English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
“These are the last caramels! Get ‘em while you can!” shouted Olga — we called her “La Guajira” — in the dorms of our high school in the countryside. My bunkmate sold the food she got from Soviet technicians who bought them in stores that Cubans weren’t allowed to enter. It was the last few … Continue reading “Chavez in Cuba, or Cuba in Chavez? / Yoani Sánchez”
It’s heard in the streets from several people selling potatoes, before the arrival of this product in the farmers markets, at the elevated price of 20 Cuban pesos, “a bag with four potatoes.” “Until when,” says Sofia, a lady of 58, “it’s true that this is a bunch of crap we have to go through,” … Continue reading “The Potato Came / Anddy Sierra Alvarez”
When summer starts to say goodbye, Havana is a chain of stalls selling schlocky goods, private cafes, more or less expensive private restaurants, shelves of books and religious objects, and worn or rough wood shelves where people hang fifty pirated DVDs. You can choose from all this. If you have between 20 and 50 pesos, … Continue reading “Havana Residents with Empty Pockets / Iván García”
The last thing able to survive from our Cuban heritage is housing, owing to the totalitarian will of Fidel Castro, who dictated for more than 50 years that everything was his property and only he would decide what was whose and when it stopped being so. Fortunately or unfortunately, the family home was the only thing that couldn’t be sacrificed to survive the … Continue reading “A Little Report about Governmental Fraud / Ángel Santiesteban”
Dear Forum participants of La Joven Cuba, dear Osmany, with regards to your disagreement with Eduardo del Llano. I try to go every week to your blog, read the posts, and sometimes I have the impression that we live in different places, so distant are our points of view. You start with an anecdote of … Continue reading “Bad Handwriting in La Joven Cuba (12) / Regina Coyula”
Since that time on one of the campuses of the University of Havana when I raised my hand to express a doubt about the Marxist categories of necessity versus chance, the concept surrounds me. I have come to the conclusion that human needs are complex enough that the specialists must abrogate the right to “suppress” … Continue reading “Necessities / Claudia Cadelo”
It’s very difficult to get used to living in a country which gives off the image that nothing is happening, when in reality everything points to the fact that were are walking down the eternal path to nothingness. The country falls apart and the single party rises. People die of desperation and dismay while the … Continue reading “Small, Ruinous, Immense Country / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Yesterday afternoon when I went to visit a friend I saw an enormous slogan written on a wall on 13th Street between L and K in Vedado (and with the cost and scarcity of paint!). I immediately thought: It’s true, for fifty-two years we haven’t had a truce. When we are not running after potatoes, … Continue reading “There is No Truce / Rebeca Monzo”
It’s beautiful to sit in front of the TV and contemplate the end of the Revolution. “Cuba’s Reasons,” they call it on Monday nights, this material clearly anonymous. My blog, which appeared for the first time on the small screen, is also called Monday. Post-Revolution Mondays. A slightly obsolete title. The Revolution is no longer … Continue reading “WEBDITORIAL / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
The contractor Alan Gross, 61, remains in jail. Raúl Castro’s government definitively sentenced him to 15 years. The Gross case was shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. And it brought back the Cold War era. After 15 months in a cell and in legal limbo, the judge handed down the sentence. Something similar happens to other … Continue reading “Alan Gross or the Political Chess Game between Cuba and the US / Iván García”
While in Egypt hundreds of thousands of people decided the fate of their country by speaking out through strong and sustained public protests against a 30-year dictatorship, in a local Havana setting a dispute was being resolved by a diametrically opposite philosophy dictated by survival: the battle for the potato. The comments might seem like … Continue reading “Brief Account of an Undesirable Demonstration / Miriam Celaya”
Like a soap opera, the marches and riots in Tunisia and Egypt were followed in Cuba by people committed to the future of their country, like the opposition, independent journalists and bloggers. Those citizens wishing for political and economic changes saw on TV the biased opinions of local experts, and they listened on short-wave radio … Continue reading “When Will Change Reach Cuba? / Iván García”
Last night at a gathering at the home of friends, there was a lot of talking and speculating about the cries of freedom that came from the Middle East. This made all of us who were there question the different implications of why on my planet apparently nothing happened, and no one decided to take … Continue reading “Cries of Freedom / Rebeca Monzo”
Far from clearing out any doubts, the recent speech given by the President of the State Council, Raul Castro, just created more confusion and worry among the population. Cubans fear that the rationing/supply booklet will be removed. The man who is also Prime Minister says that this supplement is confused with a “social achievement that … Continue reading “Nothing About Subsidies and Freebies in the Renewed Cuban Socialism / Laritza Diversent”
Glancing at the TV I was caught by a phrase from Zenaida Romeu, director of the chamber group that bears her name. It’s Tuesday and the energy of this woman, a guest on the program With True Affection, Two… had me sitting in front of the screen while the potatoes burned on the stove. She … Continue reading “The Children / Yoani Sánchez”
