees warn. The novel experience is reduced to navigating the internet from one of the 20 Chromebooks in the place.

Fabian, a young man who has been three times between Tuesday and Wednesday, tells14ymedio that “at first they let you make calls and talk but then they prohibited it because people were shouting and it bothered everyone nearby.” The place is crowded and users have no privacy as they move around the World Wide Web. Several employees supervise every move and look over users’ shoulders at the pages open on their screens.

“The problem is that this is a library and you can’t speak in a loud voice,” one of the workers explained to this newspaper. As for the schedule, the young man said that so far it is open “from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM, but the early hours are reserved for previously coordinated visits.”

A group of agents from the Immigration and Nationality section of the Interior Ministry (MININT) left the center on Wednesday just before the first 20 people in line were admitted. “Yesterday the ones dressed in green came, from MININT in fact… now, what I don’t understand is why these people have some priority,” said Dorian, a neighbor of the Google+Kcho.MOR center.

Yuli, a third year medical student returned to mark er place in line after having used the Chromebooks because she didn’t have enough time to find the information she needed. “Because you can’t copy anything, what I do is send it to my Gmail account and later download it take it to another site,” she detailed. Her boyfriend, a fine arts student at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), said that the day before he had been able to visit several sites with “impressive virtual reality thanks to the cardboard glasses.” He was referring to “Cardboard,” a virtual reality platform for mobile phones, also donated by Google.

Particularly striking is the slow navigation speed in the new facility, as it had been announced that the place – integrated into the Organic Romerillo Museum (MOR) belonging to the artist Kcho – would have a connection speed 70 times faster than that offered in the WiFi zones in the rest of the country. Several users commented outside that they felt cheated because of the problems watching videos on Youtube or using other services that require a higher bandwidth.

Despite the obstacles, the wait, the numbered tickets and inability to take digital content home, users seem mesmerized by simply sitting in front of the screens and moving their hands at full speed over the keyboard so as not to lose a single second of their access to the web.

Looking on from the wall is a huge picture of Fidel Castro with a Cuban flag. An electronic marquee installed at the site shows one of the last phrases the former president wrote to Barack Obama: “We do not need the empire to give us any gifts.”

MOR is abuzz these days with people coming and going. Some are workers who are putting the final touches on the “technology center,” which the first internaut has not yet been able to access. Closed and surrounded by mystery, the browsing room is the center of rumors and speculation.

“When it’s working there will be priority for students who come through their schools,” explained a worker in response to the insistent questions of several frustrated users. Among them were two teenagers who had crossed the city from Cojimar for “some free internet hours.”

The new location has been described by the press as a site with public computers and a connection speed 70 times faster than that offered in the WiFi zones provided by the state monopoly ETECSA. A luxury in a nation where the broadband penetration rate does not exceed 1%.

With the collaboration of the US software giant Google, Kcho is becoming the first Cuban to reach an agreement of this kind and the only non-state internet provider, which he has achieved because of his ideological fidelity to the government and his strong ties to the authorities.

Evelio, a regular user of the Kcho WiFi zone, complained Tuesday that the new service is still not working. “They already had the opening with great fanfare,” and “even the TV reporters came here that day but as far as I know the only ones allowed in so far are the already scheduled delegations,” he says with annoyance.

The young man, who lives near the studio, explains that he comes “at five in the morning to be able to download movies and videos,” because of the congestion on the network that develops as the day goes on and there is a high influx of users. “At that hour, it works like a cannon,” he says, showing on his phone the titles of movies such as Game of Thrones and House of Cards, that he downloaded the previous morning.

Evelio also lends a hand to those who want to open an email account or look at the US Embassy web page to check on the status of a visa. “If someone wants to give me something for a little help, I accept it,” he lets drop, smiling.

The young man doesn’t have many illusions about the new premises which, according to the official media, will have the appearance of an internet café with 20 Chromebook laptops that work off direct connections to the cloud. A new navigation experience for most Cubans, accustomed to slow connections and using the Windows operating system.

“There is so much need for the internet that this can’t cope,” says Evelio, a few yards from the newly painted ship where Cubans expect that Google’s new Havana heart will soon be beating.

of the cottages at the intersection of 26^th Street and Colón. The man hopes that “now that everything has been fixed with the yumas, surely they will declare this to be a Heritage property and fix them. A woman next to him can’t contain her laughter and denies it, pointing out that the cottages “were just workers’ dormitories for the Kohly family farm and have no ‘historical value’.”

The four long and narrow buildings, with their hundred cottages, are like a biopsy of Cuba. Some entrepreneurs have opened up small businesses. There is a bakery, a car repair and a little shop selling religious articles. The doors of several homes display For Sale signs and most of those who live within their walls are over 50.

Waiting to buy some candy is Tatiana, born in the place and with a three-year-old son. “We believed that Obama was going to come by here, but now we know he won’t,” she declares. Near the Chinese cemetery and the guarded building where Raul Castro’s family lived for a long time, the cottages are “a fly in a glass of milk,” says the woman. “This neighborhood belongs to the pinchos” – a Cuban slang term equivalent to Nomenklatura – “but nobody worries about us,” she complains.

Some years ago, a bus coming full speed down the avenue crashed into the façade of one of the buildings. The roof is still fallen in and many avoid standing in the doorways where the risk of a collision is highest. The complex has the atmosphere of an encampment, but several generations of Cubans have taken root there.

“I’ve lived here since I was a kid and my two daughters were born here,” says Eduardo. For this retiree, the American encampment is a fable. “In reality, this was a horse stable, but there were never blue-eyed blonds here,” he says. In his opinion the myth of the Marines barracks is bandied about because “people want the Americans to take charge and repair it,” he says. “They’re looking to be adopted by the rich uncle,” he sneers.

Every Havana neighborhood seems to be competing for the favor of the visiting tenant of the White House. Popular humor has expanded in recent weeks from the friendly “Bienvenido Mister Obama,” an allusion to the Spanish film “Bienvenido Mister Marshall,” to the incisive, “Obama, seguro, a los yanquis dale duro,” – a substitution of Obama for Fidel Castro in the old slogan: “Fidel, for sure, hit the Yankees hard!” This latter phrase expresses all the contradictions of the official discourse with regards to diplomatic normalization with the neighbor from the North.

In the Kohly cottages the anticipation grows. “Who knows if the caravan will be diverted and pass by here,” dreams Tatiana, excitedly. Military encampment, simple horse stable, or workers’ dormitory, the residents of this small neighborhood abandoned to its fate today remade their past, consistent with the times we are now living. They are like orphaned children, desperately seeking a father.

Official stamps, death certificates and the identity cards of several deceased people pass in front of the official’s eyes, as she tries to be efficient, but the intricate funeral mechanisms don’t let her. “My deceased has spent 24 hours at the crematorium and no one is telling us anything, we don’t know what’s going on,” complains Lorenzo Julian, an architect, 67, whose sister left in her last will that she wanted to be cremated.

Amid the pain of the loss, there is barely time to cry. “Here you have to line up even to die,” a recently-widowed lady shouts at the door of the office, protesting the poor quality of the coffin assigned to her husband. “It is practically bottomless and they didn’t give us the pane of glass to be able to see him so the bad smell doesn’t get out,” explains the old lady.

An elegant woman asks if there isn’t some option other than the State-produced coffin. But death equalizes many on the island. Privately-run casket businesses barely exist. “Here we can’t accept coffins made elsewhere,” the employee clarifies to the demanding bereaved. “Before we could offer metal boxes, if you paid in convertible pesos, but this option no longer exists,” she concludes.

The owner of a carpentry shop on Salud Street close to the funeral home says, “Here we make beds, living room furniture, display cases, but I’ve spent 28 years in this business and we’ve never made coffins,” and he adds that they don’t have the boards for that kind of work. “I would only make those things over my dead body, it gives me the creeps just thinking about it.”

Despite the jokes and necrological allusions that fill the popular imagination, Cubans have a very serious relationship with death. Unlike our neighbor, Mexico, with its grinning skull Catrina and family meals around the graves of the deceased, on the island every funeral ritual is serious and tearful. Only in some cases are goodbyes enlivened with music or parties.

“He wanted his rum and rumba, so we are doing it to please him,” explained Asdrubal, whose 91-year-old grandfather died this week in Central Havana and left specific instructions for his send off. “I don’t want to cry, no I don’t want to cry, when I die I don’t want to cry,” the young man says his grandfather used to sing. “So we did it like a song, without crying,” he added.

The tears that weren’t shed with the last breath of the family patriarch were about to fall during the paperwork to arrange his wake. The Bernardo Garcia Funeral Home, on Zanja and Belascoain Streets, has closed for repairs because of the poor condition of the property and the worse quality of service. The body of Asdrubal’s grandfather had to wait more than ten hours for them to take it from the house. The employee who answered the complaint kept asking for “calm,” because there wasn’t any “transport available.”

Finally, the remains of the old man arrived in one of the rooms of the Marcos Abreu Funeral Home. Then began what his grandson calls “the old man’s second death.” The deceased had said he wanted to be cremated, but an employee of the state establishment said the only working crematorium was in Guanabacoa and the one in Santiago de las Vegas was broken and its work was piling up.

The service must be requested at the funeral home that corresponds to the place of residence, and it is there that the family is told if there is capacity in the furnaces. Subsequently, they pay 340 Cuban pesos in advance and choose the option of going to the crematorium or collecting the remains at the funeral home itself.

The relatives present their documentation and choose the urn in which to collect the ashes. If they want, they are shown the body of the deceased through a glass, just in front of the entrance to the incinerator. The process lasts between an hour and an hour and a half and at the end the customer is given the urn with the ashes.

An employee of the Guanabacoa crematorium, who preferred to remain anonymous, told 14ymedio that the problem wasn’t only that “the equipment breaks” but that “there are more and more people choosing to be cremated.” The process of cremation started in 2006, subsidized by the state and costing 300 Cuban pesos (less than $15 US), but often there is an “extra payment” to the employees to get a turn or to hasten the entrance to the oven.

However, many families prefer going through this web of corruption rather than dealing with what for many years has been the vicissitudes of a vault or a tomb in one of the island’s cemeteries. Buying a private niche in a cemetery in the capital costs around 400 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) on the informal market, a year’s salary for the average worker.

“We are going to bring this home, which is where he should be, with his family” said Asdrubal regarding the ashes of his grandfather, who finally and thanks to a family member who emigrated and who sent the money in record time through Western Union, was cremated this weekend.

During the last session of Parliament, the Commission of Health and Sports warned of the poor “technical availability of hearses,” the delays in collecting the corpses and the poor quality of the wood “allocated by the State Forestry Enterprise for the production of coffins.” The problems facing the sector are compounded by the lack of “surgical gloves, cotton, cosmetics, razors, among other resources necessary for the work undertaken in funeral homes and cemeteries.”

Lined with a dark gray cloth, the boxes for the dead sold at the subsidized price have declined in quality over the years and can barely contain the body of the deceased. “We have to support them carefully from below, because it’s happened to us that the dead have fallen out before being put in the grave,” confessed Nicanor, an old gravedigger at Columbus Cemetery who is not under contract but whom other employees give “a little something” for his work.

The coffin of a dead man who arrived at Havana’s most important cemetery this Friday is made from pine, twisted and hollowed out by termites. In one corner the nails are missing and the relatives fear that it will come open in the midst of the church service. “This shows a lack of respect,” a nephew of the deceased told 14ymedio. “What can you expect for the dead with things are equally hard for the living?” he asked. The deacon hurries the final goodbye and the box leaves the chapel on the verge of falling apart.

A few minutes later a pompous funeral arrives with several cars and buses carrying the colleagues of the deceased officer of the Armed Forces. The widow weeps in front of the polished wood coffin. The ministries and important institutions such as the Council of State have their own carpenters for when a “personality” dies. Their coffins are very different from those of ordinary Cubans: solid and with metal inlays.

While the polished box with the soldier’s remains is being placed in the niche, several kilometers away Asdrubal’s family hastily downs their rum and celebrates the arrival of the amphora with their grandfather’s ashes. “Old man, you are where you wanted to be, with your family and your drink close by,” says the grandson, while filling a glass and lighting a cigar.

Escobar. What are the motivations that most often lead you to the easel, the wall or the drawing paper?

Rodriguez. My pictures are like fables, a portrait of people’s experiences. Others are more personal, but almost always reflect neglected and discontent scenes. They are like souls, because at some point we stop being people and now we are souls in a purgatory called Cuba.

We live condemned by ourselves, because this is the result of our decisions and our inability to see beyond the fear and a thousand other things. The images are just that: our souls that reflect the internal pain, the impotence, the fear and the sadness.

Escobar. Choosing as an exhibition gallery facades and bus stops is not very common among Cuban artists. What made ​​put your hand to this singular exhibition hall?

Rodriguez. I presented several projects in galleries and exhibitions, but I was always marginalized. In the best case they told me I would have to wait a few months. I offered a work now and it would be shown in a year, when at best I was no longer thinking about it. The work evolved and my intention as an artist had never been to have a retrospective of my art, but to share it with the public at the moment it was created.

A friend in the urban art scene in Germany came to Cuba and we started to do things. One day we went out to paint at night, everything was dark and I didn’t know anything about this world. It caught me, it was like an adrenaline rush and I was there with another graffiti artist who wasn’t very well trained artistically, his work was more about making letters, but he had experience as a street painter, he had lost his stage fright. That union helped me a lot and I started to do my work.

Escobar. During your years as a street artist did you ever fear reprisals for your work?

Rodriguez. At first I was worried because the pieces showed a reality that many people do not want to see and others don’t want to be seen. At the end I was losing my stage fright on the fly and I started helping my friend with the theoretical part of conceptual expression, finding a language. It was a mutual help. Then he left the country.

Escobar. What are the antecedents of graffiti art in Cuba?

Rodriguez. The lack of examples of street art is very strong. Who can I mention? Street Art, with Maldito Menendez, but the majority of them don’t live on the island. There is no urban Cuban art, right now there is no movement, there are isolated artists working and that’s good. I only know two who speak of the reality, El Sexto and me.

The difference between El Sexto and me and that he takes an essentially political posture and has declared war against Fidel Castro. That is his posture and I respect it. He does totally political work, he is an activist, while I dialog with the public through art and a more elaborate style with a certain lyricism. My work isn’t linked to anyone, I defend my opinion, I like art and I self-finance everything I need to do this work.

If right now El Sexto and I quit it’s hard to find others who, in a serious and constant way, see this as an artistic expression. Once we tried a collective painting in El Cerro, but people from the government appeared with their story of counterrevolution and cut off everything.

Escobar. It’s hard to believe you’ve done all these paintings on the walls of Havana and you didn’t have any problems with the police. Have you been arrested or fined?

Rodriguez. I’ve never had problems, but once in a while they send out the police. Working in the street is very sensitive, but I believe it had to open up. The Cuban cinema, for example, is showing the reality in a more raw way and they have had to let them because it can’t go against reality. When I came out with these visual chronicles it was the best, because I had already had a small opening, bit by bit. Now things can no longer be hidden like before.

Escobar. Have you ever slept in a cell because of your art?

Rodriguez. For me that is a mystery, because they have sent out three police patrols and nothing happens. They came predisposed and, when they got out of the car, and looked at the piece and listened to my explanation, they called on the radio and said, “the boy isn’t doing cartoons, it has nothing to do with politics.”

So far they have let me go. The only time there was friction with the police was at the Villa Panamerica [sports complex]. At the stop I did a graffiti of people standing on the wall in various awkward situations, like shouting. That day the order came from above. A woman from the (Communist) Party had passed by on a “camel” [a kind of urban bus] and called the police to tell them that I was doing “something counterrevolutionary.” At the police station they sorted it all out, it wasn’t even 20 minutes, the same guard told me to get a permit. I explained that was exactly why I had gone to the streets, because the permissions are very slow and if you waited for them you would never paint.

Escobar. What are the most frequent places where you have painted?

Rodriguez. I do not invade any place, rather I look for destroyed walls and places. I try to give them some aesthetic value and thus promote a future urban art movement.

Escobar. It is common for graffiti to get covered with dabs of paint or pro-government slogans. Has this happened in the case of your work?

Rodriguez. Most of my graffiti has survived, some of mine has been painted over by the government, but others have been painted over by others. I have a stronger enemy than the government, which is religion. It has already happened several times that Jehovah’s Witnesses or Christian extremists see in my work diabolical figures and they erase them.

Escobar. So far, have you only been displayed in the streets or in a workshop, or have you also managed to hang some artwork in a gallery?

Rodriguez. I participated in some group exhibitions, including one here at the Central Park Hotel, and a personal one in Light and Crafts. This year I want to organize a show with the rubble of collapsed buildings, bringing them to the workshop and painting them. I see the rubble as a historical document that holds the memory of those buildings where people lived and suffered in a space of time and they are pieces of our identity.

Escobar. The José Martí Community Workshop, where you do part of your work belongs to the Prado People’s Council. How does it work?

Rodriguez. I’m in charge of this project that interacts a lot with the community. We do drawing workshops for children and our doors are always open for any activity. What I do is I will not allow this to become trinkets for tourists. We try to maintain works that take off from sincerity and seriousness. Many people left because they were not prepared to work on those terms, three or four of us remain. We have been improving the space with a great deal of our own effort, because it was in very poor condition.

Escobar. What artists have most influenced the way you carry out your work?

Rodriguez. I agree with Banksy in the way of seeing street art. For me, street art is a dialogue with the public and my work is that.

Escobar. Is there any work that you remember with particular enthusiasm?

Rodriguez. During the Book Fair, I did ​​a public intervention that is on my Facebook, where I crossed swimming from one side of the bay to the other to paint a huge face with no mouth, no ears, no nose, only eyes. I did it so it can be seen from the far side. Then I swam back to the Malecon.

The context is a recent meeting of the Saíz Brothers Association (AHS) in Holguin, where the first secretary of the provincial Communist Party, Luis Antonio Torres Iribar, was present.

In his first question he tries to understand why the Roundtable television show doesn’t dedicate one day to “analyzing the rights Cubans have gained with Raul Castro: buying and selling houses and cars, acquiring cellphones, the internet, traveling abroad without an exit permit, and staying in a hotel. Rights that, he emphasizes, “we did not have under Fidel.”

Before posing his questions, García offers an introduction in which he praises the AHS in his speech, however he did not avoid questions about its management of funds for arts promotion in the province. “Why are some local leaders neglecting to budget to protect the culture and others are neglecting culture to protect the budget?” he asks.

The question brings up Iríbar’s name, because, as he notes, the leader was in the resort town of Varadero at the precise moment that Holguin was suffering its worst ever epidemiological situation, with several confirmed cases of cholera and dengue fever. Citizens themselves joked about the idea that the leader would be “first secretary for Matanzas,” the province where Varadero is located.

At minute three of his speech, García puts aside the issue of Iríbar and tries to clarify Cuban law in comparison with that of the United States. “Why in the national media do we criticize Arizona’s anti-immigrant laws, if we ‘Palestinians’ [as Cubans call Cubans from outside Havana] need a residence permit or temporary residence permit to work in Havana?”

García moves beyond the personal, social and cultural and also touches on the political through a simple, and long-standing, question to which no one has a convincing answer: “Why do we criticize a hegemonic world if in Cuba we live with the hegemony of a single party?”

Corruption is not immune from García’s review, as he wonders why not legalize it and force the corrupt who run the cultural institutions — “we all know who they are” — to pay taxes on what they steal.

“Why do we have the case of Juan Carlos Cremata when we thought that censorship had disappeared from the Cuban theater?” or “Why, when the GDP* grows every year, does the budget for culture get smaller?” are some of the uncomfortable questions that the playwright keeps firing.

*Translator’s note: Official government statistics show the Cuban economy on an ever upward trajectory…

Apologies to TranslatingCuba.com readers that the video is not translated and subtitled.

Starting in the 2016-17 academic year, these materials will be included in the regular class program, as well as in distance learning, and occupy 5% of the total hours of study. Thus the evaluation of this knowledge will be after the first year of study, allowing students a chance to catch up on essential and basic content.

The current enrollment in regular and distance courses is one-tenth that recorded in 2007-2008. Although the minister did not specify other causes of the decline, a source from the Ministry of Education consulted by this newspaper said that “obtaining a diploma and graduating in a specialty is no longer the goal of many young Cubans.”

According to this official, “The attractions of the non-state sector, such as self-employment and working in a restaurant, seduce more and more young people.”

The problem is compounded if we add “the migration of labor to other countries,” Alarcon Ortiz acknowledged. The deficit is felt especially in the economic fields of stody, and in agriculture and the technical sciences, the official added. Although the most critical situation is faced by the departments that train future teachers, the minister acknowledged that there is “lack of motivation” to opt for these specialties.

The three traditional exams will be maintained for those who choose the regular course, and entrance will require a minimum of 60 points on a 100-point scale. There are three scheduled sets of dates for these exams: the “ordinary” to be held on May 3-10; the “extraordinary” scheduled for June 21-28; and the “special” on August 26-31.

University admission is awarded at the conclusion of each series of exams, and those who resort to the “extraordinary” or “special” series will be at a disadvantage in terms of the number of remaining places. Ministry of Education officials affirm, however, that there is a guaranteed place in the regular course for all students who pass the three admission exams.

Over the last eight years – before that Cubans were not allowed in tourist hotels and resorts – customers were forced to change their Cuban pesos into convertible pesos to make tourist reservations, a procedure which lengthened the process and generated unnecessary inconvenience.

The new flexibility, however, makes even more evident the imbalance between the wages paid to Cubans and the prices they have to pay to vacation in their own country.

On Saturday a couple was inquiring at the Cubatur office in the Habana Libre Hotel about prices in national money for trips to the tourist beaches of Cuba. At the Iberostar Varadero hotel, 2,850 Cuban pesos was the cost for one night, all inclusive, “although you will have to arrange your own transportation,” the clerk told them.

For 2,550 Cuban pesos the stunned lovers could afford a night at the Melia Sol Palmera, also in Varadero. The price amounts to little more than 100 CUC [roughly $100 U.S.], but expressing that figure in the same currency in which wages are paid leaves many with a bitter taste.

“That’s my salary for five months,” the young man told this newspaper. “Only when you see it in the same currency do you realize that the prices here are crazy,” he said. Nevertheless he pulled the money out of his wallet and 10 and 20 CUP notes, to the annoyance of the clerk because she didn’t have any place to store so much “old money” and complained about it.

Since March 2008, when Cubans have been allowed to stay in the country’s hotels,  domestic tourism has experienced sustained growth and now Cubans are the second largest number of visitors to Varadero, exceeded only by Canadians.

The sale in national money of different tours and accommodation is also carried out in the Cubatur offices in Camaguey and Santa Lucia, according to Jorge Alvarez, director of the agency there, who spoke to the local press.

So far the measure has been well received, as it avoids unnecessary inconvenience. Alvarez added that the travel provider Havanatur also recently expanded its options available in national money.

In 2014, 1,208,123 Cubans stayed at hotels in the country, according to the National Tourism Report, Selected indicators, January-December 2014, published by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information. The document also details that these national customers spent more than 147 million CUC in tourist facilities.