English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Take note. Two-thirds of the homes on the island are in fair or poor condition. Almost all the water works are deteriorated, and as a result of leaks, almost 65 percent of water distributed is lost. By way of example, in the City of Havana more than 80 percent of multi-story buildings cry out for … Continue reading “Gotta Have Dough to Repair Your Pad”
With money in hand, there’s something for every taste. A Chevy from the ’40’s or a well-kept ’54 Ford. A fin-tail Cadillac or a ’56 General Motors truck that looks like it just came from the factory. Cuba is the only country in the world in whose streets run thousands of American cars, jeeps, and … Continue reading “You Can Buy a Chevrolet”
Cuba today is more of an island than ever before. The discourse which took place this past Sunday, 4th of April, by the Cuban general and president, Raul Castro, has slammed the door to any anticipated reforms. During the closing ceremony of the IX Union of Young Communists (UJC), Castro II, with his hoarse voice, … Continue reading “Raul Castro Closes the Wall*”
This April 1st, we forgot about the lack of food and the tragedy of living without a future. We set aside our empty refrigerators, as well as all the anachronistic internal politics that don’t work. We ignored the bad taste left by an inoperative government, and the empty wallets. It is Thursday of Holy Week, … Continue reading “Havana Celebrates for its Ball Players”
The megaconcert started at 5 p.m. sharp. The one in charge of warming up the 100,000 people crowding into the “Anti-Imperialist Rostrum,” popularly known as the “Protestodrome,” was Cuban singer Kelvis Ochoa. For nearly an hour, in warm spring sun and a gentle breeze, Ochoa went through his repertoire from top to bottom. He heated … Continue reading “Calle 13 and their Havana Megaconcert”
I have good friends who completely support Castro’s revolution. I respect their opinions, as they respect mine. And there’s no problem. We have shared interests. We like soccer and baseball, white rum, and we love our children. We were born in Havana, which we love. And each of us, from where we stand, want the … Continue reading “The Ladies In White Are Not The Real Enemy”
The evening of March 17 my mind was elsewhere. I didn’t have a cent in my pocket and I had to buy a vitamin-filled milk complex, which at the time cost 4 dollars, for my daughter Melany, who was barely a month and a half old. The baby’s voracious appetite forced the pediatrician to order the vitamin-filled … Continue reading “How I Survived The Black Spring”
It was Fidel Castro who, in one of his his typical vitriolic outbursts, during a speech on January 2, 1961 (in what was then the Civic Plaza, today Revolution Plaza), applied the epithet “worms” to those Cubans who dared to criticize his olive green revolution or who decided to leave their homeland. That day he … Continue reading “Good Worms and Bad Worms”
Damn. What do I do now? I had planned an interview with a lady from the Marianao neighborhood who does community service with needy children. Because of reasons beyond my control I had to postpone it. It’s 8:00 in the morning of an unusual and cold month of January in 2010. I look at the … Continue reading “Independent Journalists’ Avatars”
Sonia Garro at her sewing machine It all started one sunless noon, on the 24th of February, 2007. “Up here,” said Sonia, a laboratory technician, who sews on a 50-year-old machine on the porch of her home, from where she often saw accidents involving children playing without the watchful eyes of their parents. And her large … Continue reading “Sonia Garro, or the Cruelty of a Regime”
The old computer in Lucerne The idea of having a blog where I could post about life in my country and to have the power to write in the first person about the small things in this scene that surround me, that was an idea that was cooked a long time over a slow flame. … Continue reading “From Havana, Year 1”
In Cuba, everything is negotiable. Even death. This is what happened two weeks ago to the Qunitana family. Their mother, an elderly woman of 71, had died of renal failure. After the doctor certified the lady’s death, what the family lived through was a tragedy with overtones of black comedy. The night of the wake, … Continue reading “The business of death”
If the Cuban generals had liked rock, things in Cuba might have been different. Perhaps the soldiers would not have gone out in their vulgar Russian jeeps, scissors in hand, cutting the hair of those devoted to this type of music. And they would not have had to arrest thousands of young people whose only … Continue reading “If the comandante danced to rock…”
The First Act: The Executioner’s Weeping (1999) For a long time, Jorge Gonzalez, 47, suffered the same nightmares. A discharge from a rifleman on a misty and starless night. Then, he senses the sound of a shot dealt to a condemned man who is he himself. He always wakes up the same: bathed in sweat … Continue reading “A Drama in Two Acts”
The new influenza is gaining ground in Cuba. With the change in the weather, according to epidemiologists, it’s expected that the H1N1 virus will reap its harvest among the population of the island. As of October 1, the Ministry of Public Health reported the detection of 457 cases. Now the Hubert de Blanck High School, … Continue reading “H1N1 Attacks”