Category: Translator: Adrian Rodriguez

Choking it Down / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

When I say metaphorically to my friends that my mouth is dry, they think that probably I have diabetes – because of my weight gain since I quit smoking – or a thirst to drink the vital liquid. They don’t understand that fifty-two years of the same party (the only one legally approved) ruling Cuba is a huge amount of time. “Maybe the ones who will come after will be worst”, they tell me, resigned, and convinced that a small group of people has dominion over our country.

For a long time we’ve worked to “quench the thirst” for democratic values, national and personal freedom, the respect for all the civil and political rights and democratization in general, but we are stuck because of the lack of such attributes in the power elite and the lack of a democratic culture among Cubans. However, we had been and continue to advocate for these values of benefit to our motherland and nation. So far, I will have to continue “choking it down,” while we fill the glass with that fundamental matter for Cuba’s democratic health.

Translated by: Adrian Rodriguez

July 8 2011

Choking it Down

When I say metaphorically to my friends that my mouth is dry, they think that probably I have diabetes – because of my weight gain since I quit smoking – or a thirst to drink the vital liquid. They don’t understand that fifty-two years of the same party (the only one legally approved) ruling Cuba is a huge amount of time. “Maybe the ones who will come after will be worst”, they tell me, resigned, and convinced that a small group of people has dominion over our country.

For a long time we’ve worked to “quench the thirst” for democratic values, national and personal freedom, the respect for all the civil and political rights and democratization in general, but we are stuck because of the lack of such attributes in the power elite and the lack of a democratic culture among Cubans. However, we had been and continue to advocate for these values of benefit to our motherland and nation. So far, I will have to continue “choking it down,” while we fill the glass with that fundamental matter for Cuba’s democratic health.

 Translated by: Adrian Rodriguez

July 8 2011

The Anti-Bread / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

It should be done with wheat flour, but is often reinvented with sweet potato starch, is supposed to have grease, but it’s missing in the recipe, and salt, but because it causes the modified dough to collapse nobody uses it: the result is the anti-bread — one a day — which is the quota assigned to Cubans by the imposed rationing card.

With its ugly appearance of a Middle Ages crust of bread, in “the middle” of the stench and unhealthiness, the bread is one of the areas where the government timeservers show their contempt towards the people. It is the pandemonium of the underestimation and disrespect of cuban society. If you try to eat it the day after, most probably you will have two obnoxious experiences. The first one is that for sure you will have to pinch your nose or hold your breath to ignore its acrid smell, and second, you may chip a tooth in the process. The acridity is because it is made with bad quality yeast and because it has too much water added to ensure the proper weight just in case an inspector “shows up”, he won’t be able to verify the ingredients adulteration — in which case ‘the dough’ to silence him would rise; the hardness, because the lack of grease in it. In addition you have to bring your own bag to buy your bread, the employee snatches the pen from behind his ear to write in your rationing card the one and only bun that you are entitled to buy for that day. He takes your money, shakes hands with all the people who greets him, swipes the sweat from his forehead and then, he serves your bread using his bare hands (without using tongs or gloves) and without washing them.

A few years ago the State made an important investment in modern bakery technologies acquired overseas. In that chain of bakeries the bread is more expensive — ten Cuban pesos a pound — and in the beginnings the quality was noticeably better; but now days it is almost as bad as that for sale in the bodegas but the price didn’t drop as the quality did.

On many occasions and because of consumer complaints, the TV news did on-site interviews with the managers of such bakeries, they had been questioned about the production failures and urged to make public statements promising the solution to these and other problems. But the media news involvement has not been effective and the result is the same: the anti-bread.

The core of the problem is systemic and happens because the lack of control, the low salaries and the dearth of civic awareness provoked by the “grab whatever you can” way of life brought by the deceptive concept of the social property, because it is very well known that the Cubans are not allowed to own any kind of real estate. The local small leadership is struggling to survive when there’s no choice: either survive taking the “bread” home to sustain their families, joining the generalized corruption and unlawful activities, or live a poorish life in the legality of a virtual Cuba outlined by the only party and its unsuccessful government model.

Those who like to invent trash, or to reform what is already invented and works well, have to be reminded of that old Cuban saying: “It’s better to copy from something good than to create something bad”. We, the Cubans of the generations after 1959, could never be accused of being copycats.

Translated by: Adrian Rodriguez

July 8 2011

The Anti-Bread

It should be done with wheat flour, but is often reinvented with sweet potato starch, is supposed to have grease, but it’s missing in the recipe, and salt, but because it causes the modified dough to collapse nobody uses it: the result is the anti-bread — one a day — which is the quota assigned to Cubans by the imposed rationing card.

With its ugly appearance of a Middle Ages crust of bread, in “the middle” of the stench and unhealthiness, the bread is one of the areas where the government timeservers show their contempt towards the people. It is the pandemonium of the underestimation and disrespect of cuban society. If you try to eat it the day after, most probably you will have two obnoxious experiences. The first one is that for sure you will have to pinch your nose or hold your breath to ignore its acrid smell, and second, you may chip a tooth in the process. The acridity is because it is made with bad quality yeast and because it has too much water added to ensure the proper weight just in case an inspector “shows up”, he won’t be able to verify the ingredients adulteration — in which case ‘the dough’ to silence him would rise;  the hardness, because the lack of grease in it. In addition you have to bring your own bag to buy your bread, the employee snatches the pen from behind his ear to write in your rationing card the one and only bun that you are entitled to buy for that day. He takes your money, shakes hands with all the people who greets him, swipes the sweat from his forehead and then, he serves your bread using his bare hands (without using tongs or gloves) and without washing them.

A few years ago the State made an important investment in modern bakery technologies acquired overseas. In that chain of bakeries the bread is more expensive — ten Cuban pesos a pound — and in the beginnings the quality was noticeably better; but now days it is almost as bad as that for sale in the bodegas but the price didn’t drop as the quality did.

On many occasions and because of consumer complaints, the TV news did on-site interviews with the managers of such bakeries, they had been questioned about the production failures and urged to make public statements promising the solution to these and other problems. But the media news involvement has not been effective and the result is the same: the anti-bread.

The core of the problem is systemic and happens because the lack of control, the low salaries and the dearth of civic awareness provoked by the “grab whatever you can” way of life brought by the deceptive concept of the social property, because it is very well known that the Cubans are not allowed to own any kind of real estate. The local small leadership is struggling to survive when there’s no choice: either survive taking the “bread” home to sustain their families, joining the generalized corruption and unlawful activities, or live a poorish life in the legality of a virtual Cuba outlined by the only party and its unsuccessful government model.

Those who like to invent trash, or to reform what is already invented and works well, have to be reminded of that old Cuban saying: “It’s better to copy from something good than to create something bad”. We, the Cubans of the generations after 1959, could never be accused of being copycats.

 Translated by: Adrian Rodriguez

July 8 2011

Revolico.com, a Cuban virtual store / Iván García

The creators of Revolico define it as “a small and functional team of programmers who one day felt the urge of a more simple way, organized and efficient to advertise and review what other people were already advertising”.

It was born in 2007 and nobody knows for sure who manages a web in which you can find almost everything. It runs at full throttle, without government permission. Around two million advertisements have been seen on a monthly basis.

Dalia, an engineer, was repairing her home and in the black market couldn’t find aluminum windows. “I went to the site and found there Revolico offers that pleased me. In addition to the windows , I bought ceramic tiles for the bathroom floor”.

Rigoberto, a musician, before wasting a whole afternoon digging in the foreign currency businesses, prefers to check first Revolico’s ads. “Rarely can I find what I look for in the State stores. Through Revolico, I have been able to buy my musical instruments.”

Among the usual visitors to this retail web site, you can find people who are looking for the latest cell phone models, computers and their parts and equipment. It has become a benchmark for the acquisition of goods for sale at a lower price than those in the foreign currency market.

Although the prices are not cheap. This virtual store is governed by offer and demand. At this time of the year, you can find an air conditioner of a ton of capacity for 470 dollars.

If you wait until summertime most probably you will end up paying around 600 dollars for the same model. People speculate that may be an online business with the government approval, but the constant blockades to the site deny this rumor.

In the island, there’s a doubt over who is behind Revolico. Richard, a guy with an iPod always hanging from his neck, is one of the programmers that keep the on-line retailer running.

“Our server is overseas. The rest is easy. The internet surfers offer their goods and for a reasonable fee we posted on our site. The portal had a tremendous growth, it already has cars and real estate. We are bothering the regime because we are out of their monopoly and control”, points Richard.

A government official said that the Cuban State use to block the page because ignores the source of a lot of these products.” We have proof that some of the goods for sale are presumably stolen goods from the State warehouses”, he indicated.

It is difficult to verify the source. But the web site managers made very clear that it is forbidden to post advertisements about jobs and exploitation of minors or any link with sex and money; drugs and narcotics; prostitution and pimping; terrorism; any kind of weapons as well as religious or political propaganda.

In spite of these prohibitions, Richard doesn’t believe that the Cuban government will legalize such a transactions, even imposing taxes on them. In a country where the internet connection is not bigger than 4 % of the population, the Revolico.com effectiveness is a real remarkable event.
Cuba is the illegalities Mecca. Because of all the absurd barriers, people manage to go around them. Either trafficking shoddy merchandise and money using “mules” from Florida. Or creating virtual sites like Revolico.com.

The elderly, used to the long lines and the long walks under the burning heat of the sun, are not persuaded of this a little bit exotic way of buying. They prefer to see and touch the merchandise.

For the young people, knowledgeable in the ample possibilities of the internet, it is an effective way to get the goods that the State don’t offer. Like Saul, proud of his Toyota Yaris thanks to Revolico.com.

Photo : Reuters. Young woman from Havana, Cuba, turns on her PC to buy in Revolico.

Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

July 6 2011

Professional Protesters / Fernando Dámaso

The public meetings and marches of protest, so common nowadays, are almost as old as the humanity itself. In different forms, and for different reasons, we can find them in all eras of world history. Some because of their transcendence, have prevailed in our memories, and others less important, have been erased by the time. However, both have played a roll in the making of history, facilitating changes and adjustments, mostly for the benefit of the mankind. Those who had been participating consciously in them, and those who still participate today, defending their rights and good causes, deserve a lot of respect and are not the subject of these lines.

Since the end of the past century and the first years of the current one, they had been changing and growing, sometimes out of proportion. Today protesting has become commonplace, practically everything is protested, turning it into a national sport as well as an international one. There is a great variety of protests: against the politicians in office, against economists, against credit organizations, in support of different social groups, against the greenhouse effect, against fossil fuels, against hunger, in favor of the whales, polar bears, kangaroos, etcetera. Sometimes they are organized against certain books, pictures, paintings, sculptures and so forth.

In this process of spreading mass protests, avery peculiar character has emerged: the professional of the protest (the protester). In reality, he is not concerned with the reason of the protest and has nothing in common with it. His participation is just motivated by snobbishness and his attention seeking behavior. As a general rule he has a comfortable economic situation or a patron (individual or social), who conveniently helps him. In his wardrobe, to make sure he won’t clash with the nature of each protest, he has all kind of outfits: from t-shirts with musical or third world icons, like Che and Lennon, to olive-green caps showing humongous red stars at Mao Zedong style, not counting boots, jeans, jackets, parkas, etcetera, all of them of famous brand names, preferably the most popular ones.

Another important aspect is their freedom of movement: He or she is ready to participate (interested or disinterested) in any part of their own country or the world, as long as in that place the right to protest is conveniently respected. You will never find them in those places where protest (by your own decision) is strictly forbidden, and by doing it you pay with your life or a jail term. This character shows up either in a big city or a tiny country town in the middle of nowhere, any place where there’s someone or something to protest against. They meet and move massively by land, air or sea, using buses, trains or ships and even planes. They come like the plagues and proceed to settle down and establish chaos and anarchy, making more difficult the existence of the locals, with their multiple signs and banners in the wind, their burning of flags and their speeches and harangues learned well by repeating them restlessly.

Years ago, many of these characters, planned their social international meetings in their agendas: for the spring, an exhibition of Van Gogh paintings in Amsterdam; for the summer an out doors concert in Saint Mark’s square; ; for the fall , in Paris Opera house and in the winter, in the Rockefeller Center in New York City. Now everything had changed: in the spring they meet for a march in defense of the whales in Sidney, Australia; in the summer in London against the International Monetary Fund; in the fall in Buenos Aires in support of the native South American Indians and in the winter in Moscow against the greenhouse effect.

These activities, of a marked folkloric significance, are made with a big deployment of the news media, due to the importance of protesting, but also and much more important, is to be in the newspapers, magazines, the TV and also on the internet. This builds the curriculum for a future events participation. Obtaining a protester profile, guarantees your position in the select group of professional protesters, including to be invited to different events, most of them all expenses paid. The professional protester, born in the last century, without a doubt, because of his dedication and tenacity, has a place in society and has created a new occupation for the XXI century.

Translated by: Adrian Rodriguez

June 22 2011

Nostradamus in a Gypsy Cab (Almendrón) / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

I was on my way back home in a collective gypsy cab or almendrón which I took at the intersection of Linea and G streets, in the Vedado neighborhood, where there is a popular route of these cabs going towards La Vibora. Before arriving 23rd Ave. the old car was already full. The last passenger that got in the vehicle commented “how rough is the life out there” and that was the fuse which set off all of us, including the driver, to channel our opinions. We expressed different judgements and new projects and political ideas, as well as, sociological, economic and even philosophic, over the things that should be done to rule the destinies of our country in the future. We exercised our freedom of speech in that rolling piece of junk and we were engaged in an amused and productive debate for most of the trip, in which the one who started the conversation showed a wide political culture that was praised by some of the riders. He also said that all of us in the archipelago were prophets in the political, social and economic scenes that inevitably will prevail in Cuba in the near future.
When we passed the traffic light on Santa Catalina and Vento, the debate’s protagonist raised his voice in an authoritative tone and said:

– Driver, take this car directly to Villa Marista*, because you are all arrested.

We were astonished and for a few seconds that felt like an eternity, a thought came to my mind of the upcoming trouble I would have, if, at the headquarters of the political police they dig through my long and old record as a dissident. I wished more than ever to have a cell phone at hand, to warn my family about how difficult that circumstance could be. However, in face of the silence of the rest, I replied very upset:

– What’s the reason why ? We only exercised our freedom of speech. What’s the problem ? Driver, don’t go anywhere, because this supposed officer didn’t identify himself yet!

-Lady- argued the driver in a whiney tone – Are you suggesting I should disrespect the authority ? I am a revolutionary, although I disagree with certain things, but I give my life for the Cuban Revolution and Fidel.

Just when I was expecting another intervention earmarked by fear, we turned towards Mayia Rodriguez street and the young Nostradamus ordered the owner of the vehicle:

– Stop at the next corner.

When the old car stopped he extended his hand with a ten pesos bill, got out of the car laughing, and started walking on San Mariano St.

Some of the passengers remaining in the car shouted all sort of insults, but he didn’t answer to anybody. He kept on walking, meanwhile there was a scattering of nervous laughter all around, and turning back his head every now and then as if he was a chased maniac. After that, there was a long silence that lasted until the place where I got out of the car.

I am not quite sure if we the passengers on that trip lost our sense of humor or we gained humor in the sense, but the fact is, it happened the same way as I am telling you right now.

*Translator’s note: Villa Marista is the headquarters and jail of the Cuban political police.

Translated by: Adrian Rodriguez

June 16 2011

Nostradamus in a Gypsy Cab (Almendrón)

I was on my way back home in a collective gypsy cab or almendrón which I took at the intersection of Linea and G streets, in the Vedado neighborhood, where there is a popular route of these cabs going towards La Vibora. Before arriving 23rd Ave. the old car was already full. The last passenger that got in the vehicle commented “how rough is the life out there” and that was the fuse which set off all of us, including the driver, to channel our opinions. We expressed different judgements and new projects and political ideas, as well as, sociological, economic and even philosophic, over the things that should be done to rule the destinies of our country in the future. We exercised our freedom of speech in that rolling piece of junk and we were engaged in an amused and productive debate for most of the trip, in which the one who started the conversation showed a wide political culture that was praised by some of the riders. He also said that all of us in the archipelago were prophets in the political, social and economic scenes that inevitably will prevail in Cuba in the near future.
When we passed the traffic light on Santa Catalina and Vento, the debate’s protagonist raised his voice in an authoritative tone and said:

– Driver, take this car directly to Villa Marista*, because you are all arrested.

We were astonished and for a few seconds that felt like an eternity, a thought came to my mind of the upcoming trouble I would have, if, at the headquarters of the political police they dig through my long and old record as a dissident. I wished more than ever to have a cell phone at hand, to warn my family about how difficult that circumstance could be. However, in face of the silence of the rest, I replied very upset:

– What’s the reason why ? We only exercised our freedom of speech. What’s the problem ? Driver, don’t go anywhere, because this supposed officer didn’t identify himself yet!

-Lady- argued the driver in a whiney tone – Are you suggesting I should disrespect the authority ? I am a revolutionary, although I disagree with certain things, but I give my life for the Cuban Revolution and Fidel.

Just when I was expecting another intervention earmarked by fear, we turned towards Mayia Rodriguez street and the young Nostradamus ordered the owner of the vehicle:

– Stop at the next corner.

When the old car stopped he extended his hand with a ten pesos bill, got out of the car laughing, and started walking on San Mariano St.

Some of the passengers remaining in the car shouted all sort of insults, but he didn’t answer to anybody. He kept on walking, meanwhile there was a scattering of nervous laughter all around, and turning back his head every now and then as if he was a chased maniac. After that, there was a long silence that lasted until the place where I got out of the car.

I am not quite sure if we the passengers on that trip lost our sense of humor or we gained humor in the sense, but the fact is, it happened the same way as I am telling you right now.

*Translator’s note: Villa Marista is the headquarters and jail of the Cuban political police.

 Translated by: Adrian Rodriguez

June 16 2011

Jurassic Politics / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

The Internet came to break many clichés and some of the journalistic and news obscurantism in which the Cuban authorities had submerged our society. It has been the attentive pin that has been puncturing the inflated balloons of fallacy that sustain dictatorships, and directed the air towards rights and, among them, the freedom of information.

The Cuban government, that boasts about having made our people literate and having raised the level of instruction facilitating the education for all, contradicts itself when it limits or prohibits its citizens’ free access to alternative sources of information from the official propaganda. It intentionally subjects Cubans to an informational illiteracy; because in Cuba there’s no press, only the media of propaganda.

The sociopolitical chess devised by the highest government hierarchy, substituted the knights for dinosaurs and it moves by age-worn squares, too repeated on the chessboard. The long castling isn’t enough, invented after the king already moved, nor does the color of the pieces matter; it seems that biology and modernity will win this match.

 Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

June 27 2011

Jurassic Politics

The Internet came to break many clichés and some of the journalistic and news obscurantism in which the Cuban authorities had submerged our society. It has been the attentive pin that has been puncturing the inflated balloons of fallacy that sustain dictatorships, and directed the air towards rights and, among them, the freedom of information.

The Cuban government, that boasts about having made our people literate and having raised the level of instruction facilitating the education for all, contradicts itself when it limits or prohibits its citizens’ free access to alternative sources of information from the official propaganda. It intentionally subjects Cubans to an informational illiteracy; because in Cuba there’s no press, only the media of propaganda.

The sociopolitical chess devised by the highest government hierarchy, substituted the knights for dinosaurs and it moves by age-worn squares, too repeated on the chessboard. The long castling isn’t enough, invented after the king already moved, nor does the color of the pieces matter; it seems that biology and modernity will win this match.

 Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

June 27 2011

White Meat Crumbs

I turned the corner located half a block from my house and I heard somebody yelling to another neighbor, ” Mercedes, they are giving out chicken instead of fish.” The piece of chicken that the Cuban State sells us at subsidize price and by their orders we must consume it in one month, is only a pound per person and anybody can eat it in a single meal. When they send chicken (I prefer this) in substitution for fish, the amount is eleven ounces per person for the same period of time.

Cuba is an archipelago and for this reason seafood shouldn’t be scarce, but because of the State’s indifference and ineptitude, we are suffering of shortages and rationing of these and other essential food items. Moreover, is it (the Yellowtail, the one always offered) the only marine species in the sea? And the lobsters, and the shrimp? And the high seas fish like the louvar, the kingfish and the tuna, etc? And the fish raised in the aquaculture dam lakes? And the freshwater ones?

It is like suffering from a prolonged and antagonistic irony of living on a poultry farm and keeping to a fish diet. In addition we are assigned half a pound of ground beef a month — it is more like a paste mixed with soy — half of mortadella (if we put it on a piece of bread, we can eat it as a snack) and 10 eggs per capita monthly. And the beef and the pork? And the lamb and the goat? So much inefficiency and manipulation didn’t affect our memories, because we know that there are a lot of species in the seas, and there are also varieties of poultry and different types of edible quadruped mammals.

It’s true that there is a parallel State market which retails some of the released products in national currency. But the prices are abusive and only a minority can acquire them. Also coexistent are the ones selling in foreign hard currency — the workers get paid a salary between 500 and 600 cuban pesos — where there’s a variety of meats, and a kilo of chicken costs $2.75 and a kilo of beef $9.50, but these prices are equally high, therefore out of reach for the average Cuban, who has to acquire the hard currency at 25 pesos for one CUC (equivalent to a dollar) in the currency exchanges. On top of this we have to add that not all of the stores sell these type of products and moreover, they are not always available.

The butchers, who in spite of their mediocre salaries almost all wear heavy gold chains — they look more like last generation rappers or reggae performers — and drive cars that cost around the same (sometimes more) than the ramshackle and stinky State meat markets where they work, pass days or maybe weeks waiting for the merchandise to arrive at their empty and impoverished retail establishments.

When the store is replenished there’s a private party, because from the day’s work “by error of the smart scales” and “other moves” with the suppliers, they will have enough merchandise left to auction on the overpriced black market. But they are only the result or part of the problem, which is the responsibility or irresponsibility of the authorities. The same way they imposed on us the “walking catfish,” meant to reduce our carnivorous cravings and like a terrestrial reptile it “walks” into backyards, sewers and paddocks and feeds on, among other things, feces and rats. God forbid! I don’t consume it, but I know a lot of my compatriots who actually do.

Cubans, who with our “bread diet” look “healthily plump,” already forgot the taste of beef, because here the cows, like in India, look like they are sacred, at least for the common citizen. They not prevented “the mad-cow” disease and the population “is mad” to recover its right to eat meat in the daily diet or with the frequency they can afford to pay for it — as it was before 1959 — not when the Cuban State decides the frequency and the amounts we can consume.

It looks like beef and other delights, are lacking because of “the bad governments” preceding them; thus the leaders “screwed it up” so concerned are they about our health that they got rid of it to insure our quality of life. Therefore, it is an acquired reflex that we must prioritize the color red only to digest politics and ideology. These nutritional limitations awakened our voracity for this vital food, because all these years they tried to implant in us, with neither Yin nor Yang, a vegetarian diet or macrobiotic without the right to respond or to choose it; but as with the problems with the seafood and the fact that we are an agricultural country, we also have difficulties with vegetables, grains and cereals, they couldn’t completely tame our taste and eating preferences.

For that reason a lot of nationals don’t care if the chicken is genetically modified, if the fish was floating “meekly” on a black scum and they assumed it was a donation from the British Petroleum; if we women start growing beards or our husbands start having high voices, as Evo Morales, the homophobic Bolivian President, said. Maybe some fellow citizens, who look like they have their stomach in the frontal lobe and their intelligence in “the elbow”, when it comes to food, stress that ” it doesn’t matter if the chicken has scales or the fish feathers, the fact is that it is meat”.

 Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

June 27 2011

Ciro Diaz, Guitar Player for Porno Para Ricardo / Iván García

Ciro Diaz, 33, guitar player for the group Porno for Ricardo and musical producer, had all the ingredients to be a jet setter of the Revolution. He was born and raised in the heart of a family who listened to Fidel Castro’s long speeches and went to the Revolutionary celebrations cyclically generated by the olive green government.

Diaz, a guy of a medium height, brown eyes and incipient baldness, studied at the elite Vladimir Ilyich Lenin High School, south of Havana, Cuba. One of those labs where the regime tried to mold the future “New Man.”

With Ciro the experiment didn’t work. Between rock music and political discrepancies, Diaz never fully understood the Prussian logic of the one and only commander. And he withheld the free applause for the father of the Cuban Revolution.

His idols were others. Nirvana, Metallica and Aerosmith. Since his first year of High School, he was the composer of songs that, later and without pretensions, he performed in the different bands at his school, which would form and disband in a period of a few months. In between octaves and complex theorems, Diaz graduated in mathematics on a sunny afternoon on July of 2004.

Earlier, starting in 1998, he was the guitar player for the band “Porno para Ricardo,” led by Gorky Aguila. Music was a serious business. “I had my first performances with a big audience playing for “Porno.” We had critical opinions about the regime. It was especially perceived in our concerts, where we told jokes against the government,” says Ciro, seated in front of a console table in an independent recording studio built in Gorki’s house.

The rebel attitude of the rock band set off the red alarms of the island censors. The musicians in Cuba know very well what price they will have to pay for certain positions that break away from the guidelines dictated by the troop of bureaucrats who rule the national culture. “It’s simple. As if it was a part of a magic trick, you disappear from artistic life. They ban your concerts. And you can not record in the state’s recording studios,” Ciro explains.

Then, another life begins. In the underground world. Like an armadillo. Offering special concerts to your fans in a concrete factory backyard or in the park of your neighborhood.

Several times, running to escape from the cops, they left behind some musical instruments. By then, the Special Services came to the conclusion that they had to raise the bar for “Porno para Ricardo,” whom they already labeled as “a disturber of the public order,” the step before sticking you with the label “counterrevolutionary.”

In 2004, the band leader, Gorki Aguila, was sentenced to 4 years in jail. “They made up false charges of drug possession. That’s precisely when the band started to have a notorious anti-governmental stance. Thanks to international support, Gorki only served two years in jail.”

The harassment of the members of “Porno” became a nightmare. The bad news came down over their heads. In 2008, The government pulled several judicial tricks out of its sleeve to open a new case against Gorki. In an almost desperate act, the members and some of the band followers, decided to use the peaceful protest method.

At a Pablo Milanes concert, on August 28 of 2009 in the Anti-imperialist Bandstand, known by everybody as the “protest-drome,” they tried to pull out a banner demanding the release of Aguila, who was detained at a local precinct.

“That became a battle ground. We were attacked physically and verbally by law enforcement agents,” remembers Ciro. Starting from this period, when the group couldn’t interact with its followers or record compact discs, the idea of having their own recording studio was born.

Such a crazy idea developed after the musician Gorki Aguila sold one thousand CDs during his trip to United States. “To that money, we added the help from friends in Europe and Central America. Building the recording studio was an odyssey indeed. We were under the microscope of the Cuban State Security forces, and for that reason we took the precaution of buying the materials and the equipment with their respective paper work. Everything by the book,” Ciro points out.

The dream came true a year and a half later. In June 2010, La Paja (“Jerk off”) Records was inaugurated. A studio built by the members of the band that allow them to make their own CDs.

“I got an audio operator’s license, and I pay taxes for it. The idea is not only to record our music . Also help to produce discs of marginalized groups regardless of genre, it can be rock, punk, salsa or hip hop. Any musicians whom the State closes their recording doors on can count on us,” said Diaz.

Independent recording studios flourish today in Havana. “There’s a dozen. But there are very few with the professionalism and rigorous standards of ours.” In ten months, they have produced seven discs. Two of them complete. The principal producer of the “Jerk off Records” is Ciro Diaz, a guitar player for “Porno para Ricardo” and for a group called “La Babosa Azul” ( The Blue Slug).

Although in reality he considers himself a composer. He has written hundreds of songs and composed themes for short films and documentaries. He spends half of the day between the console and the computer, producing music.

Right now, he is frantic. He had to repeat six times the recording of a string group, that didn’t come out the way he wanted. “Production steals a lot of time from my work as a composer. But it is something I enjoy. My dream is to give a mega-concert on the same square where one day we were repressed.”

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Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

June 25 2011

Still the Same Thing / Iván García

The fiery debate and emotions around the reforms of General Raul Castro were circumscribed to the air-conditioned rooms of the Palace of Conventions, where between April 16-19 the five commissions of the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party were in session.

Cubans warily followed the central report and saw on the TV news the abstracts of the linguistic, rather than political, debates of the different commissions debating the future of Cuba. At the end, as a common practice, the 986 delegates unanimously approved the economic policies proposed by Castro II to straighten the bow of the already cracked olive green ship, which with 52 years of sinuous navigation is at great risk of sinking.

The communist delegates can feel the sublime over-enjoyment of the spectrum of supposed controversies surrounding the economic plan to be executed in the next five years.

A lot of delegates, probably, believe without any doubt in the project designed by the economic tsar Marino Murillo and his troop of technocrats who, during four days, traded the military uniforms for elegant white guayabera shirts.

Some of them preferred to remain silent. Maybe they have a lot of doubts and decided to wait to know the amount of truthfulness involved in the Castro II proclaimed democracy in the Cuban Communist Party. In Cuba it is always right to be cautious in political matters.

Not always when the bosses fire the starting gun so that the political commissioners, official journalists and partisans will talk and unreservedly criticize the status quo, is it a signal of a change in the leaders mentality.

On the island naivety is a sin you can’t commit. Because the mandarins who today say that not everybody has to raise their hands at the same time to support one of the revolution’s projects, it is still the same ones who are written on a black list of those who criticized their decrees and those who, in their eagerness to be creative, contributed with their own ideas.

The people on the street are not fools neither. The VI Congress touched interesting points and the regime anticipated opening a little the iron fist that monitors citizens’ lives.

But everything here is still the same. Maybe worse. The money doesn’t want to land in the wallets. The food is more expensive every day. And the salaries are still frozen in time, in spite of inflation and the shortages.

Out of the party’s meeting, the common person got as a result the imminent authorization allowing him to buy and sell cars and homes. The homes part of the deal sounds weird: although on the island 90% of the families own their homes, by official decree they couldn’t transfer them and if they left the country, the government took ownership of their properties.

Amending the front page (it seems), now the common Cuban citizen waits for more concessions. Like the permission to come and go from the national territory, the decriminalization of political dissent or, at last, access to the internet from home.

I doubt that Castro II will fulfill those wishes. He is not Aladdin. He is only a politician who turns back, knowing that opening the fist too much may trigger a cataclysm that may end the personal revolution made by his brother Fidel.

This, socialism, has to be preserved by all means. Making controlled changes heavily reined in, therefore the beast don’t run away out of control.

Then, at the end of the day, people who for breakfast have coffee without milk, who are the majority in Cuba, didn’t see themselves represented by the “polemic” delegates, who either keep on silent or ignore the bunch of rights and civil liberties claimed, not only by the dissidents, but by the Cuban citizens while waiting in the long lines at the local grocery stores, or in the interior of the collective gypsy cabs.

The regime’s propagandistic marketing wants to sell us the idea that the Congress happened in a rush of constructive criticism, a kind of tropical Perestroika and the new popular ideas that will nurture the homeland’s economic future.

I am afraid not. Certain things had changed. There’s a glaze of blackness and more skirts in the Central Committee. There will be fewer revolutionary marches and empty political speeches. They will issue more permits to open small variety stores or to sell bread and mayonnaise and pirated compact discs without so much effort. And that’s it.

Photo: Jutta Winkhaus. Playing dominoes at the side of the stairs leading to La Guarida: the famous “paladar” (a private home restaurant with a few seats) which is located in and old run down mansion in a poor Havana neighborhood.

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Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

April 27 2011

In the city of Havana, Cuba, “Big Almond” (almendrón in Spanish) is the nickname given to the antique cars, most of them made in USA, from the decades of the forties and the fifties. With ingenious bodywork they are still running around the main streets and avenues, giving service as collective taxi cabs to citizens who need to travel quickly from one place to another, without depending on the deficient public transportation.

My intention is not to write about them, but about another type of Big Almonds: the political Big Almonds. These, the same as their mechanical counterparts, also have an ingenious bodywork, pretending to keep on moving on the political grid, as if it were a road grid, after having given their old conceptions body and paint work, offering them as new, in agreement with the called socialism of the XXI century, which is nothing other than the same socialism of the XX century, now turned in a Big Almond.

These Big Almonds, some untouchable and perpetual, and others subject to the ups and downs of every moment (sometimes on top and sometimes on the bottom), have been present in high positions or in the less important ones, but always unconditional to the voice of the boss.

It seems they don’t understand how necessary a vehicle fleet change is, and their substitution for modern vehicles equipped with the new technologies, capable of performing their functions in a new age, which turns out to be impossible for the Big Almonds, although they went through capital repairs, thorough body work and painting with the best acrylic paints and lacquers.

The Big Almonds, either mechanical or political, are cars of the past, run down and obsolete, incapable even if you rebuilt the engine, of running at today’s high speeds or offering the required safety standards. Sooner than later they will be substituted and, like classic samples belonging to certain age, they will end up in the back of some museum. That will be their final destiny !

Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

June 25 2011

Raul Castro Has Known How to Improvise with the Car in Motion / Iván García

The administration of General Raul Castro has known how to improvise with the car in motion. Castro II, who this past June 3rd turned 80 years old, has had a trajectory as a warrior, soldier, and politician, always crouching under the shadow of his media star brother who governed the island for 47 years with a self-centered power and long anti-imperialist speeches

General Castro knows his limitations. He doesn’t have the gift of gab to capture his world political counterparts or fill plazas with fiery harangues. He is used to working as a team. And he listens without interrupting the statements of others.

He also never had the complex of a world statesmen. He never was the top of the class. But he has taken on guiding the fate of a nation impoverished by 52 years of crazy economics, ferocious bureaucracy, military campaigns, and subversion in the Third World. He knows that his mission is trying to save the historic legacy of the revolution and attempting to create ideological continuity after his death and that of his brother.

Before starting to renovate the building on a weak foundation, he did an evaluation of the dangers. The diagnosis was correct. There were more than enough bureaucrats; the communist party is an intruder in the subject of business administration; there was a need to stimulate self-employment and also send more than a million workers to the unemployment lines.

He emphasized belt-tightening to not go over the budget, something sacred. No more taking money from public funds just to fulfill whimsical ideas like the construction of a biotechnology center outside of the annual planning. That was his brother’s way, who jumped over the rules as easily as drinking a glass of water.

Still Castro II believes in Marxist theories. But he is realistic. And when he opens on his desk the world map, he observes that no communist nation moved forward using quinquennial plans and a centralized economy. But he is cautious.

Still he has the jealous and vigilant eye of his brother taking note. He is trying to buy time. The erosion of power when he lets people act on their own disgusts Fidel Castro. He always preferred to keep the herd tied up. Let the state give the good and bad news. The awards or the punishments.

But the General and his military partners think differently. It doesn’t matter how you call the ideology, what it is essential is to have the power. And that people drink milk, eat well, and get enough money to consume and have fun.

Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz has always been a plotter. His reforms will be at a Danzón pace. Slow, sure, and anticipating disasters. But decidedly, at the end of the tunnel, the model Cuba tries to follow is a mixture of Vietnam and China, beautified with components from Latin-American folklore, like the nonsense of the new socialism of Chavez or the pragmatism of a modern left like the Brazilian one.

He plays three ways. From China he needs money and experience on handling a market economy and an inflexible control over the dissidents. Vietnam is a good example on how a nation can come back from a bloody war.

There are similarities between Cuba and Vietnam. Excepting the million deaths that the conflict between USA-Vietnam left behind, the almost 50 years of Castro I’s government left the nation financially and economically as if it was coming from a catastrophe.

The General is reluctantly supporting Chavez: he is an ally of his brother. An obnoxious political inheritance. The one from Barinas has no brakes. Not even a clutch. Ignores discretion. He has the brain directly connected with the tongue. A capital sin for a statesman.

But the Venezuelan commander has oil. Which is expensive, and Cuba needs it to restart its economy. Raul Castro doesn’t go all the way out, he prefers to follow him from a prudential distance. He uses logic. If Chavez has won the power through elections once, the same electoral system will take him back home.

That’s why he goes all the way out for Brazil. It is not a bad option. The green giant is the number ten economy of the world. The left, that governed and currently governs, has demonstrated a capacity beyond its third world political discourse against poverty and in favor of the social justice, being guests at the White House galas and in world economic summits.

Moreover, Brasil has the necessary technology to extract the possible crude oil deposited in the sea bed of Cuban waters, and its exploitation will end the Cuban dependency on the Venezuelan oil.

In fact, right now, Brazil is an important economic partner for the government. 800 million dollars on the Mariel project speaks for itself. The already started construction west of Havana promises. And promises a lot. According to the figures of local analysts, it will be the biggest harbor in the Caribbean, with capacity to store more than a million containers, and with factories and duty-free zones in the near future

When the embargo is finally lifted and Castro’s heirs are welcomed in Washington, Miami’s cove as a door to the Americas may pass to a second place. It is the opening of Castro II’s play. He knows that no USA politician in office will dialogue with him or his brother.

And in advance he prepares a dolphin. Therefore, the current reforms of the General have several steps. And at the end the balance will be leaning towards a market economy. He hasn’t been dogmatic either.

When he notices that something does not work, either excessive taxation or absurd rules, as in the case of increasing the number of chairs in a ‘paladar‘ (a private home restaurant), lowering the taxes on gypsy cabs or increasing the amount of acres and the lease time for small farmers, he changed all of these without hesitation.

To maintain the Biran dynasty, the General will cede anything he has to. Including, to design an opposition to meet his needs. Remember, Raul is a full-time conspirator. Of course, the real reforms will begin after the death of Fidel.

Photo: EFE, La Habana.

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Translated by Adrian Rodriguez

June 17 2011